Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[Felon]

I think what is part of the issue is that it seems you feel party roles should be very clearly defined and that any crossover is not good. Tanks should be tanks. Healers should be healers. Blasters should be blasters. And so forth. But there are definitely parties where the tank wants to do more than just park in front of the mage and take hits. Tanks sometimes want the spotlight too (some see tanking as the "menial labor" of adventuring). )

Well, I've built my share of warriors, so I certainly empathize that warriros want to bring on the pain. However, warriors were fully capable of incapable inflicting major carnage before ToB. I certainly have done plenty of cleaving in my day.

So, I'm sufficiently secure in my role to not resent the wizard for outclassing me once it's time to blow the lid off. He sat back and let me do my thing quite a bit, tossing a crappy little magic missile or scorching ray here or there, while my greatsword routinely outdamages either on a typical swing. I've got the armor, and I've got the hit points. I'm rational enough to accept that a caster being the best at blowing stuff up doesn't emasculate the warrior by any stretch.

 

[Felon]

Why is everone so insistant that the moment a melee class deals damage, there isn't anything left for the spellcasters to do?

"I think you are the only one making that claim."

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to throw that little line back at you.

 

[Felon]

Also, why are we comparing just damage here? There are plenty of things casters can do that melee can't that have nothing to do with dealing damage. Why hasn't this been brought up and discussed yet? How is the +100 damage warblade going to do that damage to a flying, greater invis'd creature?

The bottom line is, wizards and sorcerers get the short end of the stick in so many areas--hit dice, skill points, BAB, armor class, supplemantary class features, et al--that in order to be a compelling character choice they warrant a major asset to call their own, namely nuking. Warriors have staying power, mages have firepower. That's always struck an easy balance. Now, if their role is rewritten so that they're not the primary damage dealer, but rather relegated to serve as "miscallaneous utility provider", then bump all of the aforementioned up and let them wield some martial weapons so that they'll have some staying power in combat. But that isn't the case.

I'll also point out (again), that a warblade that has a +100 damage attack also probably access to flight and anti-invisibility items. Most spells can be duped with wondrous items. Some items help compensate for low HP or low AC, but they don't come close to briding the gap.

 

[Question]

Im interested in the tome of battle but i dont think many DMs will allow the stuff in it......i can just see it now.........

Me : "Yea the warblade has a level 9 maneaveur, you do +100 damage with one attack."

DM : "Wtf no way!"

 

[Nail]

Stepping away from the +100 hp damage argument for a moment, and back to an earlier point:

Mike Mearls had some interesting musings on the WotC boards. I thought I would share...

I played in a campaign that went from 1st to 23rd, using (mostly) 3.5e. We had Fighters.....and they were never irrelevant. In fact, at high levels our fighter(s) became even more useful, not less.

It's all in how you play.

A "power-up" book for fighters is fine; but it should retain the concept of balance, as reflected in the core rules.

IMHO.

 

[Victim]

I think full BaB is pretty important for the way a warblade is supposed to fight - not to mention that they start to look like a swordsage with 3/4ths.

However, a d12 HD is pretty gratuitous; dropping to a d10 or even d8 might not be a problem. Losing some skill points also makes sense. Sure, warblades need some extra skills compared to fighters, but they also have INT influencing several of their abilities. They can sink those extra points into their skills, just like how wizards use their INT to make up for their 2 skill points and mandatory skills.

I'd expect a well built Warblade to be pretty brutal, especially if based around Time Stands Still. I wouldn't expect them to be too far behind a well built fighter type in terms of full attack damage, so dropping 2 full attacks in one action would be nasty. I seem to recall warblades being able to get the top manuevers from two discs by level 20, so that could lead to a vicious cycle of the +100 move (can't recall the name) on the approach, Time Stands Still on the full attack, and then a recharge as the character finishes off that foe or sets up for the next sequence. The Diamond Mind discipline is loaded with counters, so the character could be using his other available moves while using his heavy hitters, or another nice attack manuever (depending on the situation) could lengthen the sequence.

 

[Thanatos]

Now, if their role is rewritten so that they're not the primary damage dealer, but rather relegated to serve as "miscallaneous utility provider", then bump all of the aforementioned up and let them wield some martial weapons so that they'll have some staying power in combat. But that isn't the case.

Their role isn't being re-written, just the gap narrowed. The sorcerer is still going to be a magical cannon, the wizard will still be ranged firepower/utility. Now the bad guys are going to be in qunadry...before, they could ingore the melee to go kill the casters, now to ignore the melee means incredible peril...who to take out first? In every game I've played or DM'ed, I go for the spellcasters first -- they are the real threat, not the melee. Take out burst, aoe and healing and then deal with melee. That paradigm isn't written in stone now.

I'll also point out (again), that a warblade that has a +100 damage attack also probably access to flight and anti-invisibility items. Most spells can be duped with wondrous items. Some items help compensate for low HP or low AC, but they don't come close to briding the gap.

And the wizard probably has Dispel Magic and Disjunction that will neatly take care of these issues so that brings us around full circle again.

Question -- so then I guess Power Word: Kill is out for your wizard, since it does 100 damage as well -- its an ability not gotten till 17th level, just like the wizard spell. Of course, it can't be used at range like the spell can.

Nail -- and thats the whole debate thing here...some of us think it is balanced, some of us think it is broken.

 

[Urbanmech]

I don't know why everyone is up in arms about the Adepts, the maneuvers help bring the marital classes up to some of the abilities of a spellcaster. As D&D currently stands fighters require quite a lot of magic to stay competive with the spellcasters and monsters you encounter at higher levels. So what if the Warblade can deal +100 damage every other round on 1 attack. At the same time a Sorcerer could Time Stop and drop successive delayed blast fireballs dealing massive damage to everyone in the area.

The Warblade has high hit points because it has to be in the thick of things to deal damage. A wizard can be shapechanged into some flying/incorporeal etc form and drop death from 400'+ away, or just Forcecage the Adept and be done with it. Spellcasters I've seen at higher levels usually do a lot better using debilitating spells and then letting the melee folks pound the snot out of the enemies. Hell even at lower levels Glitterdust is a fight ender, blind enemies tend to be pretty easy to kill.

 

[Victim]

The bottom line is, wizards and sorcerers get the short end of the stick in so many areas--hit dice, skill points, BAB, armor class, supplemantary class features, et al--that in order to be a compelling character choice they warrant a major asset to call their own, namely nuking. Warriors have staying power, mages have firepower. That's always struck an easy balance. Now, if their role is rewritten so that they're not the primary damage dealer, but rather relegated to serve as "miscallaneous utility provider", then bump all of the aforementioned up and let them wield some martial weapons so that they'll have some staying power in combat. But that isn't the case.

I tend to see the main advantage of arcane spellcasting as the ability to attack the weak points of an encounter. Someimes, such as when the party is confronted with large numbers of weak guys, nukes are the way to hit the weak spot. But other encounters may demand different solutions. Trolls deprived of their claw/claw/bite/rend attack combo via Slow aren't so tough. Crippling a big bad melee type with an Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement is nice. And then there's battlefield control stuff.

A wizard could find an exploitable weakness in pretty much anything. Fighters or warblades would have to do ALOT more damage to render a caster's multitude of attack modes irrelevant.

 

[SteveC]

After wading my way through this thread, here's my question: has anyone actually had a character from this book in play? There are a lot of different character options that seem to be either too powerful or too restrictive, but when you see them in play, they work out just fine.

I'd like to hear some actual examples rather than just rehashing "100 HPs! OMG" and "here's how my fighter can do the same thing..." comments.

Anyone?

--Steve