One of the group is buying the Book of Nine Swords. What should I expect?

[BryonD]

In terms of balance, the book is fine. A lot of people think its overpowered, but that's probably because people only look to offensive abilities when considering a class's effectiveness. I personally wouldn't worry about it.

You really ought to look into some threads where this has been covered in detail.
You assessment that this conclusion is because people only look at offensive is completely off base.

In test runs and in games there is no comparison. It runs rings around other classes without breaking a sweat.

 

[Sejs]

Pretty much what the title says. Is there anything grotesquely wrong, or does the book have good content?

Are you the DM? If so, don't allow anything from the book until you've had a chance to review the material. That really goes for any book, honestly.

If you're not the DM, the long and short of it is very similar to what Vraille said - chinese opera style swordsmen (well, warriors really) ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero.

 

[Kishin]

I maintain that it's one of the best books written for D&D in years. It gives melee characters a badly needed edge alongside their spellcasting companions. I don't see anything insane in it that blows away spellcasting. Wizards, Druids and Clerics still pack greater firepower, and far greater versatility.

Also know that you will probably either love it or hate it, as that people's reactions to it seem to split to the extreme. I'm also relatively certain that a large part of the hatred for the book stems from people uncomfortable with having their perceptions of how melee characters should work being altered, and thus cry foul much quicker than would normally be the case.

And then you have the people who throw out ridiculous hyperbole without providing much in the way of concrete evidence to support their claims, such as this:

We just finished a short high level game while one of my players is out of town.
One character was a twinked out monkey-gripping spiked chain kensai.
Another was a very nerfed version of the warblade.
I'd say the nerfed warblade was only significantly better than the kensai.

No question in my mind that the as written in Bo9S the Warblade is insane broken.
The nerfed version was easily as potent as the party druid.

Insane overpowered broken broken broken.

I have an incredibly hard time believing this is even close to true. A nerfed Warblade being as potent as the party druid? Must be one terrible druid then. Also, what about it was 'very nerfed', that still allowed to perform these amazing feats of overpowering, other party member invalidating, ability?

Insane hyperbole nonsense nonsense nonsense.

 

[Thanatos]

We've run test campaigns at various levels and we found the 3 Martial Adept classes on the upper send of the class power scale, but not broken. I think there is enough proof on the boards that any good rules-monkey can break any class, so as DM, be sure to evalute everything carefully. They definitely look powerful on paper, but have weakness just like every other class in play.

The martial adepts are able to pump out some nice damage in shorter-round combats, but the longer a combat runs the less impressive they begin to appear. Well made traditional melee classes were able to compete just fine against them and actually had a higher total damage output in longer combats (well not always). It's very much like having multiple socrerers/wizards in a party (e.g. while very powerful against single opponents, but multiple of mooks slow them down or make them spend resources very effectively). So if you just run short combats and few opponents, they will definitely seem overpowered.

Though its worth noting we found the warblade is the most powerful of the 3 and is able to refresh his moves easily and so stayed ahead of the rest of the adepts. The Swordsage seemed to be the weakest, missing far, far more then the other two (he has a monk BAB).

Their mechanics compare better to casters then the traditional melee spots they take, so a broadening of scope in fighting them will probably help you fare better with challenging them. Adjust and broaden the scope of your combats and you'll compensate well for the extra power these characters bring (martial adepts are pretty weak against ranged attackers - there are lots of good tactics on the Wizards boards regarding how these classes have their weak points like the others).

Nine Swords isn't going to be for every kind of campaign though. Lower-magic/Grim & Gritty it definitely won't fit in, these classes will dominate. It's designed for the standard high fantasy/high magic of D&D. It is very rules heavey and characters are more complex then regular ones, so you should definitely borrow the book or get your own copy. If you don't use maneuver system and refresh correctly, they can be very over-powered.

