Critique my Warblade please

[Zurai]

And unless you have a means of triggering at least one AOO reliably, that's a fairly useless ability.

It's more useful than the AoO it replaces. I dunno about you, but I rarely seem short of AoO opportunities except when the fight starts at melee range in cramped quarters.

35 vs. 26.5 is a HUGE difference!

If you can hit with a full out power attack, it's a bit of a difference. Chances are, at level 5, you can't. Not reliably, anyway.

 

[Nail]

It's more useful than the AoO it replaces. I dunno about you, but I rarely seem short of AoO opportunities except when the fight starts at melee range in cramped quarters.

Huh.

That's not been the case for any of the games I run or play in.

Where do all of your AoOs come from? Spiked chain?

 

[Nail]

To the OP, FWIW:

In our current game, the Warblade's player has just done an outstanding job pumping his Concentration skill, and then using all of the manuevers that require it. At level 8 he's doing and easy 45 hp per attack from Insightful Strike, etc.

Another point: Consider multiclassing into Swordsage for a level or two. You can pick up ranged attacks (fan the flames, shadow garrote) as well as bucketloads of readied manuevers. If you take at least 8 levels of warblade before your swordsage level(s), those swordsage manuevers are all 3rd level.....

 

[castro3nw]

Well, I have to chip in that the 2 levels of fighter (or something else) are a good idea early on for that 3rd level stance instead of being stuck with 2 first level ones.

Otherwise, if you look in the MIC, in the item sets.. There's the gloves of endless javelins (maybe gauntlets) they're part of the manticore set, and make force javelins as a free action. Covers most of the issues... It's fairly cheap (7k-ish), makes throwing weapons (which you're proficient with), you can full attack with it, and it's a force effect (yay incorporeal thingies).

 

[Zurai]

If you're going to level 20 with this character, I'd strongly caution against multiclassing. Dual Stance is one of the strongest capstone abilities in the game.

 

[Mistwell]

It's more useful than the AoO it replaces. I dunno about you, but I rarely seem short of AoO opportunities except when the fight starts at melee range in cramped quarters.

Then we have different experiences. Unless I do something to make an AOO more likely, they almost never happen. It happens with reach weapons, and with some feats, and some tactics like tripping and such. But just straight melee combat? Almost never.

What I want to know is why are foes in your games moving away from melee range from you to attack someone else all the time, or moving past you?

If you can hit with a full out power attack, it's a bit of a difference. Chances are, at level 5, you can't. Not reliably, anyway.

See here is what I am not getting. At level ONE I am hitting for more damage than your 20th level character was hitting for before all that set-up, and I wasn't even trying very hard. 18 Str, two-handed weapon (greatsword), Punishing stance, and power attack. That's 7 for the greatsword, 6 for the strength, 3.5 for the stance, and 2 for the power attack, total 18.5 damage. Weapon Focus as the bonus human feat takes care of the missing attack bonus. AC is lower than it should be, but not as big a deal when you are dropping just about any first level challenge in one blow anyway. And I have not even used a maneuver, like the one that gives +4 to an attack at the expense of lost AC, or the one that lets you attack two opponants at onces.

 

[Mistwell]

To the OP, FWIW:

In our current game, the Warblade's player has just done an outstanding job pumping his Concentration skill, and then using all of the manuevers that require it. At level 8 he's doing and easy 45 hp per attack from Insightful Strike, etc.

Wow. Did he take that feat that lets you always take 10 on concentration checks?

 

[Zurai]

See here is what I am not getting. At level ONE I am hitting for more damage than your 20th level character was hitting for before all that set-up, and I wasn't even trying very hard.

Obviously you were missing the part where I was showing how a non-damage-optimized sword and board warblade can still kill a great wyrm red dragon in single combat in two rounds (and all the damage is dealt in one round). That was made to counter your position that unless you use a greatsword, you can't deal damage.

18 Str, two-handed weapon (greatsword), Punishing stance, and power attack. That's 7 for the greatsword, 6 for the strength, 3.5 for the stance, and 2 for the power attack, total 18.5 damage.

You also apparantly missed the point where I wasn't even in a stance in the example. Punishing Stance pushes the average damage up to 19, better than yours. If I was going to completely damage optimize him, he'd have a lot more than 22 strength (34, actually; he'd have 18 base, +5 from levels, +5 inherent, +6 enhancement), he'd be in Punishing Stance combined with Giant's Stance, and he'd be doing 27.5 average damage (2d6+1d6+17), before Power Attack.

But I wasn't going for damage-optimized. I was going intentionally for UNoptimized, so I could show that you don't need a greatsword to deal incredible damage with a warblade.

Once again: With a warblade, you do not need to use a two-handed weapon to deal great damage. Yes, using a greatsword increases your potential damage. That's a "duh" statement. You don't even remotely need one to deal good damage, though.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

My only critique is that all those stats, feats, and such really tell me nothing about what kind of character he's going to be. All form. No substance. But that's just me being all Role vs. Roll. YMMV. Feel free to ignore this.

 

[Nifft]

My only critique is that all those stats, feats, and such really tell me nothing about what kind of character he's going to be. All form. No substance. But that's just me being all Role vs. Roll. YMMV. Feel free to ignore this.

Well presumably he wouldn't ask in this forum if he needed help what that stuff.

Cheers, -- N