Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

[FireLance]

If the fighter shows his deadliness by dropping a foe in a single hit, he's either going to get swarmed by the bad guys, or they're going to run.

Just to make it clear, I do think that the warblade is a powerful class, and I happen to like it for that reason. However, there is a tendency to exaggerate its advantages without recognizing its limitations, or realizing that a fighter could do the same as well. The quote above is an example. If dropping a foe in a single hit is a problem for a fighter, it's just as much a problem for a warblade.

Similarly, a kalashtar warblade using a move action to recover his psionic focus faces the same constraint as a fighter trying to pull off a full attack - it works well in a toe-to-toe fight, but he can't do it if he has to move.

The Book of Nine Swords actually makes it easier for a kalashtar fighter to make use of Psionic Mediation and hence, feats that require him to expend his psionic focus. If he uses Martial Study to learn a Diamond Mind maneuver such as Moment of Perfect Mind, Concentration becomes a class skill for him.

 

[Fedifensor]

Just to make it clear, I do think that the warblade is a powerful class, and I happen to like it for that reason. However, there is a tendency to exaggerate its advantages without recognizing its limitations, or realizing that a fighter could do the same as well. The quote above is an example. If dropping a foe in a single hit is a problem for a fighter, it's just as much a problem for a warblade.

The thing is, if the warblade gets swarmed, he has more tools to fix that problem. Particularly after 7th level, when Mithral Tornado becomes available (it's a lot less onerous to get than Whirlwind Attack). Outside of the charge feats (I won't get into how broken Leap Attack is), a warblade does more damage during the course of a combat.

Similarly, a kalashtar warblade using a move action to recover his psionic focus faces the same constraint as a fighter trying to pull off a full attack - it works well in a toe-to-toe fight, but he can't do it if he has to move.

Press the Advantage becomes available at 10th, which increases the warblade's 5' step to 10'. Plus, if the warblade uses Battle Leader's Charge, he does not draw AoO's for moving. Sure, he can't recover his focus that round if he charges...but he's still getting bonus damage on his attack from the maneuver.

The Book of Nine Swords actually makes it easier for a kalashtar fighter to make use of Psionic Mediation and hence, feats that require him to expend his psionic focus. If he uses Martial Study to learn a Diamond Mind maneuver such as Moment of Perfect Mind, Concentration becomes a class skill for him.

Really, this just shows that the base fighter is really lacking. Its skills are lacking, which is why the kalashtar fighter needs to use one of his precious feats to get Concentration. The feats are useful, but as the fighter's ONLY class feature, the bonus feats are lacking compared to what most other classes offer. When is the last time you saw a high-level pure fighter in a game? Virtually every fighter I've seen multiclasses or jumps into a PrC after a few levels. The +2 damage from Greater Weapon Specialization is handy, but not going to make a huge difference at 12th level.

I understand what you're trying to say...but I simply don't believe that the fighter measures up. And the belief that the fighter is underpowered (particularly at higher levels) seems to be in the majority among D&D players. WotC has tried to fix this by offering feat chains for higher-level fighters, but they still don't measure up to the capabilities of many other classes (including the warblade).

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Maybe you should start looking at the fighter as it really is: A dipping class for its abilities (more feats).
People dip into rogue for skills and evasion, monks for abilities and evasion, arcane and divine casters for wand use, etc. 3.x is the realm of cherrypicking. Embrace it.
Or, it's a launching point for a cool feat-intensive PrC.
Does it really matter that no one wants to play a fighter to level 20? No one plays a wizard or sorceror to level 20. Too many good prestice classes to choose from. WotC must have seen this tendancy, and several of the new books have had classes that give incentive to playing through all 20 levels, but pretty much all of the 'core' classes, not so much.

 

[Fedifensor]

Does it really matter that no one wants to play a fighter to level 20? No one plays a wizard or sorceror to level 20. Too many good prestice classes to choose from. WotC must have seen this tendancy, and several of the new books have had classes that give incentive to playing through all 20 levels, but pretty much all of the 'core' classes, not so much.

For the record, I commonly game with a person playing a 13th level wizard (no PrCs). I've also seen people playing pure Barbarians, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Monks, and Rangers at the mid to high levels. The less your campaign uses the supplimental books and relies on the core rules, the more common this is. But even with a SRD-only game, people rarely play pure fighters at the mid to high levels.

Now, the issue isn't with people multiclassing Fighter with other core classes or PrCs at the high levels...the issue is that the dip generally is no more than 4 levels. Any class that is usually ignored at level 5+ is seriously gimped, and needs fixing. I think that the Book of Nine Swords is a sign that the Fighter class won't survive as is in 4th edition D&D...they're going to have to spice it up considerably to make it worth putting into the book.

 

[Nail]

Me too:

For the record, I've seen several players stay all the way into the high levels with a single core class. (Ftr or Rog or Sor or Wiz)

Put it anyway you like: "The Ftr is lacking" or "The Warblade is overpowered." Means the same thing.

 

[Slaved]

MPut it anyway you like: "The Ftr is lacking" or "The Warblade is overpowered." Means the same thing.

That the fighter needs help from the people who make the game?

 

[Nail]

That the fighter needs help from the people who make the game?

Slaved, you and I have been over this territory in this thread.

If the designers think the Ftr needs help...then help the Ftr! Putting out a new class which takes the core Ftr class out back and shoots it is hardly "helping the Ftr". If that's "helping", follow me out back so I can help you.

 

[Nail]

Post 5001! Whoopie!

 

[Fedifensor]

If the designers think the Ftr needs help...then help the Ftr! Putting out a new class which takes the core Ftr class out back and shoots it is hardly "helping the Ftr".

Honestly, WotC can't help the fighter until 4E. Changing the design of a class that has been virtually unchanged since 3E came out would be a marketing disaster. So, the best alternative they have is to release a new "core" class that does what the fighter should have been able to do from the beginning. Hello, Warblade!

 

[FireLance]

Honestly, WotC can't help the fighter until 4E. Changing the design of a class that has been virtually unchanged since 3E came out would be a marketing disaster. So, the best alternative they have is to release a new "core" class that does what the fighter should have been able to do from the beginning. Hello, Warblade!

Actually, WotC can. All it needs to do is to release a bunch of Fighter-only feats, or feats that scale with the number of Fighter levels or the number of Fighter feats (defined as any feat that could be taken as a Fighter bonus feat) that a character has. This is an approach that has been used for draconic feats (Complete Arcane, Races of the Dragon, Dragon Magic) and other feats that synergize with each other (PHB2's stance feats, for example).

If Toughness was a Fighter feat that granted 2 hp plus 1 hp for every Fighter feat you had, you wouldn't need Improved Toughness, and every time the Fighter gained a bonus feat and every time he used one of his "regular" feat slots to gain a Fighter feat, he would gain 1 additional hp.

If Weapon Focus granted a +1 bonus to hit, and an additional +1 for every six Fighter feats, you wouldn't need Greater Weapon Focus, and a high-level Fighter could get a +3 or +4 bonus to hit with each weapon that he took Weapon Focus in.

If Improved Bull Rush, Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, Improved Disarm, Improved Sunder and the like granted a +4 bonus on opposed checks, and an additional +1 for every four Fighter feats, the sheer number of feats that a figher has will give him an advantage over any other character that took the same feats.

Ideally, I'd also rework Power Attack and Combat Expertise to apply a fixed penalty to hit, and have the extra damage done and AC bonus scale with Fighter feats. See here for additional musings on this idea.