We've enjoyed our play testing of it and these characters have brought alot to our table. It's revitalized people wanting to play melee classes (other then the rogue, because everyone always wanted to seem to play a rogue or caster), other then our one guy who always makes a fighter. Only a fighter. In every campaign (but he does make them well...). We've allowed them in our standard campaign after extensively playing around with them and finding them to be reasonable classes to include.

Anyway, YMMV -- they are certained debated as being so powerful they are broken. A lot of people appear on both sides of the fence regarding it, which should tell you something. Like any class though, they can be broken if the DM allows it or isn't adjusting the scope of the encounters to be challenging to these mechanically new classes.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[BryonD]

And then you have the people who throw out ridiculous hyperbole without providing much in the way of concrete evidence to support their claims, such as this:

I have an incredibly hard time believing this is even close to true. A nerfed Warblade being as potent as the party druid? Must be one terrible druid then. Also, what about it was 'very nerfed', that still allowed to perform these amazing feats of overpowering, other party member invalidating, ability?

Insane hyperbole nonsense nonsense nonsense.

First may I point out that anyone who understands the meaning of the word "hyperbole" will immediately notice that your post WAS hyperbole and mine was not. Stating the actual result of a test play event is not hyberbole. Declaring "Must be one terrible druid", without the slightest evidence is a fair example and replacing the terms "significantly better" and "as potent" with "overpowered, member invalidating" may not actually be hyperbole in the strictest sense, but it is certainly an asinine misrepresentation.

Exactly what type of concrete evidence are you looking for on a message board? Do you want me to record an mpg of the game session and post it?

Detailed analyses have been presented in other threads and I'd recommend you look them up if you want to challenge them.

The druid was very solid and it showed very effectively in the game.
The nerfed warblade held its own right alongside.
The maneuvers were left exactly as presented in the book.
The HD was D10, and all the other special abilities other than stances and manuevers and bonus feats were removed.

At high level a druid is certainly very powerful. The nerfed warblade was as potent. Easily. The nerfed warbalde was certainly more potent than the monkey grip spiked chain kensai.

I'm very interested about the concept presented in the book. But I'm also very disappointed that it was so miserably implemented.

If you actually have a reasoned argument to present to dispute this assessment, then by all means I'd love to hear it. But misrepresenting statements and blindly declaring the results of an actual test as hyperbole is just foolish and seems to only show a lack of vocabulary and basic reading comprehension.
If you don't have a better founded response, then that should speak for itself.

 

[BryonD]

Let's just say that being able to add +20 to more than 50% of the saving throws made was a bit overpowering.

And being able to add +100 damage on top of the gear on numerous occasions made the druid's power a lot less meaningful and left the kesai wonderign what to do.

And being able to score 9 consecutive hits on the BBEG to end the game thanks to a single maneuver (avalanche of blades) was pretty much anticlimatic for the other characters.

And those were just the tip of the iceberg.

But I understand that none of these repeatable up to every other round by the RAW abilities acutally count as anything more than hyperbole.

 

[Piratecat]

And then you have the people who throw out ridiculous hyperbole... Insane hyperbole nonsense nonsense nonsense.

It's not hard to disagree with someone without being rude or offensive. Do so in the future, please.

 

[Thanatos]

In all the threads I've seen here and on wizards, it hasn't show the martial adept classes to be grossly overpowered. I've seen fighter and barbarian builds which were just as capable of dishing out equal and more damage in given rounds, making the +100 damage not so impressive at all.

Given that there is no errata (though there is an thread on the forums with customer service responses), there could very well be use of maneuvers in ways that are not intended. We didn't find anything though when using the material as is, but that obviously doesn't mean it isn't there -- we don't have any super min/maxers in our group.

We played a standard game, standard wealth, classes written as is, no house rules, core books + PHB II + Nine Swords + Complete Warrior for our testing. We found the results I posted in my above post. Powerful, but not broken or overpowreed. Still overshadoweed by the casting classes and comparable only to traditional melee when that melee was both well built/designed and using PHB II/Complete Warrior material.

