New Excerpts - Tome of Battle & Dragons of Faerun

[full_moon_draw]

Hmm,

The new excerpts don't seem to work at the moment: I get:

"Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0046' Permission denied /default.asp, line 405"

Cheers - FMD

 

[Gold Roger]

True, but the maneuver does +100 damage, and I'm assuming a 10th level warblade, with a full attack and power attack will be every bit as lethal as a 10th level barbarian. Maybe slightly less because they have to diversify their stats, but the fact remains that with that +100 they'll be dealing more than an equivalent level barbarian every other round, and almost as much as one the other rounds, plus healing... (as long as my point above about being able to deal nearly as much as a Barbarian without using maneuvers holds - and I don't see why it wouldn't: more feats, the same BAB, plus the ability to tap into the fighter-only feats).

Mind you, we're talking 17th level here, not 10th, and any suitably tricked out 17th level character should be able to deal more than 100 points a round - the issue is that the Warblade seems to be able to do that, plus 100 points more than the others every other round, plus heal himself in the rounds when he's not dealing more damage. Sorry, but I don't see how that can possibly be balanced...
:\

Nothing says this is a swift action, though. Most attack maneuvers we've seen (actually all) are standart actions. Further he then has to hit, if he doesn't all his damage potential is lost for that round and he has to set out on maneuvers for one round before he can try again. In that time a wizard (at that level even a cleric or druid) of his level has let loose a pletora of potent evocations and death spells with a far higher damage potential. I may be wrong on some of this, but I won't cry broken before I've seen the whole thing and ideally seen it in play or complete mook up combat.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

I'm still conflicted. This book is either a "must buy" or "not in this freakin' lifetime".

I'm afraid it falls far far into the "Not in my lifetime" choice.

I am generally against add-ons tothe game (Tome of Magic, Incarnum) because they are not balanced against the core stuff, and don't get enough support to be real wide-open rules variations.

I'll be skipping this, just like I am skipping more than 50% of WOTC's new books overthe next year. Wehn you add in FR and ebberon, which I don't buy, I am not buying much if anything from WOTC.

And this is a guy who bought nearly every non-Fr and non-eberron wotc product over the first two years of 3.0/5

 

[Vurt]

Still doesn't address my gripe - which is basically that WotC doesn't seem to be able to stay internally consistent. I mean, is the game (and therefore the threats) targetted at levels 1-20 or not nowadays?

It's a Forgotten Realms sourcebook. If all the big baddies are ~CR20-ish, Elminster gets bored!

Which is to say, it's not terribly inconsistent at all. FR already has the precedent of a markedly high power-level, what with stat-blocks for epic-level NPCs in the FRCS itself. Your generic run-of-the-mill-game supplement like Complete Sourcebook? Not so much.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Mercule]

Considering that an 18th level warblade could get x uses per day of "stike of perfect clarity" (do 100 damage on a hit) and an 18th level fighter gets, uh, a feat... the answer here seems clear.

Absolutely agree. I'm still hoping there's something I'm missing because this does sound like a cool mechanic.

Honestly, reading that thread on wizards.com I got to the end of page 2 and couldn't recognise ANY of the things that they were talking about!

Haven't been able to hit the wizards board, yet. Blocked by work filters.

 

[satori01]

Assuming "Strike of Perfect Clarity" is a full round action to perform,
even with Power Attack added onto it, the damage level at 18th level
w/o itterative attacks might very well be equal to a 18th level Fighter with Weapon Supremacy. An 18th level Fighter with Weapon Supremacy is much more likely to hit with the third itterative attack.

I've seen a 14th level Paladin Divine Might, Smite Evil, and Power Attack for 10 do around 120 HP damage with 3 hits.

 

[Kurotowa]

Actually, it says they are proficient with melee weapons that can be thrown. So Power Throw is still in.

More than that. One of the PrC, the Bloodstorm Blade, is a thown weapons specialist. From the sound of it, with features like counting as a Fighter of two levels lower, it's very Warblade friendly.

 

[I'm Cleo]

Bear in mind also that the comparison earlier in the thread was "Fighter using only PHB" vs. "Additional class using all the mechanics in the PHB and a whole book devoted to adding stuff to that class."

If you include stuff from the Complete series, the Fighter looks better (better than he did, not necessarily better than the Warblade). The two classes aren't going to do the exact same thing, either. "Halberd Trip-Monkey" is a build that requires Combat Expertise and Improved Trip -- that's pretty much it. It doesn't leverage the Fighter's main asset: feats. The Warblade is going to be able to trip as well as the Fighter, and then have all his special abilities on top of that. I could make a Wizard 6 with Combat Expertise and Improved Trip (and Martial Weapon Proficiency [Halberd]), but a comparison would be silly.

How about a Fighter 6 with Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Combat Expertise, and Improved Trip (and he still get another feat -- Lightning Reflexes to even things out? Improved Initiative for his charge-tastic-ness?). He can still trip as well as the Warblade, and he has access to a highly feat-intensive attack routine (notably, charging with an 8:1 PA return and no penalty to hit).

A battle would be determined by how things "rolled out" -- if the Fighter criticals on the charge, he probably one-shots the Warblade. Can the Warblade survive the initial charge and disable the Fighter before the Fighter attacks again? Can the Warblade somehow stop the Fighter's charge before it even happens? Winning initiative is important. Things are pretty contingent, which leads me to suspect that it's pretty even. They just do different things -- the Fighter is better at heavily feat-intensive attack routines and the Warblade is better at tactical fighting with cool special abilities.

I think the Barbarian is a more interesting comparison. Obviously (as has been pointed out), he wouldn't go for the tripping thing. Through 6 levels, the Barbarian would presumably do more damage, but the Warblade would have more abilities. I haven't really seen the book in that much detail yet, so I can't say much more.

I'm Cleo!

 

[Arnwyn]

I think DoF being so apparently setting-specific is a mixed bag for FR fans: On the one hand, it's cool that they get a big infodump of stuff about their preferred setting. On the other hand, since sales to non-FR types will likely be lower, it means such books are less profitable than generic supplements and, thus, less likely to be produced in the future. It's a delicate balancing act, I suspect.

No, it's not a mixed bag for FR fans. It's a risk FR fans are willing to take to get, you know, FR material in our FR books.

An FR book that is more "likely to be produced" with no FR material sounds like something pretty foolish to hope for.

 

[Mazlo]

I don't want to cause a big stink about the warblade vs. fighter comparison I did earlier but just wanted to add one thing -

In my opinion, the Warblade with its abilities (all from the ToB excerpt or Core feats) should be balanced against the core-rules Fighter and Barbarian. That's why I didn't use feats like Shock Trooper or Leap Attack. I don't think you should have to bring in other books to make a core class balanced against a new base class.

I do agree with posters that said the build was not optimal (for example, there's very little reason to build a full plate fighter with a 14 dex.)


Another thought -
The intelligence based abilities of the Warblade aren't as important to the class as the maneuvers. I think someone could probably make a Warblade with standard Fighter or Barbarian abilities (putting intelligence at 10?) that would be able to do whatever core Fighter/Barbarian schtick just as well as the Fighter/Barbarian.

--Mazlo