The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[Oldtimer]

Jujitsu, judo, akido ... definitely not anime derived, no conmnection whatsoever Er, not really.

You'd be hardpressed to find a shonen anime where the characters utilize judo/akido/throws. <snip>

Please guys, it's "aikido", not "akido".

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Agreed. I expect some bending of the laws of physics. I'd prefer if they weren't broken, though.

Put another way, anything a martial character can do should be no more than an exaggeration of real life -- bigger jumps, harder hits, more endurance, greater feats of strength, etc.

Yeah, I know. This is the general opinion of most people it seems. The only way to wield magic is casting a spell or having an item enchanted with a spell.

On the other hand, I don't have any problem with a person concentrating for a moment and channeling magic through themselves to make themselves as light as air for a short while. They use magic, but they don't cast spells and they aren't "magic users". These are the characters that the Bo9S creates the most easily.

Then again most of my D&D worlds have more than just "magic" as a power source. There might be Ki, psionics, incarnum, shadow, truenaming, pacts, etc. They all might have different rules, let you do different things and might not all be "magic". Ki might be useful for making large jumps but not allow you to change shape. It might not be restricted by antimagic fields since it isn't actually magic.

To me its more complicated than a yes/no question.

 

[AllisterH]

Agreed. I expect some bending of the laws of physics. I'd prefer if they weren't broken, though.

Put another way, anything a martial character can do should be no more than an exaggeration of real life -- bigger jumps, harder hits, more endurance, greater feats of strength, etc.

Valid concept of what a fighter should be Mercule. Basically, if I'm reading you correctly, what a 20th level fighter is capable of is just what a 1st level fighter can do but just better/easier.

My problem with it though is that said fighter is supposed to exist with MU as valid player character classes. A 20th level MU in 1E/2E/3E not only does what a 1st level mage can do and better (1st level spells are more powerful when cast by a 20th level mage versus a 1st level mage) but they also gain HUGE and ENTIRELY new class features (the 20th level mage can fly, turn invisible, etc. All stuff that looking at the 1st level mage you can't extrapolate from)

This has always been D&D's problem and I'm interested to see if the 4E designers can solve this aspect.

 

[Shadeydm]

Another piece of anecdotal evidence... My group consist of 6 people, and among us, we have 3 PHBs, 2 MMs, 2 DMGs, and 6 copies of Bo9S.

FWIW our group of 6 has 6 PHB, 4 DMG, 4 MM, 1 Bo9S.

IMC there is 1 Bo9S character out of 5 PCs a Crusader lvl 3.

He out damages the two other melee classes and the wizard, and out heals the cleric. Perhaps things will balance out at higher levels but at levels 2 and 3 he really stands out. That being said no one really seems to mind as far as I can tell.

 

[Will]

Flipping through Bo9S again, I think my biggest complaint is that it's TOO different.

Almost every single detail about each class is utterly, utterly different from everything else in the entire system. It's sort of like learning a completely new game.

That causes several problems:
It'll take me a while to really absorb and grasp the rules. And then I might find I don't like it or can't integrate it with everything else I'm doing.
I can't figure out what's balanced and what isn't.
I don't know what choices are good ones.
I have no idea what it's going to synergize with and not.

I'd love options like Bo9S for fighters that remained a little closer to the actual system. For example, I've been thinking that fighters' biggest problem is the lack of level-dependent effects (other than ... 3 feats?).

Having read Bo9S, I'd rather have something along the lines of: fighters have maneuvers based on level, perhaps a more limited number. Maneuvers are fighter feats, not a new thing.

So, suddenly realize Bull Rush would be really handy? Use your fighter 'martial training' to use it...

 

[ObsidianCrane]

FWIW our group of 6 has 6 PHB, 4 DMG, 4 MM, 1 Bo9S.

IMC there is 1 Bo9S character out of 5 PCs a Crusader lvl 3.

He out damages the two other melee classes and the wizard, and out heals the cleric. Perhaps things will balance out at higher levels but at levels 2 and 3 he really stands out. That being said no one really seems to mind as far as I can tell.

Having run a Crusader at level 13 they seem fairly balanced at that level depending on what the rest of the party looks like.

Probably the strongest thing is the Stone Dragon power chain that lets you ignore DR and Hardness.

But with our Cleric providing Fast Heal 5, and the Crusader triggering healing effects there was a shortage of complaints at the table last session when the Fighter got to the end of the combat (having rolled some 21 attacks vs the Crusader's 3) and everyone was fully healed.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

For "martial" characters? Yeah, some of them (Shadowhand, Desert Wind) are a little over-the-top.

I dont really think the swordsage was ever intended to be "martial" in the mundane sense, but rather the hand to hand combatant sense. He's a blade mage, gish, sword mage, bladesinger etc... whatever you want to call him. He blends magic and swordplay into a cohesive whole, much like the duskblade does. He does what you'd want a more fighter oriented fighter mage to do... use his magic to increase his melee combat abilities. He's not some normal dude who likes swords so much they burst into flame. I'm perfectly fine with that distinction.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

FWIW our group of 6 has 6 PHB, 4 DMG, 4 MM, 1 Bo9S.

