The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[Stormtalon]

More that they're useful very early on in a fighter's career, when he's battling humanoids and other such enemies but which quickly fade into borderline uselessness the larger and more monstrous the enemies become in higher levels. Once fighting things even a tad bit larger than an ogre, the "full attack, full attack" routine becomes quite standard (with perhaps a 5' step tossed in, but no more), due to the high to-hit & high damage output of the beefier critters. Currently, once a fighter gets in close, there's a very large disincentive to make large moves due to the ease with which you can provoke AoOs.

I would, however, change the stereotypical fighter sequence:

"I full attack. I full attack. It's dead? I move and single attack. I full attack.".

to replace "I move and single attack" with "I charge the next big one," but that's it. In the group I run/play in, Powerful Charge & Greater Powerful Charge are must-have feats for just about every fighter/barbarian that's made.

 

[renevq]

In other words, fighters have a fair number of combat options, some of them which may not work in every situation. Being a good fighter requires some tactical thinking.

I don't see a problem with this.

In my experience, it's: fighters have a limited number of combat options, most of them which may not work in most situations. If they do work, then generally they all work against the same type of opponent.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Fighters sucked* which is why I never played them. I'm glad they are gaining combat maneuvers because then they will be fun to play.

 

[AllisterH]

Desert Wind is not anime inspired.

Desert Wind is Arabian-influenced. Am I the only one that actually likes 1001 Arabian Nights/Al-Qadim? From the names of the manoeuvers, to the use of fire, heat and light, this is pure fantasy Arabian.

Shadow Hand...Yea, that's definitely got anime flavour.

Setting Sun..Eh, definitely not anime derived. I'm not sure what style of combat one can say tripping/throwing is most like though.

re: Popularity

At one of the conventions, pre-4E announcement, WOTC officials also said that Bo9S was popular moreso than say Incarnum. I always assumed there would've been a Bo9S II given the popularity of it.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

In my experience, it's: fighters have a limited number of combat options, most of them which may not work in most situations. If they do work, then generally they all work against the same type of opponent.

Yes, this was my experience as well. Almost every combat option other than full attack was next to useless against 80-90% of the monsters people would fight unless you spent every feat you had specializing in that one maneuver.

If you were REALLY good at tripping you could increase your chance of succeeding so that it'd work against 60-70% or so of the enemies you fought. However, at that point, you STILL only had one viable option: Full attack, first attack being a trip, get the bonus attack from Improved Trip and continue to full attack. It wasn't all that much different.

Since you weren't specialized in any of the other options, they were next to useless.

Although some players didn't realize this and often had eyes rolled at them when they were playing characters who insisted that they wanted to try all sorts of other options:

Player: "I grapple the troll"
DM: "Ok, you don't have improved grapple so he takes his AOO on you, he hits...since he does at least 1 damage your grapple automatically fails."
Player: "I'm in the middle of a full attack, I grapple him with my second attack."
DM: "Ok, grapple check then, make sure to use the lower BAB for your secondary attack."
Player: "Ok, I get...15."
DM: "The troll gets 30. Next character."
Player 2: "I attack twice, full power attack. I hit both times and I do 59 damage."
DM: "The Troll falls unconscious."

 

[kigmatzomat]

I really had no interest in it. Then one of my players bought me a copy. Right now there are something like 5 copies in my group. The other group I know of has several more copies of it.

Now I love Bo9S, although it isn't balanced against the melee classes. So I cheated and simply declared them to be epic classes, since my party was 20th level when it came out. It does a great deal to let the melees with PrCs and not a lot of epic feats start catching up to the casters. If we keep running for several more levels I might need to worry about the Martial Adepts outstripping the casters, but for now the casters have plenty of AE and nuke spells that I don't have to worry about it.

A game with Martial Adepts designed in from ground up is very appealing. I'm not sure it'll be the D&D I'm used to but I'm going to give it a chance. My biggest fear is they'll go too far.

 

[Scribble]

I really had no interest in it. Then one of my players bought me a copy. Right now there are something like 5 copies in my group. The other group I know of has several more copies of it.

Now I love Bo9S, although it isn't balanced against the melee classes. So I cheated and simply declared them to be epic classes, since my party was 20th level when it came out. It does a great deal to let the melees with PrCs and not a lot of epic feats start catching up to the casters. If we keep running for several more levels I might need to worry about the Martial Adepts outstripping the casters, but for now the casters have plenty of AE and nuke spells that I don't have to worry about it.

A game with Martial Adepts designed in from ground up is very appealing. I'm not sure it'll be the D&D I'm used to but I'm going to give it a chance. My biggest fear is they'll go too far.

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

 

[carmachu]

If WotC is saying the book sold great, this is certainly not the way one would go about disproving it.

just because they said it, doesnt make it true.

Abit of hard evidence goes a long way,

 

[Nifft]

Now I love Bo9S, although it isn't balanced against the melee classes.

True, but misleading -- since IMNSHO the melee classes weren't balanced against spellcasters in the first place, and the Martial Adepts are.

(Well, except the Barbarian. He's pretty much balanced against the spellcasters, and thus the Martial Adepts, which is to say the Barbarian is better than the Fighter, Ranger and Paladin.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is Anime now?

It's certainly better drawn than Western cartoons.

Cheers, -- N