My Gut Reaction to Book of Nine Swords

[Felon]

You should have read about the book before you bought it. If you would have, you may have realized this book was never for you. Letting your mistake sway your judgment over the book is another thing entirely though. The book isn’t bad because of what it is, to you the book is bad because of what it was not. I hope your prejudices of this book to not turn others away. Hopefully next time you will be more responsible in what you purchase. and perhaps next time you wont let your predetermined feelings effect your opinions of what is good and what is not.

This is a catch-22 arguement. If someone gets the book and doens't like it, then attack them for not doing their homework before making their purchase. If they do their homework and decide the book is not for them, then their criticisms are attacked because they don't actually own the book.

At any rate, this inflammatory post violates forum policy six ways to Sunday, so hopefully a mod will be along soon to set you right.

 

[Gold Roger]

My gut reaction was "Uh, genre blending, sounds like fun!"

Of course, I'm a genre blending bastard, so really no surprise there.

However, after reading the complete book and using it in play, I've come to the following conclusions:

1) Outside of the use of disciplines and the funky names, there isn't really much oriental stuff in it. The flavor can easily fit a traditional medival european setting, far easier than say the Monk or even some Oriental Monsters every Setting uses.

2) I don't like that two of the disciplines give supernatural abilities. It would have been far easier to just make them all extraordinary. I like to codify my magic in-game and some warriors doing outrageous magic moves (say, flying around) just because they are really good with the sword becaomes hard to explain, even for me.

3) I'm not so sure about the different Disciplines. I would have preffered every Class to simply have a maneuver list like other classes have spell lists and have different Disciplines/Schools be like Academies of wizardry: Background, plot element and a combination of spells/maneuvers determined by the DM or player.

4) The system for maneuvers itself is great and simple. Personaly I'd like to see a more generic system of maneuvers and stances for the next editions fighter. Really, why should only spellcasters get to do interesting stuff?

5) I can see how this book isn't for everyone. But I think there are some elements in there that should be given a chance. I can see the Maneuvers of Iron Heart and White Raven working and fitting in in just about every game.

6) Personally I always thought the fighter was lacking in just about every aspect. So I'm okey with him getting gimped. Outside of two levels multiclass for feats he was nothing but a NPC class in our games anyway.

7) So far our campaign has gone up to level two and I know it's not very telling, but the two warblades in my campaign so far haven't been unbalancing at all.

 

[gribble]

7) So far our campaign has gone up to level two and I know it's not very telling, but the two warblades in my campaign so far haven't been unbalancing at all.

I've only seen a high-level (20th) warblade in action, and I think you won't really notice a real difference until you start seeing iterative attacks come into play (6th level+). Then again, if you don't have any straight fighters in the party to compare against, you probably won't notice anyway... out of curiousity, do you have any martial classes (which, for the sake of argument I'll define as +1/lvl BAB progression) other than warblade in the party?

 

[Ranger5]

One of my players got the book before I did and since his character had died he asked if he could play something from it. I said sure. We are all experienced roleplayers and know that if one of us does something that breaks the game we'll, as a group, decide on how to deal with it.

Now the player in question is a great guy and likes the martial type characters so of course he chose the warblade. And during the game we were all impressed at how the character played. I was so impressed with it that that night I ordered the book from Amazon.

And just to prove that there is still game balance due to the one factor out of everyone's control - in the first encounter of the character's second session he rolled a 1 against the Death Gaze of a bodak. Result: one dead warblade.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group (all non-Tome of Battle classes) survived. Now he could have used his Mind Over Body maneuver but he had used it last round and did not yet have a chance to ready it.

So the moral of the story? I would say at least give the new supplements a shot before deciding that they're "broken". You might be surprised at how "un-broken" the rules are when played correctly.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

And you should have read my post more clearly. I buy things because I am a collector, not because of any inherent value in the purchase. I am an obsessive compulsive person. I do these kinds of things and they do not make sense to any but myself and those like me.

I hear there is an effective electro-shock therapy for people like you...

