I spent an amusing hour+ reverse engineering the Warblade/Mo9 earlier in the thread... and can more or less replicate it with initial stats of 15/14/13/12/10/8, 760K gold and the assumption that maneuvers granted by Crown of the White Ravenesque items cannot be used to fulfill prereqs. More or less because the stats listed neglected Improved Initiative (Mo9 prereq) and Battle Clarity (Warblade 1). My reconstruction does require 3 Master level Crown type items and the build is horrifically unoptimised (Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike with a wis of 10?! Heavy Armor proficiency?!). I'm pretty sure the random +1 damage listed for the Tiger Claw strikes is a misreading of Blade Meditation, if anyone cares.
Perhaps more relevantly, I think ToB is quite well balanced. Firstly, realize that the Warblade should be compared to the barbarian (both get d12 hp, medium armor, uncanny dodge and 4 skillpoints/level) rather than a fighter. Compared to a Barb, the Warblade seems less intimidating: Time Stands Still is *quite* impressive... but, believe it or not, Mighty Rage is as big a damage boost (more or less, depends on the AC of the opponent, the scarier the opponent the better rage is) and Mighty Rage does not need to be refreshed every other round.
If you take a careful look at the ToB, you will note that ToB does very little to increase Martial Adept *full attack* damage above that of the Fighter/Barb, if in fact it does so at all. Time Stands Still/Raging Mongoose/Inferno Blade are very powerfull indeed, but so are rage and even stacked weapon spec/mastery. The big difference between Fighters/Barbs and Martial Adepts is in their effectiveness *if restricted to standard attacks*. Fighters and Barbs are reduced to utter impotence while Martial Adepts can use standard action strikes to match unoptimized fighter/non-raging barb full attack damage. This is the (only, huge) power boost that the martial adepts recieve, and it is not a game breaking problem, but rather fixes one: getting full attacks against competant foes is somewhere between difficult and impossible at high levels (unless the foe is a melee monster, in which case he can afford to trade full attacks and will probably get the first one in because he has greater reach and then *you* want to avoid getting full attacks); and without reliable full attacks fighters/barbs aren't worth the party slot.
Are ToB classes more powerful that fighters/barbs? Yes, but their maximum damage output is the same. When both are perfoming at their best, they are equivalent. ToB classes are just more flexible in combat (i.e. not frequently reduced to impotence), and thanks to some actual skill points not utterly useless outside of it.
-Kraydak
Perhaps more relevantly, I think ToB is quite well balanced. Firstly, realize that the Warblade should be compared to the barbarian (both get d12 hp, medium armor, uncanny dodge and 4 skillpoints/level) rather than a fighter. Compared to a Barb, the Warblade seems less intimidating: Time Stands Still is *quite* impressive... but, believe it or not, Mighty Rage is as big a damage boost (more or less, depends on the AC of the opponent, the scarier the opponent the better rage is) and Mighty Rage does not need to be refreshed every other round.
If you take a careful look at the ToB, you will note that ToB does very little to increase Martial Adept *full attack* damage above that of the Fighter/Barb, if in fact it does so at all. Time Stands Still/Raging Mongoose/Inferno Blade are very powerfull indeed, but so are rage and even stacked weapon spec/mastery. The big difference between Fighters/Barbs and Martial Adepts is in their effectiveness *if restricted to standard attacks*. Fighters and Barbs are reduced to utter impotence while Martial Adepts can use standard action strikes to match unoptimized fighter/non-raging barb full attack damage. This is the (only, huge) power boost that the martial adepts recieve, and it is not a game breaking problem, but rather fixes one: getting full attacks against competant foes is somewhere between difficult and impossible at high levels (unless the foe is a melee monster, in which case he can afford to trade full attacks and will probably get the first one in because he has greater reach and then *you* want to avoid getting full attacks); and without reliable full attacks fighters/barbs aren't worth the party slot.
Are ToB classes more powerful that fighters/barbs? Yes, but their maximum damage output is the same. When both are perfoming at their best, they are equivalent. ToB classes are just more flexible in combat (i.e. not frequently reduced to impotence), and thanks to some actual skill points not utterly useless outside of it.
-Kraydak