IMC there is 1 Bo9S character out of 5 PCs a Crusader lvl 3.

He out damages the two other melee classes and the wizard, and out heals the cleric. Perhaps things will balance out at higher levels but at levels 2 and 3 he really stands out. That being said no one really seems to mind as far as I can tell.

Wow...someone is playing that crusader wrong if he is doing that well. I've played a crusader for a while. At that level the ability to heal for 1d8+3 is about the best you're going to get. And you can only do it once every 3 or 4(don't have the book with me) rounds. I don't know if he'd be high enough level for the stance that heals people, but if so they might be able to heal another 6 points in 3 rounds.

The cleric should be able to cast a 2d8+3 heal every round for at least 3 rounds. At least. They probably should have Augment healing for another 4 points of healing each round.

Out damaging a melee characters and Wizard? No offense, but how? A Barbarian with 18 strength who rages with a greatsword should be doing at least 2d6+9 damage per hit for an average of 16 points of damage per round.

A Crusader with 18 strength(which is pushing it considering they need charisma pretty badly) and a greatsword can do 2d6+6 damage per round and (I think) an extra 3d6 once every 3 or 4 rounds. Which is almost identical damage to the above Barbarian. It's just that he does less damage in 2 rounds and more in 1 round. Also, due to the randomness of his powers he may not be able to use the power that does extra damage at all before the combat is over.

A Wizard at 3rd level should be able to do a guaranteed 7 damage per attack with magic missiles(if you assume the above characters are hitting 50% of the time, then this is nearly the same damage as them). Wizards start out fairly low damage and don't start ramping up until level 5 or so, so they will be weaker at this level in exchange for all of their other benefits. However, they hit with their attacks way more often since they are using touch attacks and attacks that don't require attack rolls.

I admit that if you take a stock crusader with low stats, like a 12 strength and a fighter with 12 strength and both take useless feats he'll outperform the fighter almost every time. Trust me, this has a lot less to do with the power of the Crusader than the weakness of the fighter.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Hrmm... are you sure you're using it right? I play a swordsage in a friends campaign and haven't found it to be unbalanced. Does about rhe same amoutn of damage as the average melee fighter

My campaign is 3.0; I officially started it the month after the 3.0 DMG & MM came out. The players were building characters for use in 1-shots the week after GenCon when we came back with PHBs.

The biggest problem with balance is the "dip" factor when you have developed characters. My PCs were 20th level. If they took their 21st level as, say, Warblade, they are an 11th level Initiator (20/2 + 1) with access to 6th level maneuvers. THAT is a lot of power to suddenly give a character.

Even if they'd been 10th, they would have had access to 3rd level maneuvers, which includes fun things like Tactics of the Wolf and White Raven Tactics. Compare that the 11th level of any class.

I'm fine with the Bo9S classes vs. the casters. I'm even more fine with Bo9S vs. Warlocks. The secondary campaign that I run when players can't make the game but I don't want to cancel is a "no spell slots/day or psipoints/day" game that from what I can tell is exactly where 4e is going.

 

[Henry]

He out damages the two other melee classes and the wizard, and out heals the cleric.

Now, a crusader WILL out-heal the cleric if he's using his revitalizing strike illegally; but it's got to be against an actual threat, of a different alignment than you. And even then, it's only 1d6+3 points of healing. Against an actual cleric, he won't heal as often, and plus people are getting hurt all the while he's "healing" someone.

As for damage, at level 3 he's got some pretty good options -- say, greatsword + mountain hammer, which not only basically doubles your damage but ignores DR. But again, it's only once per 4 rounds on average (every other round if he has adaptive study feat). But double damage every other round equals out to what he would have been doing anyway.

However, the fighters can't move and deal 60 damage in one shot, the way a crusader can (divine surge), nor can they easily pick up tricks from other repertoires like teleporting across a room or making targets explode with flame when hit.

They use magic, but they don't cast spells and they aren't "magic users". These are the characters that the Bo9S creates the most easily.

...except that two-thirds of the maneuvers in the Book of Nine Swords are listed as extraordinary, and DON'T use magic, even stuff like Shadow Jaunt, Divine Surge, and Bonecrusher. If there's one big failing for Bo9S, it's a need to re-categorize some of those maneuvers as supernatural that just aren't, not even in errata.

The biggest problem with balance is the "dip" factor when you have developed characters.

I agree here, too. People in our games were taking Martial Study and Martial Stance feats, especially fighters and fighter-types, because it just flat out beat most other feats they considered. Even the 1st and 2nd level maneuvers were so useful that people wanted them like crazy. You want to teleport 50 feet once per battle for the cost of a feat? GO for it! You want to have at least one strike in a battle that can ignore all DR and hardness? take the feat! You want a stance that gives you an extra d6 per hit for a minor cost? martial stance, baby!