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Tome of Battle: Bo9S classes in actual play?

Mort

Legend
Supporter
My next campaign is starting soon, and I know at least one player will want to play a class from the Tome of Battle. How do the crusader, swordsage, and warblade actually do in play? There's been lots of talk about how powerful they look on paper (particularly the warblade), but that doesn't always translate to the actual game session.
How do they interact with the other classes (mesh well, overshadow etc.)?
 

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I've only been one in one or two sessions of a non-regular DnD party. We had fewer magic items, we had DR-granting overcoats, and we had no full-classed spellcasters. My observations probably won't be all that valuable.

I was a 6th-level Warblade, "specializing" in White Raven tactics. There's a few holes in the "learning maneuvers table" - at 3rd-level, it makes sense to be able to learn 2nd-level maneuvers, but that might not have been available (it was either maneuvers or stances that had the hole, not both). Warblades supposedly can recharge their maneuvers ridiculously fast, but combat never lasted long enough for me to bother. The rules to recharge maneuvers were confusing and possibly overpowered - I can't say for sure because of the confusion. I thought I had to give up a move action (equivalent) to recharge maneuvers, but the DM thought I only had to give up a free action. We're both experienced rules-grognards, too. WotC should really errata that.

The Int-favoring abilities were, IMO, cherries on an already overly sweet cake. I did take a high Int, but that's because any character who takes White Raven should be smart enough to be a good tactician; if I wasn't going to be a commander, I would have cheerfully taken Int 10 and not cared that I'm losing out on stuff. The warblade class is powerful enough already, with its high hit points and high BAB and maneuvers that make fighters cry out of jealousy. I'd trim the hit points at least.

White Raven didn't seem powerful, probably because buffing non-optimized combatants isn't powerful, and none of the other PCs were optimized for melee. There are a couple of White Raven abilities that might be broken as written. There's one that you can theoretically give other players extra actions depending on their initiative, but that's obviously not RAI and DMs who use non-core stuff (and even some core stuff) have to willing to change or ban stuff instead of using blatantly overpowered stuff as written. The highest level White Raven abilities are only overpowered if the DM does something silly like putting players in charge of 50 1st-level warriors ... WotC probably should have limited the abilities to five allies, or something like that. White Raven doesn't work well if your character is slow, by the way, which is kind of odd considering the only base classes that have access to White Raven easily are proficient in medium armor.

IMO, warblades should lose Weapon Specialization*, should have a slightly longer list of maneuvers known/used, and have the recharge ability nerfed. If I had ever gone through a boss fight, I probably would have run out of maneuvers, and then could truly judge if the rechage is overpowered or not. They could also have hit points trimmed. Finally, the class skill list drove me up the wall. Warblades get lots of skill points and favor Int, yet the skill list was way too short. I found myself taking ranks in Balance and other skills that didn't fit my "heavy front-line commander" concept. I had to ask the DM to take ranks in Knowledge (tactics) because no such skill existed - there is a Martial Lore skill, but that won't help you against a regular fighter. Non-commanders might have gotten off easier, if they didn't take high Int, but the class makes taking high Int fairly good.

* Technically you have to spend the feat. But why wouldn't you?

The swordsage seemed pretty weak. It's probably stronger than swashbuckler classes, but that's not saying much at all. WotC continually shafts light fighters, and the swordsage is just more evidence of that. I didn't play one, but the DM asked me to make some NPCs. They looked very weak. I couldn't compare it to monks or regular fighters due to the non-ordinary nature of that DnD campaign. To me, it seemed obviously far weaker than a warblade.
 

Bivotar

First Post
I am currently playing a warblade in a Ravenloft campaign. We started at 1st level and are all now 7th. And so far in play I have been effective as a front line fighter. I got a ton of HPs and can dish out a lot of damage. However, there is another character who is playing a fighter and he can dish out as much damage and has nearly as many hit points.

So in actual play a warblade can be just like a fighter. I personally find the warblade a blast to play and my friend finds the fighter fun to play.
 

RichGreen

Adventurer
Hi,

I haven't used any of the classes as a player but I did create a 14th level crusader justice archon (MMIV) to oppose the party in a recent adventure. While the character had access to some great maneuevers which I used in the combat, I can't help thinking he would have dealt much more damage by behaving like a fighter and just making a full attack!

I'm quite keen to try out either the crusader or warblade as my next PC.

Cheers


Richard
 

blargney the second

blargney the minute's son
RichGreen said:
I can't help thinking he would have dealt much more damage by behaving like a fighter and just making a full attack!

Exactly. Everybody still has the same number of actions in a round. The maneuvers that take a standard or full action to activate are costing you all of your secondary attacks. Initiates end up trading the extra damage of iterative attacks for special rider effects (and maybe some extra damage).

-blarg
 

Beckett

Explorer
From what I've seen, the classes seem to line up fairly well with the base classes.

My Savage Tides game (run with gestalt rules) features a warblade. He's pretty tough, swinging a great sword with Punishing Stance for 3D6 damage, and he can pump that up with some other manuevers. It's quite a chunk of damage he can put out, but he misses just like everyone else. And he needed the D12 hit die, since the -2 AC penalty from Punishing Stance dropped his AC to the lowest in the party (even out of the stance, without a shield he was an easy target). The AC problem has been solved with an animated tower shield, but I think a raging barbarian would have been just as effective (note- the characters are around 7th level right now. Higher level manuevers could boost his power level above the others).

