Tome of Battle: Bo9S classes in actual play?

[MoogleEmpMog]

He makes the group feel good, but he also auto-wins most fights if he wins initiative.

For example: I put my level 17 group against an Aspect of Mammon (the CR 21 one from FC II). They won, but it was a difficult and entertaining fight. In playtest, I swapped out one character for a White Raven Warblade (and I'll specify--it was a Warblade who could ONLY use White Raven), and they killed the Aspect of Mammon before it could do anything.

I'm sorry, but a level 17 party that doesn't one-round-KO a single CR 21 opponent they can charge is doing something very, very wrong, even with just core rules. Most level 17 characters I've seen can, if they 'alpha strike' (using up their highest level spells/abilities/magic items/short-term buffs), one-round-KO a single CR 21 opponent on their own.

Generally speaking, I find high-CR outsiders fall on the weaker end of their CR tiers in a stand-up fight, although I can't speak for the Fiendish Codex versions. Almost invariably, their best ability is greater teleport at will (GTAW), and that is, to be fair, almost impossible to deal with. I can't imagine any of the core outsiders of CR 15 or above lasting one round against an equal or even CR-2 average party level, provided the party won initiative. But allow them to GTAW even once and very few parties of even CR+2 or +4 can deal with them without at least a little mercy from the DM.

I haven't seen a warblade or sword sage in action yet, but all the examples you've given are things I personally would be shocked to see a party fail to accomplish even once in ten tries. Test against serious high-level threats: 4+ equal level creatures, a storm giant spellcaster abusing the non-associated class rules, core dragons, druids with NPC wealth... and the vow of poverty... CR 15+ outsiders with support (which almost all should have), brainstealer dragons (which at the levels you're testing at *will* kill any warblade, without fail, 19 out of 20 times), spellcasters played intelligently and with logical support, advanced golems (which might be the support in question), etc.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'm sorry, but a level 17 party that doesn't one-round-KO a single CR 21 opponent they can charge is doing something very, very wrong, even with just core rules. Most level 17 characters I've seen can, if they 'alpha strike' (using up their highest level spells/abilities/magic items/short-term buffs), one-round-KO a single CR 21 opponent on their own.

Generally speaking, I find high-CR outsiders fall on the weaker end of their CR tiers in a stand-up fight, although I can't speak for the Fiendish Codex versions. Almost invariably, their best ability is greater teleport at will (GTAW), and that is, to be fair, almost impossible to deal with. I can't imagine any of the core outsiders of CR 15 or above lasting one round against an equal or even CR-2 average party level, provided the party won initiative. But allow them to GTAW even once and very few parties of even CR+2 or +4 can deal with them without at least a little mercy from the DM.

I haven't seen a warblade or sword sage in action yet, but all the examples you've given are things I personally would be shocked to see a party fail to accomplish even once in ten tries. Test against serious high-level threats: 4+ equal level creatures, a storm giant spellcaster abusing the non-associated class rules, core dragons, druids with NPC wealth... and the vow of poverty... CR 15+ outsiders with support (which almost all should have), brainstealer dragons (which at the levels you're testing at *will* kill any warblade, without fail, 19 out of 20 times), spellcasters played intelligently and with logical support, advanced golems (which might be the support in question), etc.

The FC II aspects are rather powerful for their CR, I'm told. A Buffed Mammon had nearly 500 HP, non-trivial AC for the fighters, a DR type that nobody in the party could penetrate, SR that the casters had trouble penetrating (I don't allow those cop-out Orb spells either), a vicious poison that only the Monk could ignore, massive melee damage, and a touch that makes you kill your allies and steal their treasure with a Will Save high enough that (in the real fight when he got to use it) the Fighter only made it because of the Paladin of Freedom Aura against compulsions. Mammon is a monster in melee and has good spells to boot, and this showed in the actual fight (and the playtests without the Warblade). The problem was the Warblade's ability: Mammon, for all his powers, is not immune to stunning. The Warblade charged everyone into position with a stunningly-powerful (literally) charge, and the fact that the crazy-number-of-attacks Ninja could afterwards have two full attacks against him flat-footed (not to mention everyone else) sealed his demise.