 

[Gold Roger]

I've only seen a high-level (20th) warblade in action, and I think you won't really notice a real difference until you start seeing iterative attacks come into play (6th level+). Then again, if you don't have any straight fighters in the party to compare against, you probably won't notice anyway... out of curiousity, do you have any martial classes (which, for the sake of argument I'll define as +1/lvl BAB progression) other than warblade in the party?

We've got a ranger, though he's nonstandart (sacrifices some features for PHB2 alternate druid wildshaping). The fourth and last PC is a warmage, which I think will be far more interesting to compare to the warblades.

In what way should iterative attacks change things?

 

[Felon]

And just to prove that there is still game balance due to the one factor out of everyone's control - in the first encounter of the character's second session he rolled a 1 against the Death Gaze of a bodak. Result: one dead warblade.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group (all non-Tome of Battle classes) survived. Now he could have used his Mind Over Body maneuver but he had used it last round and did not yet have a chance to ready it.

So the moral of the story? I would say at least give the new supplements a shot before deciding that they're "broken". You might be surprised at how "un-broken" the rules are when played correctly.

So, because someone played a warblade and it died due to a failed saving throw that would've killed darn near any character, that serves as proof of balance. Well, I'm glad my previous comment about defending the warblade with outlandish sophisms was taken to heart.

And you even point out that, unlike most characters, he had a resource that still could've saved his bacon, if he hadn't already used it.

Worst "moral of a story" ever.

 

[gribble]

We've got a ranger, though he's nonstandart (sacrifices some features for PHB2 alternate druid wildshaping). The fourth and last PC is a warmage, which I think will be far more interesting to compare to the warblades.

Ok, thanks. I'd be interested if you'd keep us posted as they go up levels, and see how they compare to the ranger and warmage. I agree the warmage will be an interesting comparison.

In what way should iterative attacks change things?

IMO, one of the most broken things about warblades is that they can still make a full attack (albeit without using any maneuvers) on the round that they replenish their maneuvers. This means that (in essence) they can use maneuvers, in themselves pretty good, alternated with full attack actions to replenish (which should be at least as effective as an equivalent level martial type). This opens up some truely sick combos at higher levels, like the one where you're making three full attack actions every two rounds...

I'm interested to see if non-martial adept "martial classes" really can be as effective as a warblade in combat. My gut feeling and the examples I've seen say no...

 

[gribble]

Worst "moral of a story" ever.

I was just going to say that - thanks for saving me the trouble...

 

[Razz]

I have nothing specifically against Asian culture, but if a roleplaying game is going to be set in the Far East or a world with oriental style, I prefer the game to focus on the elements that make that kind of world unique, not the absurd type of fighting we see in the movies that any reasonable person knows is not very realistic.

And adolescent children flying on broomsticks isn't?

This means in your games:

---Paladins don't heal wounds by transferring divine energy by touch
---Barbarians don't increase massively in Strength and Constitution by willing forth their primal instincts and energy
---Monks don't land safely from falling from any height, heal their body with ki, strike with power greater than two-handed weapons with their body, and so on
---Rogues dodging fireball blasts that encompass 20 ft. around them
---Warriors wielding hefty looking double-axes
---Wizards *gasp* evoking a greater source of power to create impossible effects in the world around them, like they're gods
---Psionicists who alter events around them with the power of their own minds

And the list goes on. I mean, after all, none of this is "realistic." :\

For example, the idea that dragons are all demons from a distant world who possess mortals could be an interesting bit of flavor, or the loyalty of the samurai to the daimyo could be a compelling story device. But the ninja who single-handedly slays an army of 1,000 and catches 100 arrows in his hand, all in the space of 30 seconds, and still manages to clean his blades in that time without having spilled a single drop of blood upon his person is not a motif that belongs in my games. Your mileage may vary, but it isn't my cup of tea.

That's called "cool", "fun", and "awesome". I can use many other adjectives to describe that type of stuff, but in all cases it's something that's not supposed to be realistic, just epic. I kow a lot of people attracted to that sort of thing when playing D&D, and the only ones that don't like are previous generations (no offense).

On a personal note, I can always tell the type of people who don't like japanese anime or movies like Advent Children just by these posts.