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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashkelon" data-source="post: 6363758" data-attributes="member: 6774887">You are giving up a lot of survivability. No second wind, no heavy armor, no defensive combat style, etc. Unlike paladins and rangers, the class has no access to magical healing. Unlike the barbarian, it cannot gain resistance to damage all the time. Some maneuvers and stances help out in the durability department, but overall the class is much squishier than the other front line melee warriors.On top of that, the fighter does more damage at every level. I made sure of this. I ran an exhaustive comparison between the swordsage, the fighter, and the barbarian to ensure that the fighter or barbarian is always coming out on top in terms of damage. I tested with and without Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master feats. For that trade off in DPR, the swordsage gains more versatility in its actions. This is a change I might consider. It is close to half of the heavy armor mastery feat. Don't forget that HAM does grant +1 to Strength as well. Humans can get HAM at level 1, and everyone else can get it at 4. The ability is certainly potent, but I wouldn't call it overpowering when there are CR 1/2 monsters that are able to deal 1d8+2d6+2 damage.Yes, they do have more options than the champion. Then again, the battlemaster also has many more options than a champion fighter too. Would you say the battlemaster is more powerful than the champion across the board just because of options?What about the paladin? The paladin gets a bonus to saving throws equal to his Cha mod all the time (compared to needing to spend your combat focus and a reaction). The paladin also has a variety of smite spells that cause powerful effects that the fighter (and swordsage) can never even hope to replicate. Would you say the paladin is more powerful than the fighter across the board?What about the any full spellcaster? They have about 10x as many options as the swordsage? Does that automatically make them more powerful as well? I think volume of options alone doesn't make a class powerful. At some level, the potency of each of those options needs to be weighed. I tried to make the individual maneuvers interesting without making them too powerful. If there are any maneuvers that do seem out of line, I would love to know so I can fix them.The maneuvers definitely seem potent when you look at all the possibilities, but remember the limits on using them. First, you only know 12 of them, including stances. That is fewer maneuvers known than the eldritch knight knows spells. Next, using a counter utilizes your reaction, meaning you cannot make an opportunity attack if you use one, and you are limited to only one per round. Also, using a maneuver requires you to spend your combat focus. If you had initiated a strike and missed, you will not have your combat focus available to spend to initiate a counter. If you have your combat focus and spend it to initiate a counter, you won't be able to initiate a strike on your next turn. It becomes a tactically interesting choice to initiate a counter and use a basic attack next turn, or hold off on initiating a counter so you can perform a strike on your next turn.Also remember that swordsage maneuvers are not at-will. Since you only gain your combat focus when you hit an enemy, they are much closer to a 65% usage rate. Except for one of the subclasses, you do not start a battle with your combat focus. This means your first round of every combat, you will not be able to use any maneuvers at all. And without maneuvers, you are little more than a fighter that deals less damage and has less durability.</blockquote>

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