Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

Nail said:

If this is in response to my posts: You mis-understand my intent. A Side-by-Side comparison is different than a Head-to-Head comparison.

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No, not to yours. Someone had said something about a one to one fight, I think

Interestingly enough, the warblade doesn't get the discipline that allows the "fire out of nothing" maneuvers (i.e. Desert Wind). The WB can take a feat, tho' (Martial Study) to get just one Desert Wind Maneuver.

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Your'e right, poor example

Compare the Warblade to the Barbarian side-by-side. They have pretty much the same role.

Most likely, they are a hitter (duhh), and both have d12 hit dice. Barbarian gets Rage and DR, while Warblades get better AC and some counters if they choose. Actually, a Warblade makes a better Barbarian if you go for punishing stance and stick to Tiger Claw maneuvers, but you won't have the better AC a Warblade can get, or the Barbarian's rage. It all depends on what flavor you want.

Kmart Kommando said:

When you recover all expended maneuvers, they become readied again.

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Wrong.

Where does it state this? Any maneuver that you have withheld, recovered, or granted are ALL considered Readied. I think you are getting your terms mixed up.

Kmart Kommando said:

Then you randomly determine which or your readied maneuvers are granted and which are withheld, just like the begining of combat.

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You are adding this last part. Again I have to ask where you are getting this from? You are given specific rules for how you gain access to your maneuvers at the beginning of combat, and you are later given specific rules for how you recover your maneuvers during combat.

Kmart Kommando said:

Earlier in the text it says: Then it describes the random process. Then, at the end of the paragraph describing what to do if you're out of withheld maneuvers, it even says

At the end of your next turn, a withheld maneuver is granted to you, and the whole process of divine inspiration begins again.

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You keep missing the fact that this sentence, the "whole process of divine inspiration begins again" happens at the end of your NEXT turn.

Kmart Kommando said:

It is clearly written how your readied maneuvers are split between granted and withheld, and when to shuffle the pile. Ignoring that doesn't make it go away.
I'll say it again: twisting words and breaking the rules to make something more powerful than it is, is Munchkin.
Crusader is a simple class to play, once you learn the rules. I recommend doing so.

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WotC seems to think it's just fine, and in fact, this is how Cust Serv rules it (last time I checked).

If you're a crusader, you also need to track your granted maneuvers. Label each card with the name of a readied maneuver. Keep your cards face down. To determine which maneuvers are granted to you, all you have to do is deal yourself a card. The face-up cards in front of you represent your granted maneuvers; the face-down cards are readied maneuvers when you go to draw a card and there are none left face down. At that point, shuffle all your maneuver cards together and draw new granted maneuvers for the next round.

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This little side bar is a bit faulty. Again, it uses bad terminology. If you opt to use cards to represent your maneuvers, do you really shuffle all your maneuver cards together? All of them!? Even the ones that I did not Ready for the day!?!? At some point, you have to make an assumption on either side of the arguement, and whose to say which is right and which is wrong? (WotC of course, or the DM whose rules can vary from table to table). I think they mean that you shuffle all your expended maneuver cards together, and draw new granted maneuvers for the next round. With your ruling, you have to assume they want you to shuffle all your readied maneuver cards together, and draw new granted maneuvers for the next round. So no matter how you look at it, you have to make an assumption one way or the other what WotC meant by this.

FWIW, here are 3 seperate CustServ answers regarding the Crusader Recovery Mechanic

CustServ said:

If you had expended three Maneuvers and no longer had any withheld, at the end of turn when it attempted to grant you another maneuver it would see that it could not. It would recover the three expended maneuvers, and immediately grant you two of them. Then next turn it would grant you your final maneuver. The turn after that it would attempt to grant you another, see that you were empty and recycle any maneuvers you had spent, randomly grant you two of them.... etc etc.

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Bradon from CustServ said:

.. If you don't expend maneuvers granted to you, they are NOT recovered and thrown into the readied pool to be re-granted. Only expended maneuvers are recovered in the Crusader Mechanic.

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Trevor K from CustServ said:

When a crusader runs out of granted maneuvers and cannot be granted a maneuver at the end of his/her turn, all of the expended maneuvers become readied, and the crusader is granted 2 maneuvers, in addition to whatever unexpended maneuvers he/she still had granted to them from previous rounds.

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Response from CustServ to clarify, and asked them if they realize the potential abuse this could cause...

CustServ said:

Yes there was some initial confusion, but Trevor K's explanation is correct. It is possible to get to the point where you can use your favorite maneuver over and over each round. It can be easier to understand if you use index cards to represent your Readied maneuvers when determining which maneuvers are Withheld, Granted, and Expended.

The balance is the fact that it takes time to get to that point. Many combats don't last as long as it takes to get to the point where you get to do it over and over again.



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As I said, FWIW...

charlesatan said:

Uh, if you notice in the earlier threads, most of us were on the understanding that a melee attack was just one attack and not part of a full attack.

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Misunderstanding! 'Melee Attack' is a quite clearly defined term of art in D&D. Several actions allow you to make melee attacks, including the Attack action and the Full Attack action.

charlesatan said:

And most maneuvers state "make an attack" yet no one is assuming that it's a full attack.

