Book of NineSwords

[Slaved]

Man, the power of the human mind to conjure up rationalizations....

Martial maneuvers are different from warlocks, incarnum classes, binders, and other "unlimited use" classes in one big way: maneuvers are really fricking powerful. They're on the magnitude of spells without the expendability. That's kinda broken.

It is powerful. From your second paragraph it looks like you are human.

Assuming a)the dm doesn't tell the cleric where to stick his metamagicked persitnt spell, b)pull out the faq with the bit about not being able to metamagic a spell over the maximum spell level the cleric can cast, c)send wave after wave of undead at the cleric whilst cackling what, you haven't got any turns left?, d)just dispell it...
Sure there are uber feat combos out there, but if not everybody has access to them (or wants to think up beardier combinations), it can just unbalance the party and spoil some people's fun. It might be possible that some of the players might not have the most optimal feat choices, but that's not the same as saying the swordsage wasn't overly dominant in the game.
I've seen a dwarven warblade in play from levels 3-8 in conjunction with a fighter/barbarian going down combat brute/shock trooper/combat brute/power attack route, a straight barbarian with a goliath great hammer, and a (rather pathetic) paladin going down a more defensive shield spec route. Although the fighter and barbarian were capable of dishing out more damage, we found that the warblade would hit more often because not dependent on pa, did prety respectable damage thanks to strikes, could stack his ac prety well due to stances (and spending a feat on hvy armour), automatically ignore some persistant spell effects thanks to a manoevre i cant remember the name of, and take lots of damage, all whilst tumbling around in full plate.
I wouldn't say that warblades are broken, but they can be far more versatile than the fighters and other front liners they are meant to compete against. bo9s is great, but i'm not sure i like the way it can overshadow the archetypal fighter class.

I am not sure what any of this has to do with what I said.

The cleric in the group was already using divine metamagic, that was part of the previous post. Once that is in there many things that a character can do with it that are incredibly powerful. I just do not see how the swordsage is going to hold a candle to the power of a cleric using divine metamagic.

That was why I said that the builds would have to be put up and the players tendencies would have to be examined to see why, how, and when the swordsage was apparently able to outperform those other classes.

 

[brehobit]

The swordsage was more powerful than a 7th level cleric with divine metamagic? If he was using persistant spell then at level 7 he could have a persistant divine power which gives him full base attack bonus, a +6 enhancement bonus to strength, and 7 temporary hit points plus the other things that clerics give you.

House rule: no persistent spell DMM above your caster level (so per FAQ but only for this one). All others welcome. He had empower and was working toward quicken I think. He would have had it by 9th level I believe.

Yes, of course the builds matter, but my point was that in the one game I've allowed Bo9S and the two I've played in, the characters were the most powerful in the party. One person has played them all three times. And while his characters tend to be pretty well optimized, he's not the best optimizer in the group. (his characters tend to have fairly serious disadvantages to get the effects he's looking for).

Is a cleric more powerful in a fight? I'd have to say no, at least at lower levels. Is a cleric more generally handy (detect magic, etc.), sure. But comparing warrior classes to the Bo9S classes I don't even see where one can claim they are close in power. At least at lower levels.



Mark

 

[Slaved]

But comparing warrior classes to the Bo9S classes I don't even see where one can claim they are close in power. At least at lower levels.

Apparently it can be done quite easily.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

the warblade can do damage, the barbarian can do more damage, but the warblade can also do stuff. some people don't like it when warrior classes do stuff.

 

[pressedcat]

Sorry slaved, caught me in a mood last night and was just letting off a bit of steam.

I've not seen the swordsage or crusader in action, so wouldn't be able to compare them to all the other classes. I would argue, however, that at lower levels the warblade in our party compared very favourably to the three other frontliners in our group, and pound for pound would have been the one frontliner we would have kept in a party of the key four (arcane caster, divine caster, rogue and frontline fighter).

I like it when warriors can do stuff, i just dont like when certain types of warriors seem to be able to match all the other classes fairly well at what they do best (resilliency, damage output, ac, manouverability), whilst also being able to do this extra stuff.

Admittedly this is all at lower levels (<10), but our party spends most of our gaming at these lower levels

 

[AllisterH]

On the WOTC boards, we're running a "gauntlet". Basically, one on one duels against a creature of the same CR (for example, at level 1, in a duel we faced a CR 1 creature).

Naturally, this is a horrendous example to use in a way to judge class ability/effectiveness but it doesn't seem like the martial adepts are doing the best in terms of damage. This is pretty much the domain of the barbarian.

"Rage, Charge, Power Attack" at low levels pretty much will wipe out anything at levels 1-2 whereas my swordsage had an incredible hard time until level 3 just hitting creatures....

I'm kinda surprised that people insist that swordsages are the best at low levels since pretty much swordsages have the same issues as monks when it comes to ability score demands.

 

[SteveC]

Yep. It's funny there are still folks out there asserting otherwise.

And yet, through reading the paragraph in the rulebook, it is perfectly easy to do so. I find it extremely amusing that the people who are the loudest about how the Bo9S classes are broken are also the ones who like to read the rules in such a way to make them as powerful as possible. Just a thought, but if you can read a rule in such a way that makes a powerful class too powerful in your eyes, or you can read it a way that seems to restrict it, maybe it might be a good idea to choose the latter.

Just my $.02,

--Steve

 

[brehobit]

I'm kinda surprised that people insist that swordsages are the best at low levels since pretty much swordsages have the same issues as monks when it comes to ability score demands.

The ability to wear armor means swordsages don't need wisdom as badly as a monk. That +4 bonus to AC is mighty handy; monks don't close that gap until level 20.

 

[brehobit]

And yet, through reading the paragraph in the rulebook, it is perfectly easy to do so. I find it extremely amusing that the people who are the loudest about how the Bo9S classes are broken are also the ones who like to read the rules in such a way to make them as powerful as possible. Just a thought, but if you can read a rule in such a way that makes a powerful class too powerful in your eyes, or you can read it a way that seems to restrict it, maybe it might be a good idea to choose the latter.

Just my $.02,

--Steve

Which rules are you looking at?

The biggy is the adaptive stance thing which _needs_ to be nerfed for swordsages. I don't really see much else that's unclear in the Bo9S. (And I don't think that's unclear, just poorly thought out.)

Mark

 

[Felon]

And yet, through reading the paragraph in the rulebook, it is perfectly easy to do so. I find it extremely amusing that the people who are the loudest about how the Bo9S classes are broken are also the ones who like to read the rules in such a way to make them as powerful as possible. Just a thought, but if you can read a rule in such a way that makes a powerful class too powerful in your eyes, or you can read it a way that seems to restrict it, maybe it might be a good idea to choose the latter.

Well, as long as you're amused, it's all worthwhile.

What you see as a contradiction is in fact a correlation. The people who cite abuse potential tend to be those who are good at spotting it in the language of the rules. Conversely, those who tend to dismiss the notion of abuse potential tend not to be so discriminating.

In this case, there's nothing up for grabs. As long as the reader doesn't just breeze through the section with some assumed notion of reasonable limitations, it's plain to see that a warblade can recover maneuvers at no cost while attacking.