Tome of Battle: Bo9S classes in actual play?

[MongooseFamiliar]

Oh, for pity's sake! Move the White Raven - Warmaster's charge discussion to a thread in the rules forum where you can endlessly obsess over it and let everyone else talk about something more interesting than rulemashing! You've been at it for about two pages already!

Okay. That said...

I haven't played a BoS class yet, but can't wait to add a minimum 1-level dip to the 3rd-level ninja I am running in a mystery campaign. The concealing shadows stance plus the shadow teleporting abilities really mesh well with my sneaky ninja concept. I'm not sure what would mesh best with Shadow Mind for a sneaky girl like mine, though Tiger Claw would dovetail nicely with the jump boosts CA ninjas get and the Setting Sun throws would just be funny.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Oh, for pity's sake! Move the White Raven - Warmaster's charge discussion to a thread in the rules forum where you can endlessly obsess over it and let everyone else talk about something more interesting than rulemashing! You've been at it for about two pages already!

Okay. That said...

I haven't played a BoS class yet, but can't wait to add a minimum 1-level dip to the 3rd-level ninja I am running in a mystery campaign. The concealing shadows stance plus the shadow teleporting abilities really mesh well with my sneaky ninja concept. I'm not sure what would mesh best with Shadow Mind for a sneaky girl like mine, though Tiger Claw would dovetail nicely with the jump boosts CA ninjas get and the Setting Sun throws would just be funny.

Actually, I think MEM is debating something that's even completely separate from Warmaster's Charge and having more to do with multiple monsters and ELs, which is something that probably should be moved to a new thread. As to White Raven, I'd say that it is actually germane to the discussion at hand if people want to talk about it. And if not, that's cool too.

 

[Asmor]

I'm a bit late in this thread, and probably don't have anything new to add... but I played a martial adept today for the first time. It was, in fact, a Crusader, the class I really was least enamoured with. Level 2.

It was actually a lot of fun. I enjoyed his abilities, and the fact that he could both attack and heal was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it didn't come up much because we only had a couple battles and noone got damaged much until the end... Second to last fight, I was down to 6 with 5 points sitting in my delayed damage pool, after my crusader's strike had failed the turn before. The rogue UMDed a wand of cure light on me and then I used the feat that lets you recover a maneuver once per day to take another stab at Crusader's Strike.

Between Iron Guard's Glare and the dynamic duo of Vanguard Strike and Leading the Attack, my two team mates were quite happy to enjoy their -4 to be hit and +4 to hit most of the time.

 

[MongooseFamiliar]

I'm a bit late in this thread, and probably don't have anything new to add... but I played a martial adept today for the first time. It was, in fact, a Crusader, the class I really was least enamoured with. Level 2.

It was actually a lot of fun. I enjoyed his abilities, and the fact that he could both attack and heal was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it didn't come up much because we only had a couple battles and noone got damaged much until the end... Second to last fight, I was down to 6 with 5 points sitting in my delayed damage pool, after my crusader's strike had failed the turn before. The rogue UMDed a wand of cure light on me and then I used the feat that lets you recover a maneuver once per day to take another stab at Crusader's Strike.

Between Iron Guard's Glare and the dynamic duo of Vanguard Strike and Leading the Attack, my two team mates were quite happy to enjoy their -4 to be hit and +4 to hit most of the time.

The crusader kind of looked weak to me on paper, though that devout spirit stuff looked great. It just looked like the class abilities were...lacking. I've been surprised by how many people posted that they loved the crusader. Are there any parts of the class that you felt were really strong and worked, or any you felt were weak and really didn't?

 

[Mort]

The crusader kind of looked weak to me on paper, though that devout spirit stuff looked great. It just looked like the class abilities were...lacking. I've been surprised by how many people posted that they loved the crusader. Are there any parts of the class that you felt were really strong and worked, or any you felt were weak and really didn't?

I ran the beginning of Red Hand of Doom with the ToB classes (1 warblade, 1 swordsage, 1 crusader and a duskblade as the anomoly) and the Crusader came of extremely strong in actual play. The ability to delay damage in combat was huge - he could get hit then heal the next round before he felt most of the damage.
Martial spirit (stance allowing 2 hp's gained every time the crusader hits), even though it looks inconsequential was very good because it was absolutely free healing to the crusader and anyone in range.
Also the crusader had by far the best AC in the party as he could wear full plate and use a large shield (none of his manuevers depended on mobility).

