Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[RigaMortus2]

Agreed on both, however the +100 damage when you wouldn't normally get a full attack (because you had to move) is huge. Really really huge.



Mark

A properly built "charger" can easily surpase this amount of damage, and cover twice the distance.

I am surprised no one mentioned Strike of Righteous Vitality. Level 9 maneuver that grants the heal spell on you if you make a succesful attack.

 

[Felon]

EDIT: Oops. Forgot about the Warblade's being able to refresh a spent maneuver every round with the swift thing+attack. Meaning he could do the +100 dmg move every other round. Bit egregious perhaps, but then, I still am not convinced this is out of line with how much power an optimized wizard could wield in a single encounter and over the course of a typical session.

As I've previously stated, I find it highly specious to think that disciplines should be "in line" at all with what a wizard's spells can do. The wizard has nothing going for him but his spells. The discipline classes get more hit points, better armor class, and raw, inexhaustible combat prowess.

It's already been generally agreed upon by many that casters are ridiculously powerful at level 15+. Why is it considered overpowered if a melee character starts approaching that power at those levels?

See above. It's quite rudimentary. Should we just go ahead and give the wizard full BAB and d12 HD and the ability to cast in armor? I mean, how stupid is it to player within this paradigm that's being used to justify the ToB's over-the-top output?

Now the player that likes melee combat but feels underpowered when he sees the Wizard cast a Power Word Kill or Meteor Swarm has an option that makes him feel just as strong, but yet still retains the melee flavor. I see nothing wrong with that.

See above again. You have missed out on some very fundamental wrongness with that. The melee combat gets the satisfaction of knowing he can shrug off damage that would annihlate a mage. Meat shield, meet nuker.

My issues are really with the Warblade. I'd lower his hit die to d10 and not allow them to recover all readied maneuvers with a swift action. I would allow them to do so, but not make it so easy.

That might just have been sane, but this book was not about balance. It was about giving munchkins wet dreams for weeks on end.

 

[Andor]

Something that seems to be missed by the OMG WTF WERE THEY THINKING!?!?! crowd is this: A fireball or lighting bolt WILL hurt you unless you have evasion and roll well or are simply immune to that energy type. A Sword Sage still has to hit with a melee attack for that Death Mark to work, with his monk-like BAB, in melee combat, with MAD, and the baddie THEN gets a save. Oh, and the maneuver is still expended if you miss. Oh, and you cannot prepare more than one of any given maneuver. Oh, and it doesn't happen as part of a regular attack, it happens in place of a regular attack, goodbye iteration. Oh, and unlike the mage you don't get to place it where you want it. Better hope the rogue wasn't flanking or he gets toasted just like the baddies.

Powerful? Yes. Overpowered? Only if you ignore the downsides.

 

[Felon]

Some of you have said that you think its unbalanced for a high level Warblade to be able to do 100 points of damage with a 9th level maneuver only available to 17th level characters. An ability that can be done once per encounter unless time is taken to recover the maneuver. At best it can be done once every other round.

...and once every other round is too much. Thanks for playing.

How is that more overpowered than a mage who can have all sorts of spells active before a battle even starts? How is that comparable to a 17th level sorcerer who can drop 16 MAXIMIZED fireballs one right after another? Or a 17th level sorcerer casting Disjunction? "Sorry party of adventurers, all of your magic items and buffs are now GONE!"

Not to mention versatility. An arcane caster of comparable level can Fly, Teleport, Shapechange, blast armies apart, turn invisible, turn incorporeal, create impenetrable walls of force, etc.

But no, a warrior, who has to actually get in close to his opponents and potentially get worked by multiple baddies, or simply get his ass torn apart by a powerful monster, gets a comparable attack and suddenly everything is broken.

You got it, Dblade. It's bee-roken. You conveniently omitted all the parts where it can really suck to play a mage, and how that class gets a lot of the same penis-envy over how much damage warrior classes can dish out without expending any resources, as well as how much damage they can suck up. Truth is, the wizard and sorcerer give up plenty to get what they get.

D&D is a game where characters assume certain roles in the party. Not everyone is intended to be the major damage dealer. What the warrior gets is that the ability actually survive closing in with opponents and get worked over by baddies, and to attack ad infinitum without regard to consuming resources. This is a major case of people who want to eat their cake and have it to, thinking they should get the damage output in the wizard's ballpark while getting d12 hit dice.

Heck even a 20th level Rogue with the right feat can basically do 10d6 Sneak Attack damage EVERY freaking round. A 20th level Fighter previously couldn't do that even with all their feats. How is it balanced that at 20th level a Fighter isn't even the biggest melee damage dealer?

Are you simply incapable of seeing a class's value in terms of anything other than damage output? The rogue lacks the hit points and base attack bonus of warriors--modest defense, modest attack, heavy damge. The fighter is heavy defense, heavy attack, modest damage (gasp! what a crime!).

The fact is that warriors were severely UNDERPOWERED before Tome of Battle. This book goes a long way in restoring balance that should have been there from the beginning.

As stated, the only thing that seems to be self-evident is you consider anyone who isn't doing as much damage as everyone else to be underpowered, completely despite whatever other assets they may possess. There are many roles in a party.

 

[Dragonblade]

I'm confident that I have thoroughly debunked the myth of brokenness. If you can't see that, any further debate is pointless. I obviously won't change your mind and you won't change mine.

 

[Felon]

If a warblade can deliver +100 damage every other round, it makes you wonder, can a fighter deliver +50 damage about every round? It does not seem outside the realm of possibility to me.

Of course, the warblade has access to feats like Power Attack and Improved Critical as well. There is no feat a fighter can have that a warblade can't. He just gets all that as the opening act to his +100 maneuver.

Kinda sinks this whole comparison.

So if you consider a 100 damage every other round is on par with a Fighter being able to dish out 50 points of damage per round, I think we are not too far out of alignment and I didn't even touch the additional feats a Fighter would get from their character levels. Is the Warblade a good class? Yes. Is it broken, not at all.

See above.

 

[Sithobi1]

Except that a fighter can take a full attack, whereas the +100 maneuver cannot be used during a full attack. So maybe it's not really that great.

 

[pawsplay]

Of course, the warblade has access to feats like Power Attack and Improved Critical as well. There is no feat a fighter can have that a warblade can't. He just gets all that as the opening act to his +100 maneuver.

Kinda sinks this whole comparison.

How many feats do they get?

 

[Dragonblade]

Of course, the warblade has access to feats like Power Attack and Improved Critical as well. There is no feat a fighter can have that a warblade can't. He just gets all that as the opening act to his +100 maneuver.

Kinda sinks this whole comparison.

Nevermind your conveniently ignoring the fact that the Warblade gets 7 feats over 20 levels and the Fighter gets 18. It makes a difference.

But yes, I would say that at high levels, the Warblade does edge out the straight fighter. But since I believe the fighter is underpowered already, I have no problem with that.

And as far as mages go, their tradeoff is insignificant at high levels. AC, Attack bonus, all of that doesn't really matter when you can turn incorporeal, invisible, fly, and drop multiple maximixed fireballs every single round. All without magic gear. And once the mage casts disjunction, the poor warrior class (fighter or warblade) doesn't even have magical gear anymore.

You want to talk broken. Spellcasters ARE broken. ToB helps to restore the balance.

 

[Dragonblade]

How many feats do they get?

The Warblade gets a few bonus feats from a restricted list. Nothing that boosts attack or damage output, so I consider their influence on damage dealing comparison's negligible. You can get things like Diehard, or Endurance.