In another game, I've been playing a half-orc swordsage (with a level of barbarian tossed in). As with the warblade, I can put out a lot of hurt... if I hit. It always sucks to whiff, and even more when you were going to add 6D6 or more to that attack. It's a fun character, but my lower BAB makes up for the extra damage potential, as far as I can see.
 

From our sporadically run beer & pretzels Bo9S game, I've found the warblade is pretty fighter-like on damage output but gets enough extra tactical tricks to have a distinct edge in the "oooh, shiny" department. I don't think it would hurt the warblade to go back to d10, reduce the skill points and lose the weapon spec, and it would quell most of the arguements against the class. (BTW: our interpretation of the WB refresh is that you can make a flourish or restrict yourself to one, single attack in a round. Apparently some people read it differently, but that's how our group parses the rule.)

Crusaders are IMO better paladins than paladins, with good combat ability and some party-buff maneuvers. Crusaders trade the poke-horse and the ability to use wands of CLW for a bit more flair and party-boosting stuff.

Swordsages are...wonky. Their maneuver list is so big that its hard to know which variant of swordsage you mean. There's the "SLA" sage who can summon shadowy darkness, teleport, and throw fire, then you've got the "Shaolin-foot" sage that trips, throws, and juggles opponents. I'd probably toss out the Shadow discipline and have the sage replace the monk entirely if I were starting a new campaign.
 

Nifft

Penguin Herder
In my experience (as a DM building NPC foes for the PCs), I'm always drawn to the Warblade for its seeming power, but when I put together a Warblade NPC, I'm always bitten by multiple-ability dependency. The lack of heavy armor also really stinks. IMHO Warblade is perfectly balanced against Barbarian, and its recovery mechanism is NOT overpowered -- even if you allow it to work alongside a full attack -- because this guy is NOT optimized for full attacks! He's not supposed to stand there and take it, he's supposed to dish it out and keep moving. Int synergy is nice, but man oh man, your Will save will not be pretty. Take Iron Heart Surge a.s.a.p.. (Also, note that Warblades are NOT allowed to take the Martial Script feat, so everyone else has the ability to make "scrolls". Swordsages in particular should consider this feat, since they have such a wide selection of maneuvers.)

The Crusader's recovery mechanism is the best in the game, because it is free. His maneuver list is pretty good, particularly if he's with a group and is designed to support them with his aura-like stances. He gets heavy armor and a boost to Will saves, and his Delayed Damage pool plus Stone Power allows him to "heal" up to 10 hit points a round for free, in addition to his other curative stances & maneuvers. He's tougher than the Warblade, but less flashy.

The Swordsage has a good recovery mechanism if you use the WotC Adaptive Style ruling (that Adaptive Style refreshes as well as re-selects your readied maneuvers). Then Adaptive Style becomes the "Natural Spell" of that class. Oh well, one less feat choice, it's still a great class.

Those are my findings as an evil DM trying to break the NPCs that the party will face. So far, the most near-death experiences have come from Barbarians, not ToB:Bo9S foes. :)

Cheers, -- N
 

kaomera

Explorer
In the game I'm currently running, the Swordsage seems in no way overpowered, if not actually a bit underpowered. The real problem is the medium BAB and the fact that several of the maneuvers he has taken require a skill roll and then an attack roll, ie: two chances to roll low. He rarely gets hits in, but when he does (and the maneuver doesn't fizzle due to rolling low on the skill check) he can do quite a bit of damage, but then so can quite a few other characters in the group. The whip-wielding Favored Soul has actually been better at dealing damage, so far (on the 1 in 3 rounds when she's not casting Doom).

The Warblade is suffering from being run by a player who only ever rolls Fighters. He can't handle keeping track of his maneuvers or what they do, and has pretty much started just ignoring them. So, if he's not as effective in combat as the Fighter, it's not really saying much...
 

Rystil Arden

First Post
I performed substantial playtests using full-fledged Warblades and Swordsages, and they whipped the floor with all other comers (these were done alone and in groups against a variety of opponents).

But I do like the system and I had players interested in it as well, so I allowed a one-school Swordsage (as long as the one-school isn't White Raven---::shudder:: soooo broken ::shudder::). He wound up being a worshipper of Levistus who used a modified version of the Desert Wind school (modified to change all fire to ice). At level 15, he handily soloed a CR 18 Tulani Eladrin (his only aid being a Dimensional Anchor to keep it from fleeing), although he did have to use his once a day instant recovery after the eladrin used its once a day Heal. Also, in a fight against an Aspect of Mammon, he was not outshone by anyone except the crazy Iajutsu Master, and then only because of the first round's insane Iajutsu damage. Even the Shou Disciple who dual-wielded lightblades for eleven attacks per round (using the PHII feat that turns crits into Sneak Attacks to deliver 4d6 Sneak Attack on a substantial number of hits as well) was about on par, and the one-school Swordsage was significantly stronger than the Paladin of Freedom / Rogue / Spymaster, the Arcane Trickster, the modified Marshal (buffed to give her full BAB and a few other abilities, as Marshal is normally too weak), or the Monk.
 

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