Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

[brehobit]

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.

In this thread I posted a very powerful swordsage build. I think swordsages are much more powerful than warblades (which I think are also overpowered).

The crusader is less of a problem because of the random nature of his maneuvers. The lack of control is very limiting. A maneuver that aids in a charge is usually worthless if you don't get it on the first round.

A warblade gets 4 bonus feats (some of which are very nice indeed: things a fighter would likely take) vs. 11 of a fighter. It gets more skill points, class skills, and a bigger hit die. It can take fighter-only feats. Even without the maneuvers and stances the argument is pretty simple that a warblade is overpowered.

The swordsage argument is harder because of the medium BAB.

All that said, a crusader and warblade get hosed by when they get stances. Playing a pure warblade or crusader looks pretty sub-optimal. I think fighter 2 followed by warblade may be the way to go.

By far the most powerful thing about the Bo9S classes is the mult-classing rules. A fighter 8 would be crazy to take fighter 9 (or barb 1 or whatever) over taking one of the Bo9S classes. And oddly he will end up with a better stance (3rd level) than a pure warblade will of the same character level! A little odd. (The warblade will get a 5th level one at 10th level...)


Mark

 

[catsclaw227]

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

I understand -- it just makes the adaptive style feat too powerful. A 4st level swordsage would essentially get as many manevers as a 15th level swordsage, just not the same selection. I kinda like our ruling, where it allows the swordsage to swap out what they have left.

 

[Nail]

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

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

It does put the pressure on the class to show how it is balanced with respect to either the Bbn or (a better comparison) the Ftr. That's why I started this thread.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Warblades (and comparing it to Ftr) for the last 11 days or so. I think for my game I'll reduce their HD to d10 (which reduces the "psychological weight"), and leave the rest alone....and then have a really clever player of mine give it a go.

Spoiler

(He's bringing in a new PC....his "dex Ftr" was CdG-ed by a BBEG, FWIW.)

I'm positive he'll turn up the unbalanced bits.

And in our group we have a player with a straight Ftr. So the comparison potential is high.

 

[starwed]

The crusader is less of a problem because of the random nature of his maneuvers. The lack of control is very limiting. A maneuver that aids in a charge is usually worthless if you don't get it on the first round.

I actually found this to be not nearly as limiting as I thought it would be. You start with two maneuvers, and draw a new one at the end of each round. Since you've only got 5 total, that means you'll have all of them in hand after 3 rounds of combat, and reshuffle on the 4th round. In about two play sessions, featuring a lot of combat, I was without a useful maneuver for only 1 round.

It is hard to pull off particular combos with a crusader, but as long as you stick with reasonably flexible maneuvers, you're