Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

[charlesatan]

I wonder why so many people quickly recommend the rapier, when there are other 18-20/x2 martial, one-handed weapons. Such as the scimitar! Unless piercing's your thing...

NilesB: I know the feeling. That ruling crept up on me too back when 3.5 first showed up (along with spells like Cloudkill, which actually became so-so even against say, the Ftr).

 

[NilesB]

I wonder why so many people quickly recommend the rapier, when there are other 18-20/x2 martial, one-handed weapons. Such as the scimitar! Unless piercing's your thing...

In this case it it because the rapier is a Diamond Mind form weapon and the character in question has a feat that privileges those weapons over others, and is a Diamond Mind specialist anyway.

 

[charlesatan]

In this case it it because the rapier is a Diamond Mind form weapon and the character in question has a feat that privileges those weapons over others, and is a Diamond Mind specialist anyway.

Ah.

Missed the Blade Meditation feat. Well, you are still missing out on 1/2 half your Str if using a rapier two-handed, unless you have an extreme belief you'll be rolling lots of 18's.

 

[prozacman]

just wanted to point out

the fighter has 11 bonus feats (to the warblades 4) that could all be spent to gain as many maneuvers as the warblade knows, except that they would all be readied maneuvers. Giving the fighter more options maneuver wise than the warblade has, except for the awesome recovery technique. This would still leave him with 7 feats to do with whatever he wants.

Advantage fighter. He's still what he's alway been, king of feats. And with the PHB2 and complete warrior, and even ToB he's actually a useful party member. Can he be outshined by other folks? of course, but he always has been. The cleric with divine metamagic beats the fighter hands down.. but thats not the issue, does the warblade make him useless? no, he was already as useless as he was gonna get. But a lot of the best feats in ToB are available as fighter feats, and they can make just as maneuvery as the WB, but with more feat versitility.

corollary: one could also take adaptive style to regain all their maneuvers with a fullround action, and use their remaining feats to gain 6 stances. Giving them more readied maneuvers than everyone but the swordsage, and more versitility in which maneuvers they can choose than everyone but a master of the nine. So a fighter that puts his mind to it could have more maneuvers readied than a warblade, and just as many stances. so to become the true master of maneuvers one looses out on a couple skill points and a handful of intelligence based abilities... and lets be honest, most fighters dump intelligence anyway.
I know the warblade gets feats too.. so a fighter could take only 6 maneuvers, adaptive style, and 6 stances, and still leave you with 5 feats to do with what you wish. Like i said, complete warrior, PHB2 and Tome of Battle do a lot to make the fighter usable.

 

[Videssian]

the fighter has 11 bonus feats (to the warblades 4) that could all be spent to gain as many maneuvers as the warblade knows, except that they would all be readied maneuvers. Giving the fighter more options maneuver wise than the warblade has, except for the awesome recovery technique. This would still leave him with 7 feats to do with whatever he wants.

Advantage fighter. He's still what he's alway been, king of feats. And with the PHB2 and complete warrior, and even ToB he's actually a useful party member. Can he be outshined by other folks? of course, but he always has been. The cleric with divine metamagic beats the fighter hands down.. but thats not the issue, does the warblade make him useless? no, he was already as useless as he was gonna get. But a lot of the best feats in ToB are available as fighter feats, and they can make just as maneuvery as the WB, but with more feat versitility.

corollary: one could also take adaptive style to regain all their maneuvers with a fullround action, and use their remaining feats to gain 6 stances. Giving them more readied maneuvers than everyone but the swordsage, and more versitility in which maneuvers they can choose than everyone but a master of the nine. So a fighter that puts his mind to it could have more maneuvers readied than a warblade, and just as many stances. so to become the true master of maneuvers one looses out on a couple skill points and a handful of intelligence based abilities... and lets be honest, most fighters dump intelligence anyway.
I know the warblade gets feats too.. so a fighter could take only 6 maneuvers, adaptive style, and 6 stances, and still leave you with 5 feats to do with what you wish. Like i said, complete warrior, PHB2 and Tome of Battle do a lot to make the fighter usable.

The flaw in your idea is that Martial Study can be taken a maximum of 3 times. However, I do note that Martial Stance does not have this restriction, so by taking a single level of Warblade, and spending 9 feats, a fighter could have 6 stances and 6 maneuvers... with the caveat that higher maneuvers or stances may require x maneuvers in a particular discipline, and, of course, the initiator level for fighters/rogues/etc. is only 1/2 that of warblades.

I do think that for most or all melee-based classes, taking a level in Warblade is an absolute no-brainer.

Oh, and btw Nail: if my current character dies again, expect me to test this hypothesis

 

[Nail]

Oh, and btw Nail: if my current character dies again, expect me to test this hypothesis

Spoiler

(Note to self: Only hit Videssian's PC with non-lethal damage.)

 

[Nail]

I do think that for most or all melee-based classes, taking a level in Warblade is an absolute no-brainer.

Is there any way to make that NOT the case? (Like remove the non-warblade class levels from the initator levels...)

...'cause as is: you're absolutely right. And with our house rule modifications to the Ftr, it's even worse.....

 

[Psion]

The warblade has more than enough class abilities and manuevers to overmatch the fighter's bonus feats.

I'm thinking d10 HD and NO access to fighter feats, and using the PHBII (with the high level fighter feats) would be the minimum to send the warblade on its way to being equitable.

 

[Slaved]

I do think that for most or all melee-based classes, taking a level in Warblade is an absolute no-brainer.

Unless there is an experience penalty or high level abilities that you want to get faster in your normal class?

I guess this is basically the same arguement that most or all melee based classes will multiclass with barbarian, ranger, and a couple levels of fighter as well. No brainers.

Melee classes multi class rather well though. I could definately see giving all of the melee classes an ability like weapon aptitude though, just as a base rule. It makes so many feats work better across different campaign styles it is amazing.

I wonder if I should add something similar as a potential houserule for rangers. Spend a few days training and switch over combat styles. Spend a few days training and change the bonuses on favored enemies. It is an incredibly innovative idea.

 

[Seeten]

Is there any way to make that NOT the case? (Like remove the non-warblade class levels from the initator levels...)

...'cause as is: you're absolutely right. And with our house rule modifications to the Ftr, it's even worse.....

From my reading of Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader, all three are way too top heavy. Further, it actually makes Warblade, SSwordsage, and Crusader worse for it, as they are forced to pick suboptimal level 1 stuff they dont want, because they have no choice.

Crusader gets 5 maneuvers at level 1, and 11 or 14 overall, at work, no books, but I think its 11 overall, it'd be easy to go with 2 maneuvers at 1, and spread the rest out more evenly. Warblade and Swordsage are similar. They need to have their frontload lessened and their staying power, ie, their level up goodies improved.