Removing refresh of maneuvers from martial adepts

[Volsung]

I've been playing a warblade for a while and one of few things I don't like about the class is that you generally find yourself refreshing your maneuvers so you can use your most powerful one over and over.

Here's what I was thinking:
All martial adept classes lose their ability to recover a maneuver during the encounter.
All maneuvers known are also readied.
Adaptive Style, Extra Granted Maneuver, and Extra Readied Maneuver would all go away.
Sudden Recovery and Psychic Renewal can stay, allowing limited access to recovery of maneuvers during an encounter.

What do the guys and gals of ENWorld think?

 

[Nifft]

I'd suggest taking more than one "good" Strike, rather then nerfing the Warlord to only work correctly in short fights.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Volsung]

A 7th level warblade gets 4 readied maneuvers. So he takes a counter (momment of perfect mind), and three strikes (insightful strike, emerald razor, mithril tornado). Not all strikes are useful in all situations, with insightful strike and mountain hammer being roughly equal in potentcy at this level. So when the minions are scattered and the warblade starts fighting the BBEG it starts to look like this:

Insighful Strike
Recover maneuvers with a full attack
Insighful Strike
Recover maneuvers with a full attack
Insighful Strike
Recover maneuvers with a full attack

My idea was to add a little more resource management to the class and, at the same time, make it a little simpler to keep track of which maneuvers are available now. Not that using cards is really that onerous, I just find tracking spells a little quicker and a little easier and this would emulate that.

 

[Zurai]

See, I don't get it. Which is easier: Tracking 4 'spells' or tracking 7?

Also, if Insightful Strike and Mountain Hammer are roughly equal, you should probably end up with a fight looking more like this at 7th level:

charge
Insightful Strike
Mountain Hammer
full attack to recover maneuvers

... fight's over.

 

[Volsung]

For me this would be the difference of tracking four maneuvers with four piles of cards: stances, readied maneuvers, expended maneuvers, and unreadied maneuvers (in case I use Adaptive Style), or 7 maneuvers with a single pile of cards (stances) and a list that I check off as I use maneuvers.

He could prepare two strikes that do relatively similar things. But that's not necessarily a good idea. What if he ends up facing an enemy with a fairly high armor class that he can't hit very well with insightful strike or mountain hammer? And what able keeping iron heart surge on hand?

This eases up a little at high levels, but nevers seems to completely go away for the warblade.

 

[Volsung]

... fight's over.

Not if you roll like me

 

[Nifft]

If your tactics are predictable, they're easy to counter.

If only your "alpha" Strike is a threat, any enemy can Ready an action to move away when you initiate a Strike. Magical enemies can do things like mirror image or displacement, which hurt "one big attack" tactics far more than "many small attacks".

However, that's in the DM's hands.

What can you do to enjoy your character more? Perhaps play a different class. Swordsage works like you seem to want Warblade to work, and Crusaders are unable to use repetitive Strikes due to their unique recovery mechanism. Playing either would fix your issue, I think.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Volsung]

If your tactics are predictable, they're easy to counter.

If only your "alpha" Strike is a threat, any enemy can Ready an action to move away when you initiate a Strike. Magical enemies can do things like mirror image or displacement, which hurt "one big attack" tactics far more than "many small attacks".

However, that's in the DM's hands.

What can you do to enjoy your character more? Perhaps play a different class. Swordsage works like you seem to want Warblade to work, and Crusaders are unable to use repetitive Strikes due to their unique recovery mechanism. Playing either would fix your issue, I think.

Cheers, -- N

I agree the swordsage suits what I'm looking for far better. The Crusader refresh/ready mechanic brings on a little vertigo. However, right now the character fills his roles in the party very well (primary meatshield and secondary high damage dealer).

In a way, you could say i'm trying to make all of the martial adept classes function a little more as if they had 4E-style encounter powers. What I really want to know is if the changes I've suggested will cause any obvious problems that I'm not seeing. I don't want to bring anything into the game that will push up the power level of the classes.

 

[Nifft]

I agree the swordsage suits what I'm looking for far better. The Crusader refresh/ready mechanic brings on a little vertigo. However, right now the character fills his roles in the party very well (primary meatshield and secondary high damage dealer).

In a way, you could say i'm trying to make all of the martial adept classes function a little more as if they had 4E-style encounter powers. What I really want to know is if the changes I've suggested will cause any obvious problems that I'm not seeing. I don't want to bring anything into the game that will push up the power level of the classes.

Well, that is pretty much what you're doing. You're taking an "always-on" class and turning it into an "encounter nova" class. Basically, the Warblade as written has fewer Maneuvers available than there are expected rounds in a fight (while a Swordsage has about as many Maneuvers as there are expected rounds).

So your version of the Warblade is a Wizard who refreshes between fights instead of overnight. It's better for your Warblade to hit hard, kill half the dudes, then get teleported away, and come back in 5 minutes to fight the rest of the dudes. Same tactics as a Wizard, except the Warblade only has to run away for 5 minutes between fights instead of overnight.

You're giving a power-up in some fights, and a power-down in other fights, which encourages the player to choose his fights. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's exactly the same problem as "the 15 minute workday", but on a smaller scale -- call it "the 5 round battle".

Dunno if you want to encourage this.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Volsung]

Unlike the wizard the warblade does at least have a sustained attack, and will usually have a number of interesting melee feats to use as well. Most combats at our table seem to fall into the 5-10 round range, so I'd just end up pacing myself a little and thinking tactically about when it's best to use the big guns.

The wizard in our group usually uses reserve feats first to suss out resistances in the early rounds of combat so that he make efficient use of his spells when he starts blowing stuff up. I'm thinking the same tactics would be viable for the warblade with the above change.