Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

[kigmatzomat]

A number of maneuvers specify the need for a discipline weapon (I'm thinking the Tiger maneuvers, mostly) and the rest can work with any weapon. I thought they required them as well until one of the players pointed out the blurb that says "any weapon can be usedunless specified in the maneuver." I'm at work so I don't have the book to try and find that quote again.

For the Tiger maneuvers it makes sense as they tend to require claws or unarmed strikes. It is less rational for the Stone Dragon maneuvers to care about the weapon since those maneuvers have the "contact with the ground and only moving 5'" limitation.

 

[BASHMAN]

I thought they required them as well until one of the players pointed out the blurb that says "any weapon can be usedunless specified in the maneuver." I'm at work so I don't have the book to try and find that quote again. .

When you get home do you think you could post the page number, collumn and paragraph here, please. I would really like to see that (my new character is a level 5 warblade who focuses on bastard sword because he is a diamond mind/iron heart user, but he also uses stone dragon, and therefore would be carrying a mace around too [or doing unarmed strikes]

 

[kigmatzomat]

My game books are at a friend's house until tomorrow. I'll try to remember to post it later this weekend. IIRC it was at the beginning of the section that describes maneuvers and it was tagged onto the end of a paragraph. Not exactly blatant but it was in a rational location.

 

[Nail]

On page 41, first paragraph, it states: "In addition, variuos weapons lend themselves to the philosophy or maneuvers of different disciplines."

Hardly conclusive.

However, the "Initiating Maneuvers and Stances" section (p. 38) lists what's necessary to use a maneuver...and does NOT list needing a particular kind of weapon.

 

[Soel]

One of the folks who worked on the books posted that the different weapons per discipline was purely for flavor reasons to make them stand apart from one another more.

You'd have to change Blade Meditation if you go with this line of thinking, though.

 

[RigaMortus2]

At 19th level noone is going to notice the effect of a first level maneuver, if you can even get all high level maneuvers, they tend to have prerequisites.

Not really. There are several 1st level maneuvers that are good all the way through level 20.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I am not sure, but I read the adaptive style as being able to spend a round to refocus and swap out your maneuvers, but it DOESN'T change the number of maneuvers you can perform in one encounter.

i.e., You have spent 2 maneuvers, and you have 2 more left this encounter, but they aren't very effective and you want to change them. You can use Adaptive Style to spend a round and change out your maneuvers, but you still only have 2 more maneuvers left to perform in this encounter. That number doesn't reset simply by changing focus.

This is how we play it.

Look up the rules for Readying maneuvers for the day. When you Ready maneuvers for the day, all your maneuvers become refreshed. Normally it takes about 5 minutes to Ready maneuvers, so you can freely swap out maneuvers from encounter to encounter provided you have at least 5 minutes to set aside to Ready them. At any rate, whenever you Ready maneuvers they all become refreshed and available to you (even if you decide to Ready the same maneuver). All Adaptive Style does is change that 5 minute time frame to a full round action. All other rules regarding Readying maneuvers remain the same.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Not really. There are several 1st level maneuvers that are good all the way through level 20.

Yeah, there sure are. MC is at 20th right now so people are considering the MAs for their 21st level. I am concerned about the power levels of the maneuvers so I have a house rule limiting total Initiator level to MA class level x4 that caps them to 2nd level maneuvers right off the bat and they are still quite appealing.

Most Strikes' value at high levels tends to be highly situational (when moving, against foes with certain resistances, etc) but 1st & 2nd level Boosts, Counters, and Stances are useful at all character levels. The low level Desert Wind Stance that lets you resist fire based on your Tumble skill can result in total fire immunity for a 20th level character. At least one low level Counter lets you use one save in place of another (Diamond Mind, fort for ref?), others give you extra AoOs like a 'lite' combat reflexes, who wouldn't want to be able to teleport 50' (Shadow Step, IIRC), and the 1st level Crusader Stance that heals people when you hit a bad guy is never a shabby thing.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Just like Adaptive Style refreshing your used manuvers is dumb.)

FYI, people Just because someone at WOTC said something dumb, does not mean you have to buy it.

Except those are the actual rules written in the ToB. See my post above that explains why Adaptive Style works the way it works.

 

[satori01]

I'm curious of what the aesthetic is that makes people generally view the Warblade as overpowered?

No one even brings up the Crusader as being overpowered. The Swordsage is brought up, but is shot down quickly as people are playing those, and they seem to be balanced.

I do not think a lot of Warblades get played, something in the look of them frighten DMs, and make players afraid of the munchkin title. Clearly the class to compare it too is the Barbarian:

Medium Armor, d12 HD, situational class abilities and Maneuvers.

Full BaB and d12 HD pulls a lot of psychological weight. So what would make the Warblade balanced in the minds of critics?

D10 HD? 2 skill points a level? Not being able to recharge all of its maneuvers with swift action, (my only real beef with the class)?

Did anyone play the class at the delve in Gencon? How did it fare?