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They also state the kind of action required to activate them (usually standard, sometime full round). You do realise that the various manuevers including Melee Attacks in various different kinds of actions is yet more evidence against you position (as if any more was needed ).


glass.

charlesatan said:

You missed the point of the post. A fully optimized tripping, spiked chain wielding Fighter

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Of course this guy is subject to MAD too, isn't he? He always wants good Str and Con, but he wants good Dex (to get the AoO) and good Int (to get the expertise/improved trip feats). Suddenly they are on even terms again.

What feats would an optimised tripping spiked chain fighter want, anyway?

Weapon Focus
Weapon Specialisation
expertise
combat reflexes
improved trip

So a 6th level human Fighter could have all these and have two feats in hand, while a 6th level human warblade would be stumbling along without those two feats and making do with his extra skill points, uncanny dodge, battle clarity, battle ardour (don't forget the fighter is an Int & Dex fighter!) and four readied manouvers and two stances.

All righty then.

I've mentioned in an earlier ToB thread that I thought it might be instructive to compare WB with PsyWar, and I'll be interested to see how things work out in Perun's game (keep us posted, Perun!).

To recap: PsyWar can get psionic feats - more powerful than standard feats, but they either require you to keep your psionic focus in order to continue to use them (up the walls?, speed of thought?) or expend your focus in order to use them (psionic weapon, deep impact etc).

Psionic focus can be regained as a full round action (DC20 concentration check) that provokes Aoo; a feat can reduce this to a MEA that provokes AoO.

In addition they get some powers and a small amount of pp to use them.

I wonder what WB would look like if manouvres were converted into psionic feats with appropriate prereqs to manage the levels at which they become available?

FWIW I don't think the ToB characters can even be meaningfully compared with spellcasters for the purposes of adventuring - they just don't have the resource management because there is little reason to not use your best stuff in every combat (unlike the casters who have to ration out their spells, because they don't get to recharge for 24 hours, unlike all the martial adepts who can be fully recharged at the start of each combat (and probably get to recharge in the middle of combat when they need to too)

Cheers

Plane Sailing said:

Of course this guy is subject to MAD too, isn't he? He always wants good Str and Con, but he wants good Dex (to get the AoO) and good Int (to get the expertise/improved trip feats). Suddenly they are on even terms again.

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The build's on the optimization boards at WotC, by Snow Savant I think, but it's currently down. I'll link to it later on.

You don't need good Con, but Str and Dex. It was built several months ago, so yes, you also need 13 Int to take advantage of Karmic Strike, but ever since Robilar's Gambit in PHB 2, that's not necessary. It's a feat intensive build and makes use of 20 levels of fighter.

Plane Sailing said:

I've mentioned in an earlier ToB thread that I thought it might be instructive to compare WB with PsyWar, and I'll be interested to see how things work out in Perun's game (keep us posted, Perun!).

To recap: PsyWar can get psionic feats - more powerful than standard feats, but they either require you to keep your psionic focus in order to continue to use them (up the walls?, speed of thought?) or expend your focus in order to use them (psionic weapon, deep impact etc).

Psionic focus can be regained as a full round action (DC20 concentration check) that provokes Aoo; a feat can reduce this to a MEA that provokes AoO.

In addition they get some powers and a small amount of pp to use them.

I wonder what WB would look like if manouvres were converted into psionic feats with appropriate prereqs to manage the levels at which they become available?

FWIW I don't think the ToB characters can even be meaningfully compared with spellcasters for the purposes of adventuring - they just don't have the resource management because there is little reason to not use your best stuff in every combat (unlike the casters who have to ration out their spells, because they don't get to recharge for 24 hours, unlike all the martial adepts who can be fully recharged at the start of each combat (and probably get to recharge in the middle of combat when they need to too)

Cheers

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Uh, you're contradicting yourself. First you want to compare martial adepts with psychic warriors, but not with spellcasters because "they don't have the resource management... there is little reason to not use your best stuff in every combat" mainly because psychic warriors follow the same philosophy (it still costs power points to manifest powers).

Second, the problem with psionic focus, unlike maneuvers, is that you really can't execute them consecutively round per round unless you manage to "recharge" them quickly enough. There are two psionic-synergistic feats in ToB:BoNS, Psychic Renewal and Instant Clarity.

And as for maneuvers = powers, like spells, powers are usually more powerful compared to maneuvers at equal levels (although of course a Psychic Warrior only manifests up to 6th level powers).

A super-optimized high-level Psychic Warrior (i.e. broken builds) can probably outdamage a martial adept, but can probably only go for two encounters at most.

As for spellcasters and resource management, 1) see my first paragraph, 2) depends on which spellcaster (I mean a Druid can go on and on and a Sorcerer has a lot of slots), 3) depends on the kinds of encounters your GM throws at you... I mean do GMs really throw 4 encounters in a day? (I mean some yes, but some less than that, and some just make do with 1 encounter a day.)

RigaMortus2 said:

FWIW, here are 3 seperate CustServ answers regarding the Crusader Recovery Mechanic...

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well, 3 wrong answers from CustServ doesn't change my mind. They obviously didn't even read the book.