A buff to 'Blade Ward' or even rework is quite necessary.

[Peluceus Donmian]

I don't think I've ever been in a situation where Blade Ward would have been more useful than just attacking the thing I would be protecting myself from. Even dashing is sometimes better.

Blade Ward provides resistance to the most common forms of weapon damage for two turns.

This comes at the sacrifice of your attack/action.

In practice, you get half the damage taken, for half the possible damage output. The benefit only pays off if you land your hits and they land theirs. Otherwise you would have been better off not bothering. If you're swarmed by enemies, this is incredibly helpful. But then the need for damage output or actions is elevated as well.

The most direct buff would be to make it a bonus action... but then it becomes quite powerful and something you would run almost every turn.

If it were up to me, I would make it a tactical choice. It would remain an action, last for 5 turns, and it would require concentration.

If it is meant to be consistent protection, then I would make it a reaction action that can only be used once per short rest. Everything else would be left as is.

If it is meant to be balanced in this way, I would allow you to apply it ranged to ANYONE not just yourself. That is the ONLY time I tried to seriously use it for the first time.

Added points from the comments:

It's a niche pick even as a cantrip. Given most of the time I'm not wasting a cantrip slot on picking it - it's an even worse choice for something like a fighter where I can swing on them first.

[The_Dipl0mat]

I think there's an item that gives it as a buff upon healing if memory serves right. I think that's the way it can be applied to others
Otherwise if the person who has blade ward isn't in range of anything, I have em use it for their next turn or two

[Kafik]

You use it the turn before you take a real action. It's really most useful to an Eldritch Knight out of all the classes when you have two actions per turn. It's more of a tanking type spell than anything else. Pure squishies have much better options to negate or reduce damage.

[AvG]

A lot of people have come to the conclusion that Blade Ward isn't that great, but I guess it can shine if you know something terrible is coming, like when you use someone as bait for the forge hammer falling down and smooching the robot and usually the bait or you know you can't outrun the enemy and he hits really hard. Of course blade ward in itself may not be enough to outlast the forge hammer, I would have to test other effects with it.

[Sentient_Toaster]

This is another niche spell that does have uses, but is generally not worth picking given that cantrip picks are very limited.

ex: it *might* be useful if you're sorrcerer who has twin-cast a buff like Haste, and you want to reduce the chance of losing concentration due to a hit; but this is very much a "do the math" problem to figure out whether it makes sense (e.g. if enemies are often hitting for less than 10 per hit even without resistance, it won't help at all with that).

Or if you knew that next round you were going to have to move through an area where movement was the priority, not retaliation (e.g. moving across open ground exposed to a lot of enemy archers and expecting to draw fire; again, do the math, because maybe your action would be better dashing, etc).

But in a system where you can pretty much never have a lot of known cantrips unless you're gimping your leveled spell progression to do dips (e.g. OK, you could do wizard-1/sorceror-1/cleric-1 will know 3+4+3=10 cantrips... but now you've got a 1/1/1 split and you're slinging level 1 spells instead of level 2, and your spells are associated with three different ability scores).... it's really unlikely to be worth picking.

e.g. even a 20th-level sorcerer will know 6 cantrips.

* Chill Touch
* Fire Bolt
* Mage Hand
* Mending
* Mind Sliver
* Minor Illusion

would generally all be much more useful choices.

[Mosey]

It's a cantrip that reduces all physical damage types by half for two rounds.

I think you have some weird expectations about how strong a cantrip should be.

As is, blade ward is almost a must have but it does assume you are capable of planning at least one round ahead.

If you're looking for crap cantrips, maybe start with true strike that's only theoretically useful on a rogue caught flat footed. That's about as niche as it gets.

In fact, Larian buffed blade ward from what it is in table top. It explicitly states it only works on weapon attacks, so it wouldn't work for non-weapon attacks such as natural bite attacks and the like.

If you're looking to get the most out of blade ward, pop it out of combat from stealth and it costs nothing but still lasts two rounds. I figured that didn't need to be said, but apparently it does.

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

But in a system where you can pretty much never have a lot of known cantrips unless you're gimping your leveled spell progression to do dips (e.g. OK, you could do wizard-1/sorceror-1/cleric-1 will know 3+4+3=10 cantrips...

As far as I can tell, Wizard's in BG3 have no apparent limit to how many cantrips they can know beyond the amount of cantrips that exist.

Limiting your example to casters that are purposefully limited in their choices is perhaps not the best way forward, especially since blade ward is objectively quite useful in any situation where you expect to take physical damage.

Since the AI in BG3 prefers attacking low AC targets, and casters (in general) are the low AC classes (especially at the start) I think it's pretty obviously value added past balanced difficulty.

[Zsrai]

It's a cantrip. If you want it to last for 5 rounds, it should be a first or second level spell.

Cantrips aren't supposed to be that good (except Eldritch Blast); they are your "filler attacks" for casters and real spells are supposed to be your big hitters and combat changers.

[ShadowDark3]

I had Shadowheart tanking with blade ward for a good chunk of act 1. Probably her most useful spell hah

[AvG]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

But in a system where you can pretty much never have a lot of known cantrips unless you're gimping your leveled spell progression to do dips (e.g. OK, you could do wizard-1/sorceror-1/cleric-1 will know 3+4+3=10 cantrips...

cantrip god!

[Sanquin]

As others have said, cantrips aren't supposed to be good. They're supposed to be "I don't have any actually good spells left, but cantrips mean I will always be able to do at least some magic as a caster". Heck, back in 3.5 and earlier they were called level 0 spells, and they were limited use just like higher level ones.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Simply increasing it's duration to three turns, and perhaps augmenting it so it also gives resistance to magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage at level five, would be sufficient.

Or making it a bonus action.

[Peluceus Donmian]

It's a niche pick even as a cantrip. Given most of the time I'm not wasting a cantrip slot on picking it - it's an even worse choice for something like a fighter where I can swing on them first.

[Iron Tomato]

Using it on a Sorcerer/Eldritch Knight with Extended spell. Trying to Raid boss. It works sometimes.

[yaerav]

Blade ward as a bonus level action would make it a 1st level spell imho. As a cantrip it has some use in very specific situations (in which you will be really glad that you picked it), but it is not supposed to be a simple way to make you resistant to weapon damage whenever you fancy, that would be way, way too powerful.

[Boss]

I was debating with myself wheather to sarcastically say how I was nostalgic for reading game design and balancing opinions of people who haven't thought stuff through and don't understand the given system, or explain the many situations Blade Ward can be used to great effect, but in the end I think i'll save myself some time and just lazily say one of my use cases. (Oh, I guess I did the former anyway, whoops)

Eldritch Knight, Heavy armor that reduces damage taken by 2, Heavy Armor Master reduces it by another 3. Running towards the enemy, being the main frontliner, but can't quite reach them for my powerful melee attacks. There's like 4-5 enemies as well. Blade ward instead.

They have to deal 12 damage minimum to even damage me. I can tank all of them without even thinking about it, and I can still trigger all of their opportunity attacks for fun.

[sevensided]

Yup, Blade Ward is a bad cantrip. Always has been.

That said, as mentioned earlier, its actually been buffed in BG3 compared to its Table Top original. In table top it only works against weapon attacks (instead of any bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage), and only lasts one round (instead of 2).