Book of Nine Swords (a second look)

[BryonD]

In my view... the HD increase and skilll points matches to the barbarian, who also wears medium armor,

I really can't see how extra HP and SP are worth no more than losing heavy armor.
As has been pointed out numerous times before, it could easily be argued that just gaining the tumble skill and an extra SP to spend on it cancels out the heavy armor loss right there.
This is even more true if one considers the numerous fighter builds that do not rely on heavy armor at all, showing that this "limitation" can be built around completely with effectievl;y no cost whatsoever.
Further, some barbarian class abiltities are lost if a fighter/barbarian wears heavy armor. This is not true of a fighter/WB. One level of fighter gets a bonus feat, makes the whole armor (and ranged weapons) thing go away and still gets all the WB perks for all the other levels.
And it does not make sense to compare one class to cherry-picked pieces of other classes and try to say the whole package is therefore ok.

and feats versus maneuvers is roughly equivalent (obviously, some maneuvers outshine any feat, but then, many feats are more generally useful, so this is a niche difference). The bonus feats do seem like cheating, but for the most part, they aren't very good feats.

I agree that the manuevers and stances are a wash against the feats.
Actually, I think the feats come up a bit short on this, but it is close enough.
Which gets to the bottom line really fast: this one class feature cancels out the fighter bonus feats completely and the remaining points to compare are overwhelmingly in favor of the WB.

The one mark against the warblade is its limited repertoire; weak selection versus other MAs, with a refresh that would be great for a swordsage but can hurt a warblade (since they are likely to be from time to time stuck with a maneuver they don't want to use).

You are calling the WB refresh a weakness?
Heck, I've seen several other claim the WB is balanced and yet admit the the refresh is just to good.
It is the easist refresh of any of the three classes.
And I'm confident that a little testing will show that getting "stuck" with a manuever they don't want is just not a problem that WBs have. They may only have a max of 13 known, but at every level they either gaina new one or drop a lower level one for a higher level one. So nearly all of their manuevers end up being worthwhile. With the 5 min change of selection and free recovery with a standard attack, they are always ready to go.

Purely from a balance standpoint, the warblade should be stuck with d10s, but that would create an unfortunate glass cannon situation. Simply killing the feats would be a nice gesture to the fighter, but would actually strip some flavor while not affecting power very much.

I don't see how d10s and medium armor is a glass cannon.

I think, compared to the fighter, they are roughly niche balanced. In absolute terms, the warblade seems to have an edge. However, a fighter can be very deep in feats the way a warblade simply can't. And only so many maneuvers are applicable or available in any given situation. There is a very real possibility that a party with a warblade with its main tank could find itself saying, "Hm, someone with Combat Reflexes and Stand Still would really come in handy about now." So while I think the warblade is touch overpowered, I don't think it's egregious.

You are giving the feats every possible benefit in this final assessment and completely ignoring the manuevers and stances.
Also, you can custom force a scenario where a specificed fighter will shine. That says nothing regarding the relative long term potency of the two classes.
The WB gets WAY deeper into feats than the fighter gets into manuevers.

 

[pawsplay]

And it does not make sense to compare one class to cherry-picked pieces of other classes and try to say the whole package is therefore ok.


I agree, and yet I do not agree with your overall assessments. Perhaps before you remove the cherry from my eye, you should remove the cherry from your own.

Heck, I've seen several other claim the WB is balanced and yet admit the the refresh is just to good.

I've seen bard called a "weak class," too. So what? It's the Internet. Somene somewhere will claim anything.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I claim Manifest Destiny!

--fje

 

[BryonD]

I agree, and yet I do not agree with your overall assessments. Perhaps before you remove the cherry from my eye, you should remove the cherry from your own.

ok...... :\

Seems yet another example of "let's ignore the statements made and just make a blanket declaration" from the not overpowered side.

I've seen bard called a "weak class," too. So what? It's the Internet. Somene somewhere will claim anything.

Agreed there.
I seen much worse classes than this from 3rd party sources called "balanced". So I guess I should learn.


Edit: And since a MOD requested the power level debate end in the other thread, I'm going to let it drop for a few days here as well.