Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

[Thurbane]

Q. Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

A. Yes.

...next question?

 

[Hammerhead]

Q. Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

A. Yes.

...next question?

Amazing. Any other insights?

I seem to recall that at the start of Third Edition, almost everyone seemed to say the Monk was overpowered. When in fact it was one of the weakest classes all around.

 

[DarkJester]

I feel that the Sword Sage and Warblade are powerful warriors. I'm not sure how much stronger they are than their equivilants, but I like them much more as a DM. In my campaigns I use the suggested variant unarmed swordsage in place of monks, and the warblade in addition to fighters. Sword Sages can have the flair that I feel the standard monk is missing. Warblades give the tank more options than "I rage" - or - "I Power attack for 3" - or - "I charge". That's a gross simplification of what typical fighters can do, but thats the just of it.

 

[Votan]

Amazing. Any other insights?

I seem to recall that at the start of Third Edition, almost everyone seemed to say the Monk was overpowered. When in fact it was one of the weakest classes all around.

What is ironic is that the warblade seems to have most of the fixes that people suggest for the fighter: more skills and skill points, more powerful but limited use abilities to replce the bland bonuses of feats and d12 hit points.

If these fixes are not overpowered then I suspect that this class isn't either.

 

[DarkJester]

What is ironic is that the warblade seems to have most of the fixes that people suggest for the fighter: more skills and skill points, more powerful but limited use abilities to replce the bland bonuses of feats and d12 hit points.

If these fixes are not overpowered then I suspect that this class isn't either.

That is my reasoning behind introducing the Warblade. It's what I want out of a tank. For my groups, everyone wants to play anything but the main combatant. The warblade breathed new life into the role for us.

 

[brehobit]

What is ironic is that the warblade seems to have most of the fixes that people suggest for the fighter: more skills and skill points, more powerful but limited use abilities to replce the bland bonuses of feats and d12 hit points.

If these fixes are not overpowered then I suspect that this class isn't either.

So is the warblade better than the fighter? I'd have to say "yes, by a bunch". Heck the swordsage is a better fighter than a fighter. At 5th level you can toss off a 6d6 (usually 10' radius) fireball once per fight, do 2d6 sneak attack (every round) and add your Wis to your AC in light armor. Oh, you also have 6 skill points/level.

The fighter gets +2 BAB, +5 hps, and 3 feats. The feats are mighty handy, but the sword sage gets weapon focus in a SET of weapons (worth 1.5 feats I'd say), +2 to init (worth .5 feats?) and gets to add WIS to damage some of the time (worth between .5 and 1 feats depending on how high of stats you have). So the sword sage has 2.5-3 (good) feats, plus two good saves vs. one. So I'd say all the fighter has over the swordsage is the +2 BAB (significant) and +5 hit points (a feat at best).

And all of this ignore the all but one of the maneuvers of the sword sage. He could be able to do each of the following 1/fight:

* Make a concentration check vs. target's AC. If successful, target takes +1d6 damage and is flatfooted (So +2d6 more due to the sneak attack) (Swift)

* Turn inviso for your action only (again the +2d6 damage AND no AoO) (swift)

* teleport 50' as a standard action. (apparently all day)

* Do +2d6 damage and overcome all hardness and DR (part of attack, standard action)

* get a touch attack to do 4d6 fire damage as an immediate action against anyone who hits you.

(Fireball already mentioned)

That is gross.

Example:

6th level sword sage:
32-point buy:
halfling swordsage.

Str 8
Int 10
Wis 14
Dex 21
Con 14
Chr 8

AC: 24 (+5 +1 chain shirt, +2 Wis, +1 size, +5 DEX, +1 natural)
feats:
Shadow blade (1st)
Weapon finesse (3rd)
EWP: spiked chain (6th)

Attack bonus: +12 (+4 BAB, +5 DEX, +1 magic, +1 size, +1 weapon focus)
Damage: d6 + 6 (+1 magic, +5 DEX) +2d6 (sneak attack) +2 (Wis if using shadow strike)
Has a 10' reach.

That's a heck of an AC and a LOT of damage. As good of damage as a raging barbarian? Nope. As good of an AC as a pure tank fighter? Really close (Full plate +1, Heavy shield +1, amulet +1 and Dex +1 is also AC 24) and the sword sage damage is better... (The tank likely has STR 16 and weapon specialization so d8+5 damage and two attacks at +11/+6 or so)

And he can do all of the actions listed above in addition to being nearly as good in pure combat as the tank-fighter...

