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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3247488" data-attributes="member: 1165">I've only been one in one or two sessions of a non-regular DnD party. We had fewer magic items, we had DR-granting overcoats, and we had no full-classed spellcasters. My observations probably won't be all that valuable.I was a 6th-level Warblade, "specializing" in White Raven tactics. There's a few holes in the "learning maneuvers table" - at 3rd-level, it makes sense to be able to learn 2nd-level maneuvers, but that might not have been available (it was either maneuvers or stances that had the hole, not both). Warblades supposedly can recharge their maneuvers ridiculously fast, but combat never lasted long enough for me to bother. The rules to recharge maneuvers were confusing and possibly overpowered - I can't say for sure because of the confusion. I thought I had to give up a move action (equivalent) to recharge maneuvers, but the DM thought I only had to give up a free action. We're both experienced rules-grognards, too. WotC should really errata that.The Int-favoring abilities were, IMO, cherries on an already overly sweet cake. I did take a high Int, but that's because any character who takes White Raven should be smart enough to be a good tactician; if I wasn't going to be a commander, I would have cheerfully taken Int 10 and not cared that I'm losing out on stuff. The warblade class is powerful enough already, with its high hit points and high BAB and maneuvers that make fighters cry out of jealousy. I'd trim the hit points at least.White Raven didn't seem powerful, probably because buffing non-optimized combatants isn't powerful, and none of the other PCs were optimized for melee. There are a couple of White Raven abilities that might be broken as written. There's one that you can theoretically give other players extra actions depending on their initiative, but that's obviously not RAI and DMs who use non-core stuff (and even some core stuff) have to willing to change or ban stuff instead of using blatantly overpowered stuff as written. The highest level White Raven abilities are only overpowered if the DM does something silly like putting players in charge of 50 1st-level warriors ... WotC probably should have limited the abilities to five allies, or something like that. White Raven doesn't work well if your character is slow, by the way, which is kind of odd considering the only base classes that have access to White Raven easily are proficient in medium armor.IMO, warblades should lose Weapon Specialization*, should have a slightly longer list of maneuvers known/used, and have the recharge ability nerfed. If I had ever gone through a boss fight, I probably would have run out of maneuvers, and then could truly judge if the rechage is overpowered or not. They could also have hit points trimmed. Finally, the class skill list drove me up the wall. Warblades get lots of skill points and favor Int, yet the skill list was way too short. I found myself taking ranks in Balance and other skills that didn't fit my "heavy front-line commander" concept. I had to ask the DM to take ranks in Knowledge (tactics) because no such skill existed - there is a Martial Lore skill, but that won't help you against a regular fighter. Non-commanders might have gotten off easier, if they didn't take high Int, but the class makes taking high Int fairly good.* Technically you have to spend the feat. But why wouldn't you?The swordsage seemed pretty weak. It's probably stronger than swashbuckler classes, but that's not saying much at all. WotC continually shafts light fighters, and the swordsage is just more evidence of that. I didn't play one, but the DM asked me to make some NPCs. They looked very weak. I couldn't compare it to monks or regular fighters due to the non-ordinary nature of that DnD campaign. To me, it seemed obviously far weaker than a warblade.</blockquote>

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