My Gut Reaction to Book of Nine Swords

[BryonD]

The only concern I have, is whether or not the simple method the Warblade has for refreshing maneuvers is too good. That's something I would need to actually see in play to decide on.

Focusing in on this....

I believe this is a huge problem.
I don't get the d12 HD, but 1 hp / level is not that big a deal in the end.

But the effectively free recovery of maneuvers is a real breaker. No question.
I'm seriously considering allowing the class using the sword sage method of recovery.
But as-is, no way.
And frankly, there are some many other options out there that it is just easier to jettison the class outright.

 

[Henry]

Last night, I was playing with some concepts for a future game I will be playing in (we were given character creation info, but won't be playing for a while yet), so on a whim I re-statted my "Bugbear Planescape Mercykiller Cleric with huge honking Morningstar" into a "Bugbear Crusader Mercykiller with nasty Maul."

All in all, the maneuvers he recevied, when I looked at them, were not really dealbreakers. Admittedly, had he been a half-orc instead, he could have had access to 3rd (or 4th, I think, unsure with crusaders) level maneuvers, and even then, the real "cheese" as the saing goes was stopped by only being able to get 1 good maneuver per round, on the whole. The stances aren't worth worrying about; wizards and clerics carry stronger auras than these with them all the time.

I'd have to agree with BryonD, the biggest dealbreaker is the warblade's fast recovery, but I'd add those hit dice with my reservations. A d10 hit dice, and a slower way to recover stuff, would really make a difference. People compare it to the Barbarian, but personally, I don't know about anyone else, but barbarians in our games don't go around enraged at every single combat; they rely on hit points and feats to see them through even minor battles. However, Warblades have their maneuvers running in every combat, every round, which adds to their power to make them stronger, I feel, than an equivalent Barbarian.

 

[SteveC]

You are going back to the beginning and discarding arguements that have already been covered. I don't see your position here as close to holding water.

That may be, but as long as you say "these abilities plus bonus feats are better than anything the fighter has," I'm going to disagree. Just because you keep ignoring an argument doesn't make it any weaker, and in this case, the fighter is all about bonus feats, and that's what the designers of 3.0/3.5 thought balanced them against every other class that has a +1 BAB. The fighter was the class that got the least rebalancing in 3.5, and I can only assume it is because the designers place a very high value on those feats. There is a growing consensus that this is not an especially well-balanced design, but we won't see a new fighter called a "fighter" until 4.0.

Are the five class features that I mentioned better than five fighter feats? Well, you could take toughness five times, and in that case the answer is definitely "no." In general, I'd take five bonus feats from the fighter list against those abilities, especially if we're talking about feats included in the PHB2.

--Steve

 

[Gargoyle]

I think comparing the warblade to the barbarian is easier than comparisons to the fighter because there are more similarities with regard to base abilities. If you make that comparison, the warblade seems to blow the barbarian away.

I feel the barbarian and fighter are comparable to each other in actual gameplay, at least as far as desirability to play them, so my conclusion is that the warblade will also blow the fighter away.

It is very hard to make that judgement however, without actually playing the character for a while. On paper, a class can look horribly broken but actually be weak in play. Monks spring to mind.

The thing that is making me disallow the warblade in my upcoming game is not just the power level, but the justification for the class. It seems like such a weak idea for a base class.

I'm going to eliminate the warblade entirely and allow substitution levels for fighters and barbarians to gain maneuvers: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=174415

 

[Gargoyle]

Focusing in on this....

I believe this is a huge problem.
I don't get the d12 HD, but 1 hp / level is not that big a deal in the end.

But the effectively free recovery of maneuvers is a real breaker. No question.
I'm seriously considering allowing the class using the sword sage method of recovery.
But as-is, no way.
And frankly, there are some many other options out there that it is just easier to jettison the class outright.

I couldn't agree more, except that I don't think giving them the swordsage's method of recovery is the right way to go. It goes too far. Sitting out a full round is the absolute least fun thing for players to do, and I would actually consider changing the swordsage's recovery to be easier, just so they aren't "losing a turn" before I would nerf the warblade that far.

Since the swordsage has so many maneuvers, I'm not going to change their recovery unless they prove too weak, but it's something I've got in the back of my mind.

In any case, it certainly is odd how wide the gap is between the warblade's recovery and the swordsages.

Another way to nerf the warblade without going too far might be to allow them to recover one maneuver with an attack or standard action instead of all of them.

 

[Gargoyle]

I'd have to agree with BryonD, the biggest dealbreaker is the warblade's fast recovery, but I'd add those hit dice with my reservations. A d10 hit dice, and a slower way to recover stuff, would really make a difference. People compare it to the Barbarian, but personally, I don't know about anyone else, but barbarians in our games don't go around enraged at every single combat; they rely on hit points and feats to see them through even minor battles. However, Warblades have their maneuvers running in every combat, every round, which adds to their power to make them stronger, I feel, than an equivalent Barbarian.