Total spent on magic items:
+1 chain shirt (1300), +1 spiked chain (2,325), +1 amulet of natural armor (1000) so 4,800ish.

Mark

 

[Victim]

High level powerhouses that can still get themselves enchanted/dominated/held or barbequed on a failed Reflex/Will save.

(would like to meet the high level crappy spellcaster even at 5th level. )

Sure, you can argue that casters don't pick bad spells (of course, prep casters can sometimes be caught without the right spells), but then why not assume that fighters are going to pick good weapon/feat combos? The main difference is just when you make the choices that determine effectiveness. The caster picks his spells everyday, and so can simply start picking better spell combos. The fighter needs to build the awesome into his character from the get go.

At level 20, a wizard has +12 base Will save with no special focus on Wis. At level 20, a barbarian has +6 base Will save, but gets another +8! when raging. A fighter barbarian might only have normal rage, but probably takes Iron Will so that probably puts him up to +10 when raging. Fighters may also have the feats to spend on the PHB2 Con based Will save feat, if it's allowed. The Will save gap isn't that wide, unless you start talking about divine casters, pallies or monks - characters that have good Will saves AND have extra incentives to pump up their Wis are generally going to blow everyone else away. And Reflex saves should be pretty close too - with the fighter types having a HP advantage over most other characters that helps to blunt the effects of failed Ref saves. I don't think melee monsters are as screwed on saves as you seem to think.

Plus some pretty low level spell effects like Protection from Evil and Resist Energy provide a strong second line of defense.

Basically, half of the question is whether or not the core melee class are underpowered.

 

[gnfnrf]

I'm not sure if it is broken alone, but it's definately broken when combined with psionics.

I have a kalashtar soulknife/swordsage with Instant Clarity and Psychic Renewal, Insightful Strike (the DM maneuver), and a third eye of concentration in my game. At 9th level, he is dealing 40 points of damage in melee every other round, and doing something useful on the off-rounds.

It's not even like the PC tried that hard to twink, he just picked the things that seemed right at the time.

--
gnfnrf

 

[satori01]

I'm DM'ing for 2 Swordsages right now. One is for my secondary campaign, the Savage Tide adventure path. Everyone is 3rd level.
Right now in terms of sheer destructive power number 1 is the Barbarian, number 2 is the Warmage. The Swordsage is probably #3 but could get a run for his money from the Unfettered or the Dragon Shaman. The Barbarian could kill him in one hit.

Now in my primary 14 level campaign, a player replaced his Arcane Trickster with a 14 level Swordsage/Master of Nine combo.
I was afraid that this character would dominate compared to the established characters. First big battle, the character springs into action, using a Desert Wind Maneuver to fly across the map and land near a giant with Greater Invis on it.

Now the Swordsage has an AC of 31, the highest now in the group. He selects his square to land in, incurs an attack of opportunity, and is squished into chunky salsa as the giant hits with a giantish level of power attack. AC is one thing, but d8 hit points is another.

Likewise Swordsages have poor Fort saves; life can be hard for a melee combat monkey when you Fort save is low. The Swordsage had taken damage from poison and other effects pre-combat.

In the same exact circumstance the winged Asasimar Champion of Freedom/Fighter with mobility and Spring Attack, avoided being hit by the AOO because of Mobility, and due to a higher Fort Save,(escaping previous poison damage) and Higher HD, if she had taken the hit would still have been in decent fighting shape.

The Swordsage was handy, and with maneuvers can do good damage with a single standard action, but it was not overpowered compared to any of the the Warriors in my group, An Archer, an Unfettered/Paladin/Knight of the Pale, or the Champion/Fighter.

The balancing factor seem to be the universal factors easy to miss when reading, Saves and Hit Dice and BAB.

 

[Victim]

AC: 24 (+5 +1 chain shirt, +2 Wis, +1 size, +5 DEX, +1 natural)
feats:
Shadow blade (1st)
Weapon finesse (3rd)
EWP: spiked chain (6th)

Attack bonus: +12 (+4 BAB, +5 DEX, +1 magic, +1 size, +1 weapon focus)
Damage: d6 + 6 (+1 magic, +5 DEX) +2d6 (sneak attack) +2 (Wis if using shadow strike)
Has a 10' reach.

