My Gut Reaction to Book of Nine Swords

[Justin Bacon]

You are dissing him on something that he isn't saying, and I'd rather not see it again, OK?

What I said he said: "D&D is X and not Y."

What he said: "D&D is designed to work with the former, not the latter."

Yeah. I see how I totally misrepresented what he said. And the fact that I said I respected his opinion and was specifically not trying to diss that personal preference was, of course, my way of dissing him.

 

[airwalkrr]

How do you define 'encounter' then? What about a practise duel? And if that doesn't count, would a duel with practise blades against an NPC to decide the fate of the kingdom count? What about attacking the town dog (who attacks back of course)? What about a trap encounter? What about a puzzle or riddle? What if said riddle releases a gargoyle to attack you every time you answer it wrong? Is each gargoyle an encounter? What if you conjure in a demon that attacks you? What if you capture 30 kobolds and release them one by one to be gutted by you?

Allowing healing on a "per encounter" basis is a design mistake, in my opinion. It requires a lot of fiat with little explanation.

Congratulations, you just broke the game. Clerics are now useless. Everyone in the party just needs a few levels of warblade.

Naw, it's the warblade that is causing things to fall apart.

 

[airwalkrr]

What I said he said: "D&D is X and not Y."

What he said: "D&D is designed to work with the former, not the latter."

Yeah. I see how I totally misrepresented what he said. And the fact that I said I respected his opinion and was specifically not trying to diss that personal preference was, of course, my way of dissing him.

I'm glad you see it because I certainly do. The key word there is "designed." It makes the statement markedly different than an imperative statement: D&D is X. If you were to design a system to work with eastern martial arts, then I doubt you would pick d20 as your baseline. Some do because they are familiar with it and they wish to ride on the coattails of d20's popularity, but that does not mean the system approximates it well.

As I've said before, if you like the way ToB introduces wuxia-style into d20, then by all means, have a ball. I do not, although I can see ToB being used as the basis for an entirely new combat system which I might like better.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Congratulations, you just broke the game. Clerics are now useless. Everyone in the party just needs a few levels of warblade.

Naw, it's the warblade that is causing things to fall apart.

Well, as a means to infinite healing, it is probably broken for any of the three initiators, but at least through incredibly subjective (and probably inconsistent) GM fiat you can try to rein it in. If the feat actually did what GW thought PS thought it did (no use limit), it would be unfair beyond all belief. You would just take a class that doesn't use Swift actions (Fighter for instance), plug in one level of Warblade, take a Manoeuvre you didn't really care about, and get healed for free for 3+level every other round while you did what you normally do, effectively translating into Fast Healing (3 + level) / 2, so Fast Healing 2 at level 1, more at higher levels.

 

[Justin Bacon]

I'm glad you see it because I certainly do. The key word there is "designed." It makes the statement markedly different than an imperative statement: D&D is X. If you were to design a system to work with eastern martial arts, then I doubt you would pick d20 as your baseline. Some do because they are familiar with it and they wish to ride on the coattails of d20's popularity, but that does not mean the system approximates it well.

Ah, I see. You didn't say: "D&D is X (designed to work with the former), it's Y (not designed to work with the latter)."

What you said was: "D&D is designed to work with the former, it's not designed to work with the latter."

The distinction is, of course, perfectly clear. I don't know how I could have missed it before.

Moving beyond your claim that you didn't say what you said, your continued insistence that the monk class (which is designed entirely around eastern martial arts) cannot be found in the PHB is... well, it's weird. Or maybe it's just that you're claiming the D&D3.0 PHB was attempting to ride on D20's coattails?

 

[Plane Sailing]

What I said he said: "D&D is X and not Y."

What he said: "D&D is designed to work with the former, not the latter."

Yeah. I see how I totally misrepresented what he said. And the fact that I said I respected his opinion and was specifically not trying to diss that personal preference was, of course, my way of dissing him.

Justin,

You have been here long enough to know that if you disagree with a moderators instructions, you can take it to email. The link to email me is in my signature or you can find it in the Meta forum.

If you disagree with a moderators instructions, don't talk about it in the thread. In fact I think it is time you bowed out of this thread as it is, I have no interest in seeing you try to promote an argument with Airwalkrr.

Thanks

 

[BryonD]

Actually we don't necessarily agree on this. I said that an optimized fighter will be ahead of a Warblade, but an average one will lag behind, in certain areas. This does not constitute a "massive break iin power consistency," any more than a bard does measured in terms of a cleric. Or a fighter does measured in terms of a cleric. There is a range of power that the D&D classes have in straight-up fights, and it can be a significant one. I think the discrepency in power between a Warblade and our fighter is less than the power levels between other core classes, and I'd be willing to play any of the core classes and don't feel I'd be under powered.

Are they balanced or is it bard vs cleric?

