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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faerl'Elghinn" data-source="post: 3339907" data-attributes="member: 17810">At first glance, it seems overpowered (especially the Warblade and Bloodstorm Blade).  Then again, so did the EPH to a lot of people--a sentiment from which I personally have yet to be dissuaded.  Number of available spells/powers per day aside, the sheer amount of damage a Psion, Metamind, Psychic Warrior, or Warmind (especially high-level Kineticist/Metaminds and Psy War 1 [for Knowledge Psionics]/Ftr 4/Warmind 10's) can deal in a single round compared to characters of other classes at their levels is absurd, IMO.  Although they may "burn out" faster than other classes, parties in which I've participated have generally forgone the "four encounters per day" guideline in favor of the "I need to rest now" strategy, thus essentially negating the aforementioned drawback.In contrast to psionic characters, Warblades can continue to beat the holy living crap out of their opponents until the cows come home, slaughter a few of them for dinner, and proceed to kick some more butt.  However, I think that a major balancing factor of the class is the draw of the White Raven discipline and its capacity to seriously boost the other characters while doing relatively little for the Warblabe him or herself.  Perhaps a method of balancing the class a bit would be to rule that strikes from each discipline can only be executed with one of that discipline's favored weapons.  That would make the optimal (IMO) combination of Major Diamond Mind/Major Iron Heart/Minor White Raven a bit more difficult to pull off, although the Quick Draw feat could pretty much put things right back where they started.In practice, I have found my gut reaction to hold true with the BoNS.  I've had a couple of PC Warblades--one in an Eberron campaign with 2 other PCs and one in a gestalt solo campaign combined with Warmage--and even at low levels, they seem to be significantly more powerful than characters of other classes.  However, I generally consider this to be a boon IMC because it tends to draw players away from the cookie-cutters and gets them to start making tentacled paper dolls.  I have no problem with scaling relative power/challenge levels on the fly to balance a campaign, and I generally enjoy powerful, high-fantasy campaigns more than the alternative.Is it overpowered?  IME, in some ways, absolutely.  Is this a problem?  That depends on the playgroup.  Personally, I don't see a real problem with the power levels of either the Crusader or the Swordsage, and although the Warblade is awfully powerful, I just find it too darned cool to disallow completely.</blockquote>

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