That's a heck of an AC and a LOT of damage. As good of damage as a raging barbarian? Nope. As good of an AC as a pure tank fighter? Really close (Full plate +1, Heavy shield +1, amulet +1 and Dex +1 is also AC 24) and the sword sage damage is better... (The tank likely has STR 16 and weapon specialization so d8+5 damage and two attacks at +11/+6 or so)

And he can do all of the actions listed above in addition to being nearly as good in pure combat as the tank-fighter...

Total spent on magic items:
+1 chain shirt (1300), +1 spiked chain (2,325), +1 amulet of natural armor (1000) so 4,800ish.

Mark

Amulet of natural armor is 2k, not 1k. Plus your chain shirt isn't mithril. Either spend 1k more or drop your AC by 1 because of the max Dex. I think HP are also important to fighting characters; your swordsage has 45. By the way, your character is within 4 lbs of medium encumberance from just his weapon and armor, and can lose his AC bonus.

At level 6, swordsages can have 6 readied moves plus 3 stances. You won't have very many strikes of your insightful focus discipline if you're going to with those moves, so your +2 Wis bonus to damage won't come up very often. Of course, your shadowblade feat basically locks you into using Shadow Hand stances, so you probably won't be switching those around very often.

For comparison:

half orc Fighter 4 Barbarian 2
STR 20 (24)
DEX 12
CON 14 (18)
INT 10
WIS 13
CHA 6

Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Focus: Greatsword, Iron Will, Weapon Spec, Extra Rage

AC 21 -> 19 (+1 FP, +1 natural or deflection, +1 Dex)
Attack: +13/+8 RAGE!! -> +15/+10
Damage: 2d6+7 19-20 -> 2d6+10 19-20
HP: 55 -> 67

Uncanny Dodge, Fast Movement (not in use)

With extra rage, the character should be able to use rage in most encounters.

Average damage when raging. Numbers after slash are with optimal PA (the difference isn't very much except against 15, and that's when everyone is going to PA)

Single Attack...............................Full Attack
AC 15: 19.86/25.58 .................... 36.58/43.07
AC 20: 16.72/17.88 .................... 28.22/29.1
AC 25: 11.5/11.55 ...................... 17.77

Over 6 rounds, with 3 single attacks and 3 full attacks, the character does 140.94 damage. Not counting any cleaves of course.

Now let's take the swordsage. Sneak Attacking, but not using strikes:

AC 15: 20.32
AC 20: 14.67
AC 25: 9.03

Next step is to include his abilities and look at things over 6 rounds. It doesn't really matter at this point whether he full attacks or not, so he'll have 6 standard action attacks. Let's say that he'd ordinarily be able to sneak attack half the time, so with his 2 moves he'll sneak attack 5/6. Since he's already using the fireball thing, I'll switch his level disc focus to Desert Wind and he'll pack 1 other strike (the +1d6+6 fire one). With reach, we'll say he can get in AoO in 2 rounds - once enemies engage, they probably won't provoke and he doesn't have Combat Reflexes to pick off multiples in each wave.

So in 6 rounds he does 73.35 damage on his sneak attacks, 29.34 on AoO (I assumed those were sneaks as well), and 7.85 on the round without sneak attacks. So that's 110.54 damage on attacks. He uses the 4d6 counter strike against one foe for 14 more damage (I'm assuming it hit, since it's a touch attack). His concentration check based move adds another 2.275. His fireball attack (assuming 1 target - hey, it's not like the barbarian is using cleave!) adds 6d6+2 damage but has to hit, so that's another 14.95 damage after they fail the save. His DR busting strike (stone dragon, right) adds another 4.55. Finally his last desert wind strike adds 6.825 net damage.

Okay, that's 153.14 damage. Dang. I hate it when I do all this work and I don't get the numbers I want. Still, I don't think the swordsage demonstrates total supremacy despite his advantage in damage and AC - more full attacks, fire resistance (energy resistance is significantly easier to get than DR), stuff that's immune to sneak attacks, or a different AC could all swing things the barbarian's way. Or even not assuming that enemies fail their save, that the touch attack hits, and that he makes his concentration check. But it's still pretty disapointing. I was figuring that conventional fighter types would have an edge in raw damage but that the swordsage would have a bunch more tricks.

I thought about using a spiked chain fighter 2 rogue 4 to maintain more congruence between the characters, since they'd both have trouble if not sneak attacking, skill totals would be pretty much closer, etc. However, that doesn't say much about conventional fighting classes.