I'm not going to get dragged in to trying to have me speak on you feelings.

But for a simple do the math appraoch it isn't even in the ballpark and it will take vastly more than you saying "is not" to budge me from the detailed analysis I've been through.

I don't believe you. The Warblade really doesn't have class features that make him a good archer...at least that I saw.

Shrug.
You are wrong.
A WarbladeX/Fighter1 has plenty of feats and other perks at his disposal and has completely overcome the biggest ranged attack obstacle of the class.

A Warblade can certainly make good feat selections, but he must pick from a static list that will never change, at least for his bonus feats. The bonus feats he can pick are pretty "meh," you have combat reflexes, improved initiative and the save boosting feats...not exactly what most builds rely on to be uber. Combat Reflexes is nice, but that marks you as a fighter with a higher than average dex, which means fewer points in other ability scores. The Warblade maneuver selection is really the classes bread and butter, but I have to say again that there are some nice abilities (who wouldn't take +100 HP on a melee attack?) but they are limited in the ways I've been talking about earlier. A fully tricked out melee character with the feats from the PHB II and tactical feats can be just as effective in melee.

Again you seem to find yourself forced to take pieces out of context to make you assessment.
Yes, the WB's feats are more restricted than the fighter's.
The fighter's maneuver's a a whole hell of a lot more restricted than the warblade's.

Seriously, I'm still willing to assume that manuevers + stances for WB = feats for fighter.
I'm not willing to seriously entertain arguments that the fighter comes out ahead here.
And so far I've yet to see anyone actually try to say otherwise.

So, we have no completely canceled out the fighter's feats.
You want to say Combat Reflexes is "meh". Ok, fine, we'll agree for sake of argument that it is "meh". It still totally kicks the butt of zip, zero, nada, which is what the fighter has left to hold up against it after the M&S cancel out the fighter's feats.

Then the WB get's a few MORE feats, and a nice laundry list of specials, and more sp, and better class skills, and more HP. All up against the fighter's ... NOTHING

Context Context Context

I think we're actually not that far from agreeing on this class (if you can believe that after all that I've written). I think the one CRITICAL issue for the Warblade is how often he can get maneuvers back. It seems like there may not be enough of an opportunity cost to recovering maneuvers. I'll eventually see it in play, and I may make some adjustments at that point. Frankly, I'd advise you and others to try the class and make adjustments if it actually works out to be overpowed in practice, rather than just in theory.

I'd make the same suggestion if a player wanted to play a pure bard in a game with twinked out characters, but in the other direction.

--Steve

I can certainly believe it.
It is vastly easier to believe that than the idea that soemone seriously considers this class balanced as written.

Who said anything about theory?

 

[BryonD]

Martial study allows you to gain a manoeuvre. Martial stance allows you to gain a stance (but you must have martial study first).

Non-adepts are treated as having adept "levels" equal to half their character level so are limited in the manoevres they can take (so won't be getting that +100 to damage until well into epic levels), and as many - but by no means all - high level manoeuvres require you to have a certain number of low ones first it effectively keeps them out of the hands of most non-adepts.

I think you can only use each manoeuvre once per encounter, but I may be mistaken.

However, as a nice bonus the related skill becomes a class skill (for all your current and future classes). My binder's going to take Martial Study (desert wind) at least partially in order to get tumble as a class skill.

They are also limited to taking three maneuvers. So prereqs get real tight real fast as well.
And you are correct about lack of recovery.

 

[BryonD]

Regarding the Warblade, I just refreshed my memory of the class from the WotC website article, and funnily enough, if it had a d10 hp I would say that it was a fine 'intelligent fighter' class - even with no manouvers at all! - .

pretty much

The full BAB, decent skill points (with a list that includes tumble!) bonus feats and INT-based class features would make for a nice package just on their own - I'd happily play a PC that was like that.

pretty much

(which in turn, makes me wonder how much extra oomph those manouvres and stances give...)

They aren't quite up to spells. Some are out of whack. But what's new there? By and large I'd say they tend to be equal to 1-2 spell levels lower. And a lot more narrow in scope as well.

I wonder what it would be like if you ONLY had stances, and not the other stuff?

Interesting thought.

 

[NilesB]

Besides that, I happen to enjoy the touch of "realism" in D&D which presumes that the heroes are just exceptional mortals.

And what do you do when these mere mortals are supposed to be the the peers and companions of people who can stop time and call eathquakes, who can call the angels from the heavens and the devils from the hells and bind them into service, who can call down fire that slays armies or kill with a word, who can travel a thousand miles in a single step, who can restore the dead to the full bloom of life or merely call back their wretched shade to serve them, who can harden their flesh to turn blades or walk trough an inferno unburned?


No realistic warrior can stand against or beside D&D spellcasters, accept it.