I agree.

I use maximum hit points at every level, , so IMC the d12 hit die is a huge advantage I'm trying to reserve for barbarians. Obviously the hit dice are not going to be as big a deal using the RAW, but you bring up good points about the barbarian relying on hit points due to the lack of heavy armor and limited use of rage (as well as the fatigue suffered at the end of it). In any case, I see the d12 hit die as the barbarian's niche, and I'm reluctant to allow other classes with it.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've played my warblade 6 in one session so far. Looks good so far. I took lots of White Raven abilities and lots of Stone Dragon so I can buff and bash pretty often. The battles didn't actually last long enough for me to run out of maneuvers (so I never refereshed during combat).

I agree it's a bit overpowered. I don't think the maneuvers are overpowered (maybe there's a couple broken ones sprinkled in there ... there always are, aren't there?) but I think you could cut the hp to d10/level and require a move action to restore maneuvers.

It'll be stronger than a fighter at high levels, but that's because the fighter is pretty weak at low levels.

I disagree that Int is used to balance the warblade; whoever designed ToB has no idea what point buy or die-rolling system players and DMs who use the book are actually using. My warblade has a high Int, but that's because he's a military officer. If he were a grunt, I would just put in a 10 instead, and instead of White Raven, I'd put in more bashing stuff. Int supported my concept, but (within the rules) he could have been a general with an Int of 8!

On another note, the sword sage is quite weak, even when house-ruled to full BAB. WotC has made non-DnD supplements where light fighters don't suck - maybe it should take a look at these. I don't know about the crusader; once the DM told me it randomly determines what maneuvers it gets available I completely lost interest in it.

 

[BryonD]

That may be, but as long as you say "these abilities plus bonus feats are better than anything the fighter has," I'm going to disagree. Just because you keep ignoring an argument doesn't make it any weaker,

I'm sorry, but refusing to go over ground that has already been covered does not constitue ignoring an arguement.

I have, in a prior thread, gone through a detailed side by side of the WB and the Fighter.
For every feat that the fighter gest the WB gets either a feat or a special ability (maybe like one less at early levels, it has been a few weeks) THEN the WB gets maneuvers and stances on top of that. Plus more HP, more SP, better skill selection. It is a slam dunk.

and in this case, the fighter is all about bonus feats, and that's what the designers of 3.0/3.5 thought balanced them against every other class that has a +1 BAB. The fighter was the class that got the least rebalancing in 3.5, and I can only assume it is because the designers place a very high value on those feats. There is a growing consensus that this is not an especially well-balanced design, but we won't see a new fighter called a "fighter" until 4.0.

So are you saying that the WB is no better than the fighter or that it is ok that the WB is better because the fighter is weak?

Are the five class features that I mentioned better than five fighter feats? Well, you could take toughness five times, and in that case the answer is definitely "no." In general, I'd take five bonus feats from the fighter list against those abilities, especially if we're talking about feats included in the PHB2.

--Steve

Taking bits and pieces out of context is misleading.
As I said, the WB gets a class feature or feat for nearly every feat and then gets manuevers and stances ON TOP and HP and SP as gravy.

The arguement has been presented several times that the manuevers are roughly equivalent to the feats. For sake of argument I'll accept that. I certainly will not accept that they are less. For sake of arguement I will also accept that the class features you listed are less than the value of five feats. But not less than, say, half the value.
So if they've got on class feature that is equal to all the feats, then they have some feats, then they have some other class features that are worth (conservatively) half as much as feats, then they have better skills to pick from, then they have more hp, then they have more sp, well, the math becomes pretty dang clear.

1 << 1 + 0.5 + 0.3 + 0.1 + 0.1

 

[BryonD]

I agree it's a bit overpowered. I don't think the maneuvers are overpowered (maybe there's a couple broken ones sprinkled in there ... there always are, aren't there?) but I think you could cut the hp to d10/level and require a move action to restore maneuvers.

I agree with this.
I really like the IDEAs presented and am interested in working to make them viable.
And I certainly don't think wizarda or clerics are broken because I given spell may be.

On another note, the sword sage is quite weak, even when house-ruled to full BAB. .

Really? I haven't had time to really play with this class yet, but it seemed to have the most promise to me. Oh well, it is much easier to lift up a weak class than to nerf a problem.

 

[Victim]

At higher levels, the crusader's randomly granted manuevers don't seem bad at all. Since you still pick out your readied manuevers, the player still has a significant amount of influence on the moves he gets. IIRC, at level 20, the crusader can ready 7 manuevers, and is granted 4 or 5 of them (with the option to spend a feat for 1 more granted move) so he'll still have a good selection of moves. He just can't build a strategy a strategy around chaining one or two moves though, since they'll often be unavailable.

However, at lower levels when prereqs and the level cap significantly limit your manuever selection, you will end up stuck with moves you don't want.