The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[Zurai]

Well, this comparison is just a bit skewed.

First off, you're comparing a full BAB class to a 3/4 BAB class. Of course the Fighter is going to hit more! You want a fair comparison in that department, compare the Fighter to a Warblade and see how that goes. *snickers in Fighter's direction*

Second, you're comparing the damage accrual, using full attack, of Weapon Spec over a five-round fight ... to ONE SINGLE USE of a maneuver within all five rounds. You don't think that said Martial Adept is going to use more than one maneuver over the course of a battle? Especially since, you know, he can, because all he needs to refresh is a few minutes between battles at worst?

Your statement was that a single fighter feat could not possibly equal a single mid-level martial adept maneuver. You were comparing a single feat to a single maneuver, and you criticize me for comparing a single feat to a single maneuver? Amusing. The only criterions you gave were "a single fighter feat" and "a mid-level maneuver".

Andy Collins confirmed that the "full-attack" option is gone. Since full-attack was the only way to get your iterative attacks, this would lead one to believe that they're gone, especially in light of Saga being a "significant preview."

Thanks.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Your statement was that a single fighter feat could not possibly equal a single mid-level martial adept maneuver. You were comparing a single feat to a single maneuver, and you criticize me for comparing a single feat to a single maneuver? Amusing. The only criterions you gave were "a single fighter feat" and "a mid-level maneuver".

Sorry, full attacking for four rounds straight after a charge does not qualify as "equal" in ANY practical execution of D&D combat. Again, apples and oranges.

Thanks. Though, I find it amusing that Darth Cyric was speculating and didn't actually have a source.

Guess you didn't read Races and Classes then, which confirmed the elimination of 3.x-style BAB.

 

[The Little Raven]

Guess you didn't read Races and Classes then, which confirmed the elimination of 3.x-style BAB.

This is true, as well. All BAB/Defense/Skills/Ability-To-Touch-Your-Toes is now on a standardized progression for all classes, with the implication that certain classes will get bonuses to appropriate progressions (like fighters get bonus to attack).

 

[Zurai]

Sorry, full attacking for four rounds straight after a charge does not qualify as "equal" in ANY practical execution of D&D combat. Again, apples and oranges.

Your objection was that the martial adept could use multiple maneuvers in multiple rounds. Well, fine, my fighter can use multiple feats then. 5 rounds of combat, so 5 maneuvers if possible and 5 feats. Same Androsphinx from before. We'll assume a flank buddy for both characters after round 1, to be even. This time, though, I'll calculate in crits as well. Deal?

Fighter: Weapon Spec, Melee Weapon Mastery, Power Attack, Vexing Flanker, Improved Critical. We'll convert all of the bonus to-hit from feats and flanking into Power Attack damage. That gives us a charge at +19, 4 attacks at +17, and 4 attacks at +12, for the same 6.3 expected hits from before. There are 1.26 expected critical threats on an average attack bonus of +15; that's an average of 0.882 confirmed criticals (half of which are because of Improved Critical). Totalling the bonus damage from our feats, then, we have (6.3*2) from Weapon Spec, (6.3*2) from MWM, (5.4*12 + 0.9*4) from Power Attack, and ((0.882 * (2d6+19))/2) from Improved Critical. That's a total added damage of 105.066.

Warblade: Oh, wait, I can only use 4 maneuvers in 5 rounds at level 9. My 4 maneuvers are Elder Mountain Hammer, Death From Above, White Raven Strike, and Bonecrusher. That's one maneuver at +17, three at +19, and a +19/+14 full attack to recover maneuvers. We'll use our least damaging maneuver (WRS) on the +17. +19 is a 90% chance to hit, while +17 is an 80% chance to hit. (0.9 * 6d6) + (0.9 * 4d6)*2 + (0.8 * 4d6) + two baseline no damage added attacks is a total yield of 42.7 average "extra" damage. But wait! The Warblade gave up attacking three times at +14 to make those extra damage attacks! That's 27.3 expected damage, meaning the Warblade's maneuvers only gained him 15.4 damage overall. Crits are irrelevant for the warblade, because maneuvers are not multiplied on a crit, and I already factored out the "normal" greatsword crit damage from the Fighter's results.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Anyway...

This kind of rhetoric doesn't correspond to my experience playing fighters or fighter types at all--nor to my experience of what skilled players do with fighting characters. (Note that I don't say fighters not because fighters are a lame class, but rather because, IME, single class fighters are quite rare among the PCs I see when I run and play games. Some of the characters people play have more options than fighters, probably half of them have fewer tactical manuever style options than single classed fighters of the same level might have (multiclassing with barbarian will do that), but in any event using the single classed fighter to represent all melee combatants in D&D 3.x would be wildly inaccurate).

I attack and manuever to be able to pull off my Rhino's Rush charge into a spot adjacent to two enemies, one of whom is injured so I'll be able to cleave into the other.

