With the release of Strixhaven School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, much ado has been made about the new spell Silvery Barbs. This is a first level Enchantment spell with a casting time of 1 reaction available to Bards, Sorcerers, Wizards, and of course, Fey Touched. The spell reads as follows:
You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll.
You can then choose a different creature you can see within range (you can choose yourself). The chosen creature has advantage on the next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw it makes within 1 minute. A creature can be empowered by only one use of this spell at a time.
Before getting into the power of the spell, something else that has been noted about it is the poor wording: “reroll the d20 and use the lower roll.” No, this doesn’t get around legendary resistance. But, if you reroll the d20, there’s just one d20 still. There’s no lower roll, just a new roll. The spell should have either said to roll an additional die and use the lower roll, or to reroll the die and use the new roll.
There is no clear Rule as Written.
Absent clarification from the developers, it’s unclear which direction this spell was meant to go in — was the mistake in writing “reroll” or in writing “lower”?
[The importance of this distinction will be obvious the first time you use Silvery Barbs and the new roll is a critical hit.]
On to the Spell Analysis
The obvious comparison that has been made is to the spell Shield, another first level defensive buff spell with a casting time of 1 reaction. Shield gives the caster a temporary +5 bonus to their AC. The back of the envelope math says that imposing disadvantage on an attack is roughly equivalent to a -5 penalty to the roll. So, -5 penalty vs +5 AC, six of one, half dozen of the other.
But wait, Silvery Barbs does more. The trigger for the reaction is “when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw.” While Shield can only protect the caster, Silvery Barbs can be used to help anyone in the party. What’s more, it can be used when an enemy succeeds on a saving throw to try to force a failure. That is far more utility than Shield, and the penalty to saving throws is twice as strong as that delivered by a successful Mind Sliver (which first requires the target to fail an intelligence save, while Silvery Barbs just works).
And let’s not forget that Silvery Barbs also hands out advantage to someone in the party.
It’s easy to see why there’s been a strong reaction to the spell. However, I suspect the controversy over it comes down to something beyond the mechanics of the spell:
What Kind of Adventuring Day Has It Been?
Plenty of people have noted that spell slots and reactions are precious things to a wizard, so despite being a very good level 1 spell, it’s not necessarily over-powered, game-breaking nonsense. Whether it is likely comes down to what your average adventuring day looks like.
Some tables and some campaigns will look something like what the DMG suggests for an adventuring day. Take a group of four level five adventurers. They wake up, eat breakfast, and fend off an attack from three Ankhegs (CR2). Then they break down camp, get a move on, and encounter a small army of two ogres (CR2) and seven orcs (CR1/2). After this battle, they break for a short rest, and they’ll need it because they are now only halfway through their adventuring day.
Meanwhile at another table, a different party of four level five adventurers wakes up, eats breakfast, and checks their map before heading out to hunt down the giant Hrungnir, whom the local lords have placed a bounty on. A giant isn’t so hard to track in the wild, but the party is miles behind. It takes until late afternoon before they catch sight of their quarry, but then the battle is on. They fight a frost giant (CR8) along with its winter wolf pet (CR4). Following a battle where the tank character got knocked out once, the characters bandage him up and decide to make camp for the night, taking a long rest.
In terms of the DMG’s daily adventuring budget, the first table’s two encounters combine to be roughly equivalent to the second table’s one encounter, but the first table is only halfway through their day.
At the second table, when the party encountered Hrungnir, the giant took the bait and put most of his attacks into the party’s tanky barbarian. The bard hit the giant and wolf with Bane, which the giant failed its saving throw against, and the wolf would have passed, but for the wizard casting Silvery Barbs, which then also granted advantage to the barbarian’s next attack. The wizard then continued burning through its remaining first level spell slots, further nerfing the attacks of the two Baned enemies, letting the tank tank long enough for the party to win. With one character in single-digit hit points and the casters out of spell slots, naturally the party wants a long rest. At this table Silvery Barbs was the MVP of the encounter, greatly reducing the damage that should have been coming out of a very deadly giant.
Meanwhile, back at the first table, the party wizard burned one spell slot using Absorb Elements to not get completely melted by the Ankhegs’ acid attacks, but relied on cantrips to bring down the enemy, preserving spell slots for later in the day. When they reached the group of ogres and orcs, an ogre swung its great club at the barbarian who hadn’t had his turn yet to enter into a rage — the die rolled a crit and the wizard intervened with Silvery Barbs, turning the roll into just an ordinary hit. The barbarian went next, entering into a rage and attacking the ogre, with advantage. Next up: the orcs.
(A brief aside about orcs. The common conception of orcs is that they’re dumb. They are just 7 intelligence after all. They’re not big on book learnin’, but they’re a civilization of warriors who make their living raiding and pillaging. They’re not dumb when it comes to fighting.)
All seven orcs hurl their javelins at the wizard. Here come the rolls (literally rolling at my desk right now): 6, 8, 13, 14, 16, 18, 25 (a crit). The wizard, knowing a battle was coming, had cast Mage Armor in advance, so the 13 and 14 miss, but the 16, 18, and 25 hit, dealing a total of 22 damage. The wizard is now down to just 5 hit points. Had the wizard not protected the barbarian with Silvery Barbs and instead had their reaction available to cast Shield, only the crit would have landed, and they’d be at 17 HP instead of 5. Or, quite possibly, had the wizard not already used their reaction on Silvery Barbs, the orcs would not have exploited the opening and instead focused their attacks elsewhere.
At one table, Silvery Barbs was the MVP. At the other table, it left the wizard with 5 HP and just one level 1 spell slot — and they hadn’t even made it to lunch.
The Verdict
The official commentary of the Rules Lawyer Bar Association is as follows: It’s your table; do what you want.
But, be aware that the power of the spell has a lot to do with the sorts of encounters you have. Silvery Barbs is very strong if the party has few combat encounters throughout the day, or if it tends to face enemies that are high in CR but low in quantity. If the enemies make a total of 3 attacks in a round, Barbing one of them is very strong; if they make 9 attacks in a round, not so much. Longer adventuring days and encounters with a higher quantity of lower CR enemies quickly turns Silvery Barbs into a liability rather than a combat-winning asset.