Book of 9 Swords: One discipline Only?

[Seeten]

Even after I excised the problem abilities, multidiscipline characters were problematic in playtest. Note that I did playtest highly-optimised initiators when I used my normal crew as a baseline because my normal crew is also highly-optimised. However, I can confidently state that a White-Raven-only Warblade with the correct nerfs is not too noticably overpowered and actually makes the game more fun for the whole party, despite the big hullabaloo about the Warblade (notably, the class is noticably overpowered in my playtest with all the Warblade disciplines from which to choose).

I did not playtest vanilla initiators because I do not have a good baseline party on which to test that arose from real play.

Warblades are too good against vanilla fighters, in my opinion. Of course, were I to start a game tomorrow, I would not have both the Fighter and the Warblade base class to choose from. I'd sub in Crusaders for Paladins, Warblades for Fighters, and I'd add Swordsages straight up. I like multiclassing Swordsage with Monk so much, I'm keeping both.

What does this do for balance? It keeps everything closer to Sorcerer/Wizard/Cleric/Druid balance, instead of having wild balance swings between fighters and clerics. Warblades and Clerics arent worlds apart, and I appreciate that.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Warblades are too good against vanilla fighters, in my opinion. Of course, were I to start a game tomorrow, I would not have both the Fighter and the Warblade base class to choose from. I'd sub in Crusaders for Paladins, Warblades for Fighters, and I'd add Swordsages straight up. I like multiclassing Swordsage with Monk so much, I'm keeping both.

What does this do for balance? It keeps everything closer to Sorcerer/Wizard/Cleric/Druid balance, instead of having wild balance swings between fighters and clerics. Warblades and Clerics arent worlds apart, and I appreciate that.

I personally would avoid Crusaders who have the Healing school due to not wanting to get into an argument over what constitutes a "threat".

Another interesting playtest I ran was initiators vs. gestalt characters. Unless the gestalts did something ridiculous/illegal for gestalt (like taking LA up one side or something), the initiators were on par in the ballpark of the others (more powerful than some gestalts, less powerful than others).

If I was playing an even-more-high-powered game than usual, I'd probably throw in Swordsages and Warblades and Crusaders and remove Fighter and Paladins as well.

 

[Seeten]

Actual gameplay evidence of mine, anecdotal as it is, shows that warblades, swordsages and crusaders do not overwhelm gameplay. Most of this evidence involves me actually playing said characters, and I might get twinky, but not outrageously so, so I am just not sure how you came up with these conclusions. I have seen some Druids and Clerics that are WAY better than Gestalts not involving the same OP combos, though, so I am not sure what your evidence proves.

Fr. Ex, a Divine Metamagic'd Cleric with constant buffs running is WAY better than a Rogue/Swashbuckler. So I don't know what to make of that testing.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Actual gameplay evidence of mine, anecdotal as it is, shows that warblades, swordsages and crusaders do not overwhelm gameplay. Most of this evidence involves me actually playing said characters, and I might get twinky, but not outrageously so, so I am just not sure how you came up with these conclusions. I have seen some Druids and Clerics that are WAY better than Gestalts not involving the same OP combos, though, so I am not sure what your evidence proves.

Fr. Ex, a Divine Metamagic'd Cleric with constant buffs running is WAY better than a Rogue/Swashbuckler. So I don't know what to make of that testing.

Oh, for sure a Divine Metamagic Cleric will outplay just about anything--in fact, that may be one of the only combos that legitimately does outdamage the maxed-for-Concentration Swordsage at level 5 (its the only one I can think of at the moment--you Divine Metamagic Twin your best third level attack spell).

Divine Metamagic is one of the few things, along with Wraithstrike, that I instabanned after playtest.

 

[Mort]

Oh, for sure a Divine Metamagic Cleric will outplay just about anything--in fact, that may be one of the only combos that legitimately does outdamage the maxed-for-Concentration Swordsage at level 5 (its the only one I can think of at the moment--you Divine Metamagic Twin your best third level attack spell).

Divine Metamagic is one of the few things, along with Wraithstrike, that I instabanned after playtest.

In the last adventure I ran, a duskblade "kept up" with the Bo9S classes just fine. If a duskblade can do it so can a a halfway decenty designed fighter/mage, and if they can do it so can a druid, cleric, mage etc.
Further, since you are using Bo9S it's only fair to allow fighters feats from PHB II, complete warrior, etc. - and with those feats they can quite handily keep up with sword adepts (same goes for Paladin, Barbarian or Ranger). Or you could just replace the fighter classes with sword adepts - this works too and the spellcasting classes keep up just fine.

 

[jasin]

Warblades are too good against vanilla fighters, in my opinion.

Everyone is too good against vanilla fighters.

Against fighters with access to PHB2 feats, and the warblade's weapon aptitude ability, I think warblades (without the weapon aptitude ability, they have other feats to take anyway) are just right.