Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[Felon]

There is nothing, to me, intrinsically undesirable about Street Fighter style high damage output melee characters, and I think the Nine Swords classes can and should be considered on their own terms, and can and probably are roughly balanced (but perhaps could be balanced better, hard to say at this point).

To be balanced, there has to be give and take. It doesn't have to be in perfectly equal proportions, but there has to be some. A warblade has enormous damage output, constant damage output, and is as much of a meat shield as any warrior that ever shrugged off a meteor swarm. Takes and takes, but never gives.

 

[Felon]

Except they can instantly kill people with certain spells w/o having to make a "to hit" roll.

Spell penetration is effectively an attack roll for casters. They just don't get to add an ability modifier to the roll (or much of anything else besides their caster level). And as a wizard approaches higher levels, he finds that damn near everything worth tossing a save-or-die at has SR.

 

[pawsplay]

How do you differentiate someone moving his or her sword in a predetermined manner and a huge explosion of fire erupting(Maneuver) from someone who moves his or her sword in a predetermined manner and casting a spell to cause a huge explosion of fire(Spellsword)?

One of them yells "Hadoken!"

 

[pawsplay]

To be balanced, there has to be give and take. It doesn't have to be in perfectly equal proportions, but there has to be some. A warblade has enormous damage output, constant damage output, and is as much of a meat shield as any warrior that ever shrugged off a meteor swarm. Takes and takes, but never gives.

I believe we have established they don't have anything like a fighter's feat progression, right?

 

[daemonslye]

I like grim axe-wielding dwarfs, not battle maidens shooting fifty feet through the air and slicing granite blocks in half.

*high-five*

 

[Banshee16]

I liked the way it looked, but I hate the "Let's add kung-fu, videogame-ish maneuvers to D&D" stuff. I like anime and videogames as much as the next geek, but I think it's corny to have it in a D&D game. That and my group frowns on me using whatever the latest splatbook is because they think it's overpowered (translation: They choose not to use it, so if I do I'm the powergaming bad guy)

Just for the record, the maneuvers that add +100 damage is a 9th level one, so that's what, 17th level? At that level, you should be able to do that kind of damage.

I recommend reading the novel "Cartomancy" by Michael Stackpole. It has a regular fantasy world, with warriors very similar in nature to the swordsage or warblade, and it seems to work.

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

 

[Banshee16]

Until the Spell Compendium came out, wizards also had to stuff their bags--and even after that, there's now the PHB II.

Question about this statement, Felon....what's so special about Spell Compendium? does it have much in the way of magic that's new? Or is it all stuff recycled from other books? If it's all recycled, I've probably got a lot of it already...but if there's new magic, maybe it's worth taking a look at..

Banshee

 

[pawsplay]

How much damage can an 18th lvl fighter reliably do in a round?

I don't have the PHB II, but here goes. Feel free to comment on his equipment choices. I will try to be conservative but well-tuned.

I'm assuming an enemy AC of 35 or so. He has +18 BAB, a Str effectively of around 24 or so (+6), a +4 flaming burst longsword, and numerous feats, including weapon focus (longsword) and weapon specialization (longsword). His to hit is around +30 or so before buffs. Assuming he takes -5 to hit with a power attack, his damage is 1d10+17+1d6 (avg 28), and on a crit, 1d10+34+1d6+1d10 (avg 48.5). With Improved critical, his threat range is 17-20, or 20% of his rolls. I'm going to assume he confirms, either because of Power Critical or oil of bless weapon or somesuch.

His first attack is about even odds to hit, his second has about one in four, and his third and fourth hit only on a 20 but always threaten. So his main attack averages 14 damage, with even odds to threaten, so average 21 points. His next attack is about half that, so we're at 30 points. His remaining attacks add just about five each on average.

So for a relatively vanilla longsword specialist fighting one-handed, we're looking at nearly 40 points a round of damage per full attack. Using a two-handed weapon could likely take that through the roof.

It would appear to me that +100 damage wins, but only just.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Spell penetration is effectively an attack roll for casters. They just don't get to add an ability modifier to the roll (or much of anything else besides their caster level). And as a wizard approaches higher levels, he finds that damn near everything worth tossing a save-or-die at has SR.

Not everything has Spell Resistance. However, everything DOES have an Armor Class you need to hit. There are also ways to get around SR (just as there are ways to get around AC, such as touch attacks).

Certainly there are ways to boost up saves, just as there are ways to boost up AC and Damage Reduction. It is give and take.

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?

 

[RigaMortus2]

Hehe. Personally, I find all of the fallacies being tossed around to be pretty outrageous, and that's hard to conceal. I thought party roles were well-understood. Some guys have a defensive role, some an offensive, and some support the two in some fashion. But now I hear that's not the case; anybody who doesn't do as much damage as everybody else is underpowered, period. The side of beef with the d12 hit die and high AC should be on par for damage with the wimp who gets a d4. Anything less is an injustice.

I think you are the only one making that claim.

Then I read Mike Mearls absurd quote expressing his pleasure that ToB has received unanimous praise,

Weird, I don't remember him saying it was unanimously praised? Just that they got mostly good feedback from it. Embelish a little do we?

and giving it a big fat pat on the back because all that praise confirms some half-baked notion that warriors need a boost.

Compared to spellcasters (as he put it) they did. How can you dispute that? Higher level base "warrior" classes (Fighter/Barb/Monk/Paladin/Ranger) are out damaged, out shined and out played by casters of the same level (again, talking high levels here).

He cites as an example a 2WF fighter build that won't get better no matter how many feats he layers on. Which is damned odd, because there are a number of feats that improve 2WF builds. A fighter could keep tacking'em on darn near forever. Yes, you need more books. How's that special? Until the Spell Compendium came out, wizards also had to stuff their bags--and even after that, there's now the PHB II.

He goes into a little more detail then that. From what I read, he mostly compares the fighter, whose class feature is bonus feats. And (most) feats don't get better no matter what level you attain them. Most of them do not scale as you level. The new system in ToB makes it so you have abilities that do scale. And suddenly the TWF has a lot more options open to them than TWF, ITWF, and GTWF.

I think the arguement at this point is SHOULD a level 18 melee class be on par (in terms of damage and area-effect damage) as a caster of the same level? And we can't even compare non-damage (utility) abilities of the martial adepts vs. casters as they really don't get any (Shadow Jaunt/Stride/Blink are the only ones I can think of off hand). So the casters STILL surpass meleer's in this category (as well they should).