I think for Warmaster's Charge to be balanced, it needs to have a saving throw on the stun (make the DC rise if more people hit), and it should require the other chargers to ready an action to participate (*or* alternately, they don't get to act until next round and add a cap o nthe to-hit bonus from multiple chargers)

EDIT: By the way--I'm frightened if you have level 17 PCs who can each do ~500 damage in one round with their best move. I've seen builds that can do it easily (I've even had them in my games), but I don't think they are a good comparison for what is balanced For comparison, a Twinned Meteor Swarm followed by a Quickened Meteor Swarm (With Metamagic Rods I guess), all of which strike the same target for bludgeoning, deals 336 damage to a target with no energy resistances if they all hit and the target doesn't have SR.

 

[Mort]

The FC II aspects are rather powerful for their CR, I'm told. A Buffed Mammon had nearly 500 HP, non-trivial AC for the fighters, a DR type that nobody in the party could penetrate, SR that the casters had trouble penetrating (I don't allow those cop-out Orb spells either), a vicious poison that only the Monk could ignore, massive melee damage, and a touch that makes you kill your allies and steal their treasure with a Will Save high enough that (in the real fight when he got to use it) the Fighter only made it because of the Paladin of Freedom Aura against compulsions. Mammon is a monster in melee and has good spells to boot, and this showed in the actual fight (and the playtests without the Warblade). The problem was the Warblade's ability: Mammon, for all his powers, is not immune to stunning. The Warblade charged everyone into position with a stunningly-powerful (literally) charge, and the fact that the crazy-number-of-attacks Ninja could afterwards have two full attacks against him flat-footed (not to mention everyone else) sealed his demise.

I think for Warmaster's Charge to be balanced, it needs to have a saving throw on the stun (make the DC rise if more people hit), and it should require the other chargers to ready an action to participate (*or* alternately, they don't get to act until next round and add a cap o nthe to-hit bonus from multiple chargers)

EDIT: By the way--I'm frightened if you have level 17 PCs who can each do ~500 damage in one round with their best move. I've seen builds that can do it easily (I've even had them in my games), but I don't think they are a good comparison for what is balanced For comparison, a Twinned Meteor Swarm followed by a Quickened Meteor Swarm (With Metamagic Rods I guess), all of which strike the same target for bludgeoning, deals 336 damage to a target with no energy resistances if they all hit and the target doesn't have SR.

How many people did you have participating in the charge? Obviously, the more people involved the bigger this ability is. In most groups only 1 or 2 other people would really want to charge the BBEG (obviously this varies widely with the focus of the group, but if you have a lot of people focused on melee, you're weak in other areas).

I've also seen that 1 monster 3-4 CR's above the party rarely poses the challenge indicated. The problem is one of actions. The monster has to focus on area tactics, or only focus on 1 PC. The PC's on the other hand can focus everything they have on the one monster, with a high level group this usually equates to one quickly killed oponent.

 

[satori01]

I've seen a Swordsage at 3 and 15th level, in both cases, it seems balanced, and useful. The Swordsage has some rather tactical maneuvers which appeals to a certain type of player.

As an aside, I am dubious of the research value of play testing characters. In real campaign conditions, most characters are not fully optimized, as in general party needs, and treasure distribution are not a controllable as when you create a character whole cloth, magic items and all.

At best you test a particuliar idealized build. Campaigns on the other hand test the player. Campaigns test a players ability to play a character, and not statistics, and generally encourage a player to think outside the box to solve many problems, to role play not roll play.

 

[mmu1]

I'm sorry, but a level 17 party that doesn't one-round-KO a single CR 21 opponent they can charge is doing something very, very wrong, even with just core rules. Most level 17 characters I've seen can, if they 'alpha strike' (using up their highest level spells/abilities/magic items/short-term buffs), one-round-KO a single CR 21 opponent on their own.