I delay for the spellcaster to cast haste and then declare my dodge opponent as the aspect of Grazz't, manuever around the succubus (scorning her attack of opportunity) but setting up so that when the aspect of Grazz't would get an AoO on me for closing with him, he will be flanking with the succubus and my Elusive Target feat will go off making him miss and hit the succubus, and giving me a free trip attack against him, and I can follow up by smiting him with a four point power attack.

The target is surrounded by the barbarian, paladin, and the cleric, so I will bull rush him instead of attacking to generate three attacks of opportunity which may enable the barbarian to cleave into another bad guy/ I charge and hit him with my shield, Power Attacking for four points; if I hit that gives me the opportunity to knock him prone and he has to make a save or be dazed. The next round, I get 3/2 Power Attack because I charged and hit, so I will sunder his axe, cleaving sunder through to hit him, and hit him again so he'll have to make a fort save or be nauseated.

3.x combat is only a dull repetition of single attack/full attack if you want it to be. Between positioning (where you can be flanked, where you can't be flanked, where you can be charged, where you can't, where you control the approaches to the spellcasters, where you don't, where you do flank, where you have cover from enemies with ranged attacks and where you don't, where you provide cover to enemies from your allies' ranged attacks, where you will be full attackable and where you won't, where you can cleave, what your cleave options are, etc) mathematical feats (Power Attack, Combt Expertise, Fight defensively, etc), attack options (grapple and trip being the most common followed by sunder, disarm, and bullrush), and feat granted options (combat brute, shock trooper, elusive target, shield charge, shield slam, intimidating strike, mad foam rager), class granted abilities (smite evil, spells (like Rhino's Rush, Strength of Stone, Knight's Move, deafening clang), hexblade's curse, marshal auras, knight's challenge, flurry of blows, rage etc), and equipment (bracers of the quick strike, weapon capsule retainers, cloak of the montebank, healing belt, etc), you have plenty of options to make combat interesting.

Manuevers may seem cool to you, but if your experience of D&D 3.x melee combat is "I full attack. I full attack. It's dead? I move and single attack. I full attack" then you haven't scratched the surface of the tactical possibilities. And, if a designer is posting that, then they really don't understand the current edition of the game.

While not ALL melee combat involves full attack x infinity, a lot of the examples you gave were rather situational, and they only stressed further how much more the non-ToB melee classes were reliant on others to be able to stand on their feet. For example, how many parties are going to have a Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin AND a Cleric, or more than two other characters that can hit hard enough, without a Sneak Attack, in melee to make Bullrushing an enemy into their threatened areas truly worth it?

Sadly, a lot of the feats and abilities do not scale very well with levels. As for some of the spells you mentioned (Rhino's Rush, Knight's Move, Find the Gap, etc.), yes, those are very powerful Paladin spells. It's too bad that even at Lv. 20 he only gets to cast those a couple times a day at best. He'll nova to better than a Fighter for two encounters in the day, at most, and then quickly become a featless Fighter with more than likely a mediocre Strength score. And the Fighter as a class, feats and all, didn't look pretty to begin with.

No wonder the Warblade and Crusader are considered what the Fighter and Paladin, respectively, should have been. Looks like they got the hint for 4e.

 

[GnomeIllusionist]

Weapon Specialization will, on average, add as much or more damage damage per 5-round fight than a 5th level Martial Adept maneuver.

Zurai, I completely disagree with your comparison.

Compare a str 20 level 9 fighter with a +2 greatsword and WS: greatsword to a dex 20 level 9 swordsage with a +2 shortsword and Elder Mountain Hammer, both fighting an Androsphinx (CR 9).

This setup seems arbitrary. I agree with the fighter but why a Swordsage, why Dexterity 20 and why a Shortsword? Let's look at some other scenarios.

Fighter has a charge at +19 on the first round and attacks at +17/+12 for the remaining 4 rounds. He hits an average of 6.3 times for 12.6 added damage from Weapon Specialization.

Swordsage has a standard attack at +13 which hits 60% of the time for +6d6 damage and then is used up for the remainder of the combat. 60% of 6d6 averages to, amazingly, 12.6.

And that's just Weapon Specialization. Melee Weapon Mastery is significantly better (14.3 added damage), especially when combined with the obvious choice, Power Attack (MWM + PA for 2 = 37.8 expected extra damage).

I have not checked your calculations but I trust they are correct. They are the same additional damage. I find it far more likely that the Swordsage will have four more maneuvers to use in an encounter than the Fighter is to find four more useful feats that keep them even or give him the advantage.

Same Fighter, although I don't see how your getting +17/+12 - it should be +16/+11 by my reckoning unless you are counting Weapon Focus which is unfair in a feat vs. maneuver comparison.
Same encounter as the one you proposed.
A level 9 Warblade with 20 Str, a +2 Greatsword, +16/+11 attack bonus, using Elder Mountain Hammer.

The Fighter lands an average 6.3 attacks (charge first round at +19 then full-attack at +17/+12 for four rounds) dealing an extra 12.6 damage.
The Warblade lands an average 5.75 attacks (maneuver first round at +16 then full-attack at +16/+11 for four rounds) dealing an extra 15.75 damage.

