My first chance at playing a warblade

[Stalker0]

My group decided to try a one shot last session, so I got to play a warblade for the 1st time. We were 6th level, I was human, and happen to roll amazing stats for 3d6 (17 str and 18 int). These seemed perfect stats for a warblade, so off I went.

In general I enjoyed the class. I had a nice array of skills, and I got to use both my int bonus to reflex and int bonus to confirm criticals ability (however, one time I got hit by a fireball from ambush, so the fact that you only get the bonus when your not flatfooted is a big deal).

As to the maneuvers, I was actually a bit disappointed. Perhaps it was the manuevers I picked, but I wasn't thrilled by them. It wasn't the power, I felt like they had plenty of kick, they were just repetitive. I had 6 maneuvers total, and 4 known at a time. Since I get them back every encounter, I would open up every combat with my big 3rd level manuevers and just go from there. Every combat, same manuevers.

As to the balance of the class I will stick to my original opinion, they are better than other fighter classes, but they work fine if those are the fighter classes you are using.

 

[gamecat]

Given that a Warblade recovers his manuevers with an attack action, I always found battleaxing my way in with the big ones and finding a full attack, rinse-repeat, to be extremely satisfying.

That said, what manuevers did you pick?

 

[Felnar]

was the repetitiveness that far off from being a fighter or barbarian?

 

[Zurai]

was the repetitiveness that far off from being a fighter or barbarian?

Yeah, it's really hard to imagine being more repetitive than "On the first round of combat, I charge. Every round after that, I full attack.".

 

[shilsen]

Yeah, it's really hard to imagine being more repetitive than "On the first round of combat, I charge. Every round after that, I full attack.".

That was precisely my thought, as Felnar also noted. I'm currently running a multiclassed Crusader in a tabletop game (8th lvl, but only 2 crusader levels), a single-classed Crusader in a high-level PbP game (18th), and a multiclassed Swordsage/Warblade (9th lvl combined) in another PbP game, and in all of them I end up varying my tactics and maneuver uses very drastically from fight to fight. After all, a fight against a single or a couple of tough opponents requires very significantly different tactics to one against a large number of enemies, and that's just the basics. Literally every fight has a different set of variables and rewards different choices, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[howandwhy99]

I think the key is not to think only about maneuvers during combat rounds.

 

[Zurai]

I think the key is not to think only about maneuvers during combat rounds.

That's one way, certainly. Personally, the Warblade I play relies on his maneuvers mostly for defense and "holy I'm rolling way too many 1's tonight"- he keeps Moment of Perfect Mind, Iron Heart Surge, and Lightning Recovery readied pretty much as a matter of course.

I also designed him as a tactical fighter, though, so I may be a bit unusual in that regard. Even without maneuvers I have quite a few choices every round - charge, full attack, trip, disarm, sunder, provide flanking bonuses via Distracting Attack, etc. Add Mithral Tornado and Disrupting Blow to that and I have a ton of fun mucking with my DM's combat plans

 

[Stalker0]

I wasn't suggesting that the warblade was MORE boring than a fighter, its just the manuevers didn't give me that feeling of wow like I had expected.

As for manuevers I had insightful strike (and skill focus concentration), bonecrusher, steel wind, rabid wolf strike, stone vise (or something like that, it halts movement), and one other I never got to use.

My stances were blood in the water and stance of clarity.

 

[The Human Target]

I'm playing a 2nd level Warblade with pretty good stats in Ptolus right now.

I like the class in theory, but after a few fights I'm already pretty sick of using my maneuvers over and over again. Thats not the classes fault though.