[Edit:forgot to add]

The crusader's recovery method, even though it looks wonky, worked great in actual play. I printed up the manuevers on card stock paper for ease of reference, and the crusader had no problem determining his manuevers. Further, because the crusader's recovery method is automatic, he could cycle through manuevers very rapidly, realistically even faster than the warblade. He did have the feat that allows 1 extra readied manuever (which seemed to help a lot).
[edit]

The Warblade looked great on paper but his AC was only 16 and he had no range so he was in a world of hurt when (spoiler for Red Hand of Doom)
[sblock] he got first pincushioned then mobbed by hobgoblins in the first encounter[/sblock]
The crusader had to rescue him.

The warblade also wasn't much good against (again spoiler)
[sblock]the hydra, lack of range really hurt him[/sblock]
he had to be saved by the duskblade (a duskblade with spring attack is pretty effective btw).

I'd say the crusader is a fun and strong class.

 

[Wrathamon]

There is a warforged crusader juggernaut with that stone power feat.

He is very hard to take down as he is always delaying damage, gaining temporary hitpoints and healing himself.

I say he is very effective and it seems to be a very viable class.

 

[Asmor]

The crusader kind of looked weak to me on paper, though that devout spirit stuff looked great. It just looked like the class abilities were...lacking. I've been surprised by how many people posted that they loved the crusader. Are there any parts of the class that you felt were really strong and worked, or any you felt were weak and really didn't?

Honestly, I'm a still on the fence regarding the delayed damage pool. The bonus seems quite small, but OTOH it's also reasonable to expect that you'll always have at least a +1 to attack and damage.

As has been said by others, I actually liked his method of using maneuvers, which is what put me off the class at first. It's set so that, no matter what level you are, you always have 3 maneuvers withheld, or two withheld if you've got the feat that grants you an extra maneuver (which I think is absolutely vital, because it means not only that you're more likely to have the maneuver you want when you need it, but it also means you recycle your maneuvers every 3 rounds instead of every 4 rounds).

Incidentally, I was orignally planning on using index cards for the maneuvers, which are annoying to shuffle but work. I was rushed, however, and decided to just grab a pack of playing cards and key each maneuver to a card. I liked that a lot better, as the cards were more enjoyable to handle. It got a little confusing every time my maneuvers were granted as I had to figure out what was what, but he gets so few maneuvers at a time it's not a big deal. I might just go ahead and right the maneuver names on the cards next time, though. Decks of cards are cheap, after all.

Sorry for the tangent... Anyways, I think the best thing about the crusader is the Devoted Spirit style. It's their exclusive style, and it's really good (at lower levels at least... Haven't analyzed the higher levels of it yet). Devoted Spirit + White Raven = Front-line combatant who can attack, heal and buff all at the same time.

 

[Nifft]

Delayed Damage and Stone Power make very little sense by themselves, but when paired ... you take up to -10 damage each round, all for the price of a small bonus to attack.

From what I've seen, the Crusader's recovery mechanism is actually the best, because it's free. The Swordsage's not bad at all, because you will take Adaptive Style, and you won't need to recover very often... and you can safely teleport yourself away before you hide & recover. Swordsages are shockingly good at hit-and-run. IMHO, the Warblade is actually the worst, not solely because of the mechanism in itself, but because of the circumstances that surround its use.

Cheers, -- N

 

[MongooseFamiliar]

Okay, is everyone else reading the text of the Adaptive style that I am reading? I have seen multiple references to using it for getting all of your spent maneuvers back as a full-round action.

What I am seeing is: "You can change your readied maneuvers at any time by taking a full round action. If you're a crusader, your current granted maneuvers are lost and you gain new granted maneuvers as if you had just readied your maneuvers for the day."

But I know I have seen people talking about using Adaptive Style to regen all maneuvers for their SWORDSAGE. Thoughts? Am I just interpreting this incorrectly?

 

[Nifft]

But I know I have seen people talking about using Adaptive Style to regen all maneuvers for their SWORDSAGE. Thoughts? Am I just interpreting this incorrectly?

That's the official WotC interpretation (so far). I allow it -- it's a must-have for the Swordsage, for everyone else it's useful, but perhaps not worth it, given the value of a round.

Cheers, -- N