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<blockquote data-quote="Nifft" data-source="post: 3247860" data-attributes="member: 6562">In my experience (as a DM building NPC foes for the PCs), I'm always drawn to the Warblade for its seeming power, but when I put together a Warblade NPC, I'm always bitten by multiple-ability dependency. The lack of heavy armor also really stinks. IMHO Warblade is perfectly balanced against Barbarian, and its recovery mechanism is NOT overpowered -- even if you allow it to work alongside a full attack -- because this guy is NOT optimized for full attacks! He's not supposed to stand there and take it, he's supposed to dish it out and keep moving. Int synergy is nice, but man oh man, your Will save will not be pretty. Take Iron Heart Surge a.s.a.p.. (Also, note that Warblades are NOT allowed to take the Martial Script feat, so everyone else has the ability to make &quot;scrolls&quot;. Swordsages in particular should consider this feat, since they have such a wide selection of maneuvers.)The Crusader's recovery mechanism is the best in the game, because it is free. His maneuver list is pretty good, particularly if he's with a group and is designed to support them with his aura-like stances. He gets heavy armor and a boost to Will saves, and his Delayed Damage pool plus Stone Power allows him to &quot;heal&quot; up to 10 hit points a round for free, in addition to his other curative stances &amp; maneuvers. He's tougher than the Warblade, but less flashy.The Swordsage has a good recovery mechanism if you use the WotC Adaptive Style ruling (that Adaptive Style refreshes as well as re-selects your readied maneuvers). Then Adaptive Style becomes the &quot;Natural Spell&quot; of that class. Oh well, one less feat choice, it's still a great class.Those are my findings as an evil DM trying to break the NPCs that the party will face. So far, the most near-death experiences have come from Barbarians, not ToB:Bo9S foes. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Cheers, -- N</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Nifft, post: 3247860, member: 6562"] In my experience (as a DM building NPC foes for the PCs), I'm always drawn to the Warblade for its seeming power, but when I put together a Warblade NPC, I'm always bitten by multiple-ability dependency. The lack of heavy armor also really stinks. IMHO Warblade is perfectly balanced against Barbarian, and its recovery mechanism is NOT overpowered -- even if you allow it to work alongside a full attack -- because this guy is NOT optimized for full attacks! He's not supposed to stand there and take it, he's supposed to dish it out and keep moving. Int synergy is nice, but man oh man, your Will save will not be pretty. Take Iron Heart Surge a.s.a.p.. (Also, note that Warblades are NOT allowed to take the Martial Script feat, so everyone else has the ability to make "scrolls". Swordsages in particular should consider this feat, since they have such a wide selection of maneuvers.) The Crusader's recovery mechanism is the best in the game, because it is free. His maneuver list is pretty good, particularly if he's with a group and is designed to support them with his aura-like stances. He gets heavy armor and a boost to Will saves, and his Delayed Damage pool plus Stone Power allows him to "heal" up to 10 hit points a round for free, in addition to his other curative stances & maneuvers. He's tougher than the Warblade, but less flashy. The Swordsage has a good recovery mechanism if you use the WotC Adaptive Style ruling (that Adaptive Style refreshes as well as re-selects your readied maneuvers). Then Adaptive Style becomes the "Natural Spell" of that class. Oh well, one less feat choice, it's still a great class. Those are my findings as an evil DM trying to break the NPCs that the party will face. So far, the most near-death experiences have come from Barbarians, not ToB:Bo9S foes. :) Cheers, -- N [/QUOTE]

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