DarkJester said:
Has anyone ran a crusader in a game, or had a player run one?
A repost from another forum:
I just tried out a 12th-level crusader yesterday in a short hack and slash dragonhunt.
I found the class surprisingly fun. Surprisinly, because at first glance, I found it the least appealing of the three. I like LotR, I like wuxia, but mostly I like my genres separate, so a full-plated religious knight yelling out "IRRESISTIBLE MOUNTAIN HAMMER!!1!" didn't appeal nearly as much as a bouncy, monkish, lightly armoured type doing the same.
But the crusader is very cool.
The bonus-granting delayed damage pool is a bit of a pain to track, but it's a fun mechanic. It really encourages fanatic behaviour. Need someone to eat the AoO from the dragon? Someone needs to do it, so why not the crusader who'll get bonuses from it? Tempted to cast fireball, but the crusader's in the way? Sure, go ahead, he'll get bonuses from it.
It also saved my bacon, coupled with the house rule that you die at -(10 + Con modifier) rather than -10: I had 106 hp and had taken 126 hp damage that round. 20 went to the delayed damage pool, so I was left at 0. I used Stone Power (take penalty to attack to get temporary hp) to give myself 10 temporary hp (I was all out of healing strikes!) and White Raven Tactics to have the cleric go right after me. So at the end of my turn, I was at exactly -10 and standing (thanks to Diehard, which the crusader gets as a bonus) before the cleric cast heal and brought me back to 100 hp.
White Raven Tactics (the one that lets an ally go right after you in initiative as a swift action) was the one that drew the most "WTF!?"s. The smite + Divine surge for 66 damage (the best attack I could do) was met with "hey, cool" but after all, that's about what the barbarian does on a good round. But having a spellcaster go twice before the enemy get his turn... But checking it again, I might have been abusing it a bit. The range is only 10 ft., so I think I might have bad people go after me when they were out of rage.
Something I found interesting is that, unlike many Desert Wind and Shadow Hand maneuvers, the Devoted Spirit maneuvers don't seem to be supernatural. Pretty cinematic: someone is badly hurt (perhaps even dying), and as the crusader smacks and enemy and yells "don't give in, we've got him, hang in there!", the hurt guy gets a second wind (say, 3d6+10 hp from Revitalizing Strike). Not magic, just pure badassitude.
OTOH, based purely on the flavour text, I really don't see how Radiant Charge is anything but supernatural: "You gather the power of your faith and discipline, surrounding yourself in an aura of blinding glory."
I must note that, despite all the threads on ENWorld and elsewhere, the warblade didn't seem to be much better than the crusader. They can both probably make the fighter wonder if he's really up to the task, but they seemed about equal to me, with the warblade better at simply beating the stuffing out of people, but the crusader remarkably hard to put down. Of course, my experience is limited, so take this for what it's worth.
The random mechanic of gaining maneuvers seems pretty limited to what they can do.
I didn't like it until I tried it, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised.
At 12th level and with Extra Readied Maneuver, I had 6 maneuvers readied and 4 of them granted at the beginning of each fight. Not really that limiting, but it adds an element of uncertainty which means you can't just think up of a good tactic and then go on autopilot.
But between the delayed damage pool and the random maneuvers, probably least appropriate for beginners, of the ToB three.
Also, probably not really a good substitute for a cleric. In theory, they're an unlimited source of healing, but you have to be fighting actual dangerous opponents to be able to heal, and the randomness means you cannot depend on a maneuver being available when you want it.