I don't see why you could compare a warblade to a druid, its really still apples to organges. The +100 dmg ability is a 19/20th level ability and a druid would destroy a warblade at that level. We found that our wablade didn't have the staying power of a heavily armored fighter as a front line combatant, despite having a larger hit die and other abilities, his medium armor and limited feats reduce the time he is able to stand along that line. Like the rest of the martial adept classes, longer fights give them more trouble and balance them better against other melee. Though the warblade suffers the least in this regard.

So, with nerfing a warblade, I could see how it could stand against a lower level caster and be potent. But it makes it far from standard testing the classes and gives a skewed result. The paradigm of the casting classes is that they are weaker and become more powerful so all the melee can handle lower level casters.

As for Kensai, I've not played with one of them, but its entirely possible its one of the weaker classes. The Swashbuckler would suck terribly compared to any of the martial adept classes. Not all classes are 100% equal is a given.

Avalanche of blades...lets talk about that. Any miss ends the attack. It's a 7th level ability (13-14th level). You make your attack as normal, then the next is -4, then the next is -8, then -12, -16, -20, -24, -28, -32. Warblade at 14th level has +14 BAB for his first attack, even if it was pumped up +5, thats still +19. I'd say, that was ran completely wrong or the BBEG had a super low AC or your warblade player rolls super high on his D20 all the time (which is not a fault of the class). If this was done at level 20, it still holds true regarding your bad guy, because ultimately his ac should be that much higher -- I'd be very surprised you'd continue hitting with regular attacks once you hit the -20 range.

Edit add: On the savings throw -- if you have used a counter or boost already, you can't apply those kind of abilities. If you change stances, you can't. If you refresh your maneuvers, you can't. I'm not sure what ability you are talking about here, I can't find a single one that lets you add that to any save you want. I see multiple ones which let you use skills to add to save, but that is going to cut down on how many damage abilities he has available if he is taking these.

In my opinion, your testing was skewed and not standard. Doesn't sound like the DM really had a good understanding of these classes either.

 

[Kishin]

First may I point out that anyone who understands the meaning of the word "hyperbole" will immediately notice that your post WAS hyperbole and mine was not. Stating the actual result of a test play event is not hyberbole. Declaring "Must be one terrible druid", without the slightest evidence is a fair example and replacing the terms "significantly better" and "as potent" with "overpowered, member invalidating" may not actually be hyperbole in the strictest sense, but it is certainly an asinine misrepresentation.

Hyperbole is obvious and intentional exagerration. Ending your post with 'insane overpowered broken broken broken" sounds like pretty deliberate exagerration, especially when coupled with your earlier statements, which ring much the same. Also, when using the terms 'significantly better' and 'as potent' to create a comparison between two other builds already known to be overpowered, you imply the same.

Exactly what type of concrete evidence are you looking for on a message board? Do you want me to record an mpg of the game session and post it? Detailed analyses have been presented in other threads and I'd recommend you look them up if you want to challenge them.

Crunching a few numbers never hurts. I've seen and read other detailed analyses. Its your analysis that I'm curious about because it is the one being used to directly support your argument.

The druid was very solid and it showed very effectively in the game.
The nerfed warblade held its own right alongside.
The maneuvers were left exactly as presented in the book.
The HD was D10, and all the other special abilities other than stances and manuevers and bonus feats were removed.

At high level a druid is certainly very powerful. The nerfed warblade was as potent. Easily. The nerfed warbalde was certainly more potent than the monkey grip spiked chain kensai.

1) Monkey Grip is terrible and inefficient.

2) You're still very vague on the capabilities of the Druid.

Let's just say that being able to add +20 to more than 50% of the saving throws made was a bit overpowering.

And being able to add +100 damage on top of the gear on numerous occasions made the druid's power a lot less meaningful and left the kesai wonderign what to do.

And being able to score 9 consecutive hits on the BBEG to end the game thanks to a single maneuver (avalanche of blades) was pretty much anticlimatic for the other characters.

And those were just the tip of the iceberg.

