BryonD said:
I'm sorry, but refusing to go over ground that has already been covered does not constitue ignoring an arguement.
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?
This, I think is the crux of the matter, so let me speak to it. This isn't an easy question with a yes or no answer. I think there isn't just one magical point where you can add up the values for a class and use it to balance against another one. Rather, I think there's a range of value from say...bard to cleric/druid. I think this is why most attempts to deconstruct D&D classes down to a point-buy ultimately fail, because there isn't a magic forumula you can use to make all of the classes add up to the same total.
When 3.0 was designed, feats were the new kid in town. The fighter is the king of feats, and I believe that the designers somewhat over-estimated how effective feats would be. Over time, a lot of the newer classes were given bonus feats. Usually, like with the Warblade, these were from a relatively small list that didn't include the very best feats. At some point, classes started getting bonus fighter feats, which to my mind started to seriously devalue the class.
Now when 3.5 was released, there were already complaints about the fighter, but there were nowhere near as many of them as with, say, the haste spell. The designers took the approach of fixing the things they saw as broken, and also listened to the loudest voices at the time. As a result, the fighter got some token new feats (greater focus/specialization) and the intimidate skill. A lot of the other classes got much more attention.
But how useful are feats? Well, the fighter feats are supremely customizable, which I think the designers rated very highly (again, perhaps too highly). At the same time, something that you can custom build can be either too good, too bad or just right. So when you're talking about how powerful a fighter is, you're talking about a moving blob of a target. Is it a power attacking/shock trooper fighter? Or is it a two-weapon lots-of-attacks fighter. Or still yet, is it a general fighter that doesn't stray far from the feats in the PHB? Those three types of fighters are at VERY different power levels.
With the evolution of D&D, we have a class that, when 3.0 was initially released, was near the middle of the power scale, and I think over the last few years it has slipped down a bit. If you had designers like Mike Mearls redesign the fighter now, I think it would be given a few additional features. In many ways, I think the Tome of Battle is a testing ground for a new style of fighter, as a matter of fact.
Those are a lot of words to justify this:
I think the Warblade has a much more precisely defined power level than the fighter. A properly built fighter, with access to all of the feats from WotC products can be more effective than a Warblade. An average built fighter will probably be less effective than a Warblade. A fighter who takes nothing but toughness will be much less effective. And I think that's okay. Just like an uber cleric can be a better fighter than a fighter. A Warblade belongs in a campaign with a fighter in much the same way that a bard belongs in a game with a cleric, rogue or wizard. Almost no one would say the bard is more powerful than those other classes, but it is still within the same range of power that D&D classes occupy.
With your analysis below (which I understand) you're trying to say that the Warblade has everything better than the fighter. There's a problem with that which is that the Warblade has a predefined set of abilities for the most part. The feats they can select are not nearly as useful as the full range of fighter feats, and also won't ever change. They also don't include feats from sources like the complete books or the PHBII.
Similarly, the maneuvers, which are powerful, are also very specific in what they can do. What the designers did was value that choice of a wide range of abilities as something pretty big. As you get more and more classes, customization of a character by feats becomes less valuable, because there's more of a chance that what you want is already there in a custom character class.
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
So while I might quibble with you over the math, you're right: by a straightforward approach the Warblade seems to be ahead of the fighter. The thing is, the designers have told us that the feature of choice is worth something, and they valued it highly.
A fighter will be better than a Warblade in circumstances where the fighter isn't trying to do the same things as the Warblade (such as be an archer) or when the fighter is very smart about feat choices from the whole range of WotC books.
--Steve