Uh... How do they do that, exactly, short of using save-or-die spells? (which are hardly foolproof given that many enemies of that CR tend to have save mods of 20+ and spell resistance?)

I could see them being able to "alpha strike" a 21 CR classed NPC (assuming that NPC was unprepared), but the various monster books are crowded with "CR 21" monsters that have hundreds of hitpoints, and short of blind luck on the part of the players would never go down in one round to a party of 17th level characters, much less to only one character.

 

[brehobit]

Where warmaster's charge get's silly is against huge opponents. With just a bit of prep (say a handful of monster summon VIIs of flying folks) you can easily get 12 folks doing the charge. Each with +24 attack and +25 damage. That will hurt. A lot.

I don't know of any other spell/ability with that kind of damage potential (and no save or SR)

Mark

 

[icedrake]

One of the MAJOR problems with the White Raven Charge is that anything medium size or small will likely only be attacked at most by 2 or 3 people due to positioning. If you can't get 8 people to flank him tactically from every direction from 10 feet away, you can't perform the charge. Does the maneuver ignore AoO? If not, than a monster with reach and whap at least one or more persons before they even reach the target.

If the high level maneuvers need to be tested, I'd suggest something similar to the Dungeon Crawl that WotC put on during Gen Con. Pull out a big fat dragon and set them up in a reasonable lair, then see how the pcs do against him. If you don't hold back, the fight will be brutal. At least one or two PCs should die.

I like the Bo9S classes, they are some of my favorites that have come out in a while, as a person who often plays rogue mutliclassed characters, I like having a lot of options at my disposal, while both in and out of combat. These new classes give me that and I'm pleased that they were developed. From what I've seen online, the only initial nerf I'd give the warblade would be its recover method. They can flourish as a standard action or make a single attack as a standard action to recover a single maneuver. Though they don't have very many, they can choose to use their maneuvers, full attack like a fighter or choose to recover while at least taking the time to strike a foe. I think I might allow them to recover using spring attack or another feat that lets them make a single attack so long as that's the only action they perform that round.

You can't fairly compare any of these classes to a core fighter, they get blow away. When talking about the other martial classes, you should review the material from both the PHBII and Complete Warrior. The Shock Trooper fighter/barb gets a huge boost with the Wall of Blades maneuver.

Edit: I do not believe you can take the Martial Stance feat more than once. You have to choose your stance very carefully, and if you're too low in level when you take it, the maneuver you're forced to take before you get your stance will likely have diminishing returns at higher levels. Unless you pick up fighter levels, its not worth it to pick up a stance, its too much of a hit to your overall feat progression.

Edit2: On the of Fail or Die, the 9th level Tiger Claw maneuver will mostly come as a source of damage instead of insta-death. For many levels, the cleric as already had Slay Living, the wizard gets Disintegrate and Finger of Death, I'll admit the +20d6 is highly impressive, but you forgot any other attacks your making for an avg bonus of +70 damage instead of making 3 itieritve attacks. It might be good verses wizards or sorcs or rogues, but they should have the fort save covered by a feat or magic item.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Uh... How do they do that, exactly, short of using save-or-die spells? (which are hardly foolproof given that many enemies of that CR tend to have save mods of 20+ and spell resistance?)

I could see them being able to "alpha strike" a 21 CR classed NPC (assuming that NPC was unprepared), but the various monster books are crowded with "CR 21" monsters that have hundreds of hitpoints, and short of blind luck on the part of the players would never go down in one round to a party of 17th level characters, much less to only one character.

At CR21, MM1 monsters have an average of 431 hp. Note than out of the eight monsters at this CR, *seven* are dragons and thus unlikely to be charged. The one non-dragon is the titan, who has 370. Ancient Blue has 445, Brass Wyrm has 459, Gold Old (golden oldie?) has 391, Ancient Green has 432, Very Old Red has 449, Very Old Silver has 387, and Great Wyrm White has 522.