But I understand that none of these repeatable up to every other round by the RAW abilities acutally count as anything more than hyperbole.

No, shouting 'insane overpowered broken broken broken' is hyperbole, especially when you're not providing reasoning that solidifies your argument as more than exaggeration.

the +100 damage of Strike of Perfect Clarity falls on one attack, and it isn't a Druid's place to be competing with that level of damage in one blow unless he's wildshaped into something ridiculous.

As for Avalanche of Blades...Let's assume your Warblade had a +34 or so on his/her highest attack roll. (The Warblade from the GenCon Delve had a +34) Avalanche of Blades would have worked out like this: 34/30/26/22/18/14/10/6/2. Was your Warblade really hitting a monster at that CR with attacks at +14, +10, +6 and +2? That strikes me as highly unlikely.

It's not hard to disagree with someone without being rude or offensive. Do so in the future, please.

The post in question was condescending and offensive. There wasn't much civility to be found there beforehand, and I seldom expect it to surface afterwards. This is no excuse, but still. The floodgates had already been opened, and polite disagreement was already forfeit.

 

[BryonD]

Hyperbole is obvious and intentional exagerration. Ending your post with 'insane overpowered broken broken broken" sounds like pretty deliberate exagerration, especially when coupled with your earlier statements, which ring much the same. Also, when using the terms 'significantly better' and 'as potent' to create a comparison between two other builds already known to be overpowered, you imply the same.

I think it is absurd to stretch my words to hyperbole.

Crunching a few numbers never hurts. I've seen and read other detailed analyses. Its your analysis that I'm curious about because it is the one being used to directly support your argument.

Been there done that.
Haven't seen a "number crunching" counter yet that held up to scrutiny. Yes, there are people who persist in demanding it is fine without offering an ojective assessment. But number crunching so far has completely validated the overpowered assessment.
Go back and find those threads if you want to re-hash.

1) Monkey Grip is terrible and inefficient.

shrug. You left out a few pieces of the character. You are way short of challenging the point.

2) You're still very vague on the capabilities of the Druid.

Check your PH.

No, shouting 'insane overpowered broken broken broken' is hyperbole, especially when you're not providing reasoning that solidifies your argument as more than exaggeration.

Wrong.

the +100 damage of Strike of Perfect Clarity falls on one attack, and it isn't a Druid's place to be competing with that level of damage in one blow unless he's wildshaped into something ridiculous.

One attack. And then another one attack and another one attack and another one attack.
The recovery is extremely simple.

As for Avalanche of Blades...Let's assume your Warblade had a +34 or so on his/her highest attack roll. (The Warblade from the GenCon Delve had a +34) Avalanche of Blades would have worked out like this: 34/30/26/22/18/14/10/6/2. Was your Warblade really hitting a monster at that CR with attacks at +14, +10, +6 and +2? That strikes me as highly unlikely.

Are you saying I'm lying?

Level 20 char: +38 to hit (16 STR +5 for levels, +6 Enhance, +5 Inherent = 32)
+20 BAB + 11 STR +5 Sword +2 Greater Focus

Ran the Age of Worms final module. Includes an item for a +20 to hit vs Kyuss only.
I ran it exactly as written, so I'm comfortable with that.

As I said, this was the tip of the iceberg. The Kensai also received a minor artifact power up option and the comparison was clear. If my point was based on using the Warblade as written then I'd have no case. That it was nerfed and still excelled at all points throughout the module is a compelling case.

Being as a detailed "number crunching" of the WB HAS been presented in prior threads the need to reprove the point does not compel me.

The post in question was condescending and offensive. There wasn't much civility to be found there beforehand, and I seldom expect it to surface afterwards. This is no excuse, but still. The floodgates had already been opened, and polite disagreement was already forfeit.

I beg to differ. Post #6 was in no way condesending or offensive.
Perhaps a nerve was touched and it seemed worse than it really was.
But beyond taking this obvious exception, I'll rather stay out of any mod discussion