This is counting two feats (Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization) for the Fighter. And, because Elder Mountain Hammer negates DR on that hit it swings it even more in favor towards the Warblade against an opponent with DR (which many monsters do that those levels).

This doesn't include the Warblade refreshing on rounds two and four which would deal 47.25 extra damage. A Crusader or Swordsage with the same weapon, stats and maneuver would do exactly the same. If we compare a Fighter with Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization (4 feats) to a Crusader with one extra maneuver (Doom Charge) we get:

Fighter average 6.75 attacks, 27 extra damage.
Crusader average 5.35 attacks, 33.6 extra damage.

I am sure there are feats that would add more extra damage than a single maneuver when measured in this way, but they would be more complex to compare because of additional factors. The 'classic' Fighter feats certainly aren't more powerful than maneuvers, though. And feats are a Fighters only class feature.

EDIT: I started typing my post before I saw the last few, sorry. Zurai, your post with the five feats and five maneuvers is interesting and is what I meant by it being more complex to compare other feats. A Fighter certainly can out-damage a Warblade but it requires more optimization and circumstances in my opinion and experience.

 

[Zurai]

Yes, I included WF for the fighter AND the swordsage. Fighter because it's a pre-req for Weapon Specialization, Swordsage because they get it as a bonus feat. I gave the SwS 20 dex so it could equal the to-hit from the fighter's strength (I've never seen a full-strength swordsage, although one could of course exist) using Weapon Finesse. Honestly though, since I included it for both characters and didn't use Power Attack in the initial example, it's pretty much irrelevant.

Yes, comparing full builds is a much more complex deal. That's why I took Darth Cyric at his word and compared a single feat to a single maneuver. Don't forget that if the Swordsage recovers his Elder Mountain Hammer, he forfeits an entire round to do so, including movement and both attacks. That easily negates any added damage from refreshing the maneuver. Again, Darth Cyric did not make the claim that a Warblade could beat a Fighter in added damage. He claimed that a single Fighter feat could not even come close to the added damage from a mid-level maneuver. Which I disproved. He wasn't talking about classes, he was talking about maneuvers. Since Swordsages are THE premier maneuver-based class, I feel the comparison is quite valid in the context of Darth Cyric's mistaken claim.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Yes, I included WF for the fighter AND the swordsage. Fighter because it's a pre-req for Weapon Specialization, Swordsage because they get it as a bonus feat. I gave the SwS 20 dex so it could equal the to-hit from the fighter's strength (I've never seen a full-strength swordsage, although one could of course exist) using Weapon Finesse. Honestly though, since I included it for both characters and didn't use Power Attack in the initial example, it's pretty much irrelevant.

Yes, comparing full builds is a much more complex deal. That's why I took Darth Cyric at his word and compared a single feat to a single maneuver. Don't forget that if the Swordsage recovers his Elder Mountain Hammer, he forfeits an entire round to do so, including movement and both attacks. That easily negates any added damage from refreshing the maneuver. Again, Darth Cyric did not make the claim that a Warblade could beat a Fighter in added damage. He claimed that a single Fighter feat could not even come close to the added damage from a mid-level maneuver. Which I disproved. He wasn't talking about classes, he was talking about maneuvers. Since Swordsages are THE premier maneuver-based class, I feel the comparison is quite valid in the context of Darth Cyric's mistaken claim.

And the point of all that was? As pointed out already, a Warblade refreshing between uses of EMH will do damage, unlike the Swordsage, and then the disparity becomes even greater.

You also ignored stances. Punishing Stance's (a 1st level stance!) average damage is 3.5, which alone comes pretty close to matching Weapon Spec and Melee Weapon Mastery combined.

Also, a little secret. The best maneuvers aren't strictly about the damage anyway. And, quite frankly, a Warblade who selected, much less prepared all of the four maneuvers you chose for your example deserves to die.

 

[AllisterH]

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. Pressure-point attacks, Yes. Brick-smashing punches? Certainly. But one based on using body leverage? Only one I can think of is Grappler Baki and even there, it isn't the main character (Baki) that uses judo.

re: Feats vs Manoeuvers.
I think the main difference is that Feats can be combined for one attack. With the number of splatbooks around, you can combine a chain of feats into one single devastating attack. The typical one-trick pony.

With manoeuvers, the self-limitation on actions means that there is an inherent limit as to how powerful manoeuvers can become.

 

[Mercule]

That's the way I've always felt about it, myself, usually garnered from most of the swords & sorcery I saw as a kid -- from Conan, to Ladyhawke, to Dragonslayer, to Excalibur. If someone who was a martial artist started walking on air, my first thought is, "where's the magic coming from?" "Training his body and mind" really wasn't sufficient for me. I'll accept a little reality-bending, like running up a wall for a few feet to make a jump, or slapping arrows out of the air, or making a 20-foot leap, but not a lot more before I have to get "magic" as an answer, and have it follow the rules for magic and anti-magic, etc.

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.