Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[shilsen]

I guess it depends on the group. We're just in it for fun.

So are most people. It's just that your definition of fun isn't everybody else's, and (as Gargoyle pointed out above) unbalanced classes and games affect many people's enjoyment of the game.

 

[RigaMortus2]

A warblade with d8 HD, 2 skillpoints/level and 3/4 BAB would still be very very playable. (I'd say about right actually). That, in a nutshell, is the problem.

Mark

Not really, because they are meant to take damage. d8 hit points won't cut it. That's like saying a Monk should be the main damage soaker. 2 skillpoints/level won't cut it either because a lot of maneuvers rely on specific skills such as Tumble, Concentration, and Jump. The reason they get so many skill points is precisely for that reason. They put the skill points into the skills which maneuvers rely on. The 3/4 BAB I could go either way on. Since they are meant to be an "up front" fighter type, I see why they have full BAB.

 

[Andras]

You just made me cough! Sorcerer versus Warmage? Get out of town! Let's see a warmage turn invisible and fly.

My Halfling WarMage/Arcane Trickster could turn invisible and fly thank you.

Correct on the +100 damage thing. It's 9th lvl....*and* it uses up all your actions for the round. How much damage can an 18th lvl fighter reliably do in a round?
Banshee

I don't know about straight fighters, but my Barb12/Occultslayer5/F2 was doing 300-500 points a round with full attacks, and 240 points on the charge, not counting extra attacks from cleave/great cleave.

Of course, in the last battle of that group (this past Saturday) my contribution was rolling a 1 on the charge attack against the Balor. Fortunately, the Cleric miracled a Disintegrate and vaporized the Lich.

 

[RigaMortus2]

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.

If you really think this, then you've really been playing spellcasters a LOT differently than most folks here. Wizards/Sorcerers can not only deal the most damage with spells, they can deal it to mulitple opponents at once. Something a melee character has never been able to do (unless they took WWA, which is limited in use). Not only that, a Wizard/Sorcerer has several spells that make them BETTER melee combatants than Fighters or any other melee class. Maybe if you look at more than the Evocation school, you'll see what spells I am talking about.

If you just lump Wizards/Sorcerers into the "nuker" class, that is your own short-sightedness and only you are at fault of that. Get out of the EverQuest mentality and look up some spells other than Fireball and Meteor Swarm.

 

[Banshee16]

So, if one side is arguing that something's broken and another side is arguing that something's balanced, and you deem them both to have strong arguements, then the latter must be right? Please explain the rationale behind that implication.

I gotta ask you guys, if you're shopping for a home and you have it inspected by two separate professionals, and one tells you it's okay and the other says it's a deathtrap, is your default conclusion that the house is okay? Or how about reading wildly disparate movie reviews? Some negative review and some positive reviews tend to mean the movie's probably good?

I might get a third opinion. But I wouldn't necessarily place more weight on the argument of the guy who says it's a deathtrap than I do on the guy who gives it a good recommendation......I know that many people confuse shouting louder, and making more extreme statements with effectively arguing a position....especially on Internet message boards . That is not a specific statement about any single person, so much as a general observation from the various message boards

If *everyone* said something in the game is unbalanced, then yeah, I'd start to worry. But for everyone screaming that it's unbalanced, I'm finding someone else pointing out that there are reasons that maybe it's not so unbalanced afterall. The idea behind that decision being that there are people fighting both sides of the issue. And they're both bringing up valid points. So the answer must be somewhere in the middle. It's likely the abilities of the new martial adept classes are on the higher end of the power scale, but I doubt they're really "broken". Any class can be "broken" if a player sets the character up properly, or is lucky on the dice. I've had more character deaths or near character deaths from having the party fighter get dominated and turn against the other PCs than just about any other combination of events. Fighters are lethal characters...I think moreso than some of the people claiming "unbalanced" in this argument, are giving them credit for.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Brehobit - I'd love to hear how it goes with the swordsage in your game.

I'd also love to hear more of your thoughts about the warlock class (in another thread though). It's one that's always interested me, but one I've never seen played.

The warlock in our game was fairly powerful, in a straight-forward kind of way. In the end, not as powerful as the single-classed mage, but when he started combining his blasting with feats to allow him to hit multiple opponents etc. he was pretty dangerous. However, he *was* basically a one-trick pony, and I know that the player started getting tired of him before too long. He was being played from about lvls 8 to 11.

A class with a wide variety of things he could do, this was not.

Banshee

 

[Felon]

If you just lump Wizards/Sorcerers into the "nuker" class, that is your own short-sightedness and only you are at fault of that. Get out of the EverQuest mentality and look up some spells other than Fireball and Meteor Swarm.

EDIT--Retorting with insults like that only makes your position look all the more bankrupt.

 

[Felon]

Not really, because they are meant to take damage. d8 hit points won't cut it.

Ah, so by that logic, if WotC just designs a class called "uberblade", and say he's meant to do everything better than everyone, then that giving him a mear d12 hit dice, all good saves, full BAB, and 8 skill points per level might not "cut it". He might need some more compensation.

It's already been said, but if someone's goal is to reign in the warblade, and that conflicts with what the class is "meant to be", then change the meaning. As it stands, that really doesn't pose that great an obstacle, as there is really isn't much meaning to the warblade except that he is solely to the art of hacking and slashing things. He's both a brash front-line fighter and a sneaky skirmisher who gets extra damage when attacking a flanked or flat-footed opponent.

 

[Felon]

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...

Is it being suggested that a power-attacking barbarian with greater rage is such an impotent joke that he can just be ignored? Sorry, that's a tough sell.

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.

It wasn't all that great a strategem before (see above), except that the arcanists are the guys who'll have 60 hit points or so at a level where characters can suffer 60 hit points of damage even after a successful save. You go for the arcanists because they're the squishiest targets, not because keen holy greatswords hit like wet rags.

Now, we've got martial adepts that are as tough as any warrior class that's come before them, if not tougher, plus they do a ton more damage. Their gap that you perceive as being filled served a purpose, just as the hit-point gap and AC gaps between warriors and mages do. Give and no take.

But the whole "I'm better than you, but that means I draw more bad guy aggro" has always been a pretty weak sophism in gaming (q.v. those 1e cavaliers).

 

[Umbran]

Hello, folks. It seems to me that there's some butting of heads going on here, leading to rising tempers.

Please remember that in the end, you're talking about an enertainment. It is better to agree to disagree than to escalate into cheesing people off. Try to avoid making things personal - deal with the logic of positions, rather than the person or what you perceive to be the mindset of other posters. And thanks for helping keep this place pleasant for people to discuss things.