MM2 monsters, all one of them, have 320 hp. It's the bone ooze, in case you're wondering. MM3 has no CR 21+ monsters at all.

Warcraft Manual of Monsters has one, too - the pit lord, at 250 hp. He's in a setting with slightly higher than normal damage values, so he's definitely the hp loser this time - a clear single character alpha strike kill.

Monsters of the Mind has two: the Great Wyrm Makara Dragon (542 hp) and the Wondrous Many-Headed Beast of Ketasha (362 hp). Average: 452.

From the Monster Encylopaedia II (I didn't have any): Fell Archon 209, Armoredon 495 (dragon), Meriginus Demon 348, Very Old Ashen Dragon 375, Ancient Darkstone Dragon 400, Very Old Eerie Dragon 356, Ancient Sword Dragon 432, Blaze Dragon 324, Galasian Leviathan 702. Average 404.

From the Monsternomicon, one (rather sad, for all that it is wicked cool in flavor) entrant: Deathjack 110.

At CR21, classed NPCs (specifically, the ELH premades) have an average of 133 hp. Barbarian 183, bard 94, cleric 136, druid 115, fighter 178, monk 136, paladin 157, ranger 157, rogue 115, sorcerer 97 and wizard 97.

429 Dragons (13)
393 Monsters (21)
333 Non-Dragon Monsters (8)
303 Overall (32)
218 Non-Dragons and NPCs (19)
133 NPCs (11)

I would expect a party of four ECL 17 PCs to kill an average example of anything up through the general monsters category in one round. An average PC at that level can IMX deal 100 damage in one round.

 

[Rystil Arden]

How many people did you have participating in the charge? Obviously, the more people involved the bigger this ability is. In most groups only 1 or 2 other people would really want to charge the BBEG (obviously this varies widely with the focus of the group, but if you have a lot of people focused on melee, you're weak in other areas).

I've also seen that 1 monster 3-4 CR's above the party rarely poses the challenge indicated. The problem is one of actions. The monster has to focus on area tactics, or only focus on 1 PC. The PC's on the other hand can focus everything they have on the one monster, with a high level group this usually equates to one quickly killed oponent.

They only had six (easy enough to manage against the size Huge aspect). The Warblade, the Fighter, the Ninja, the Paladin of Freedom/Spymaster (mostly there to add the +2, since he's kind of wimpy, but at least he got to Smite Law on it), the Arcane Trickster (probably wishes she hadn't charged, but they wanted the +2 to hit, and she got Sneak Attacks in at least), and the Marshal (kind of wimpy at charging, but again, the +2 is too much to ignore--she also did a Major Aura to raise everyone's to-hit).

The +25 to damage cancelled out Mammon's DR, and everybody who could Power Attack did so. The Warblade had a nasty charge because he knew he was White Raven only, and White Raven has a bunch of Charge manoeuvres, so he took Leap Attack, etc. He did around 95 Damage after the DR (remember he has +50 rather than +25). The Fighter had some PHII feat that let him strike twice on the charge and he did even more, I think 120 after DR. The Ninja was kind of wimpy on the charge, dealing only 30 after DR, but watch his space later for when he gets a full attack. The Paladin of Freedom got off a Smite Law, so he actually managed to outdamage the Ninja for once, barely, dealing about 35 after DR. The Arcane Trickster did 40 after DR. The Marshal did 25.

That's 345 Damage. And nobody but the Warblade spent more than an immediate action. Also, Mammon was Stunned with no save.

So, next in initiative was the Fighter. He was right next to it already, so he took a full attack and killed Mammon. Just for fun, I decided to see how much damage Mammon would have taken before he got a turn to act, mostly thanks to the Warblade (and his bringing everybody up where they could make a full attack plus stunning). The answer turned out to be that they did over 1000 damage (345 of which was all during the Warblade's turn when he used Warmaster's Charge).

 

[Seeten]

I have a feeling anything that allows 6 people to "take an extra turn" is as broken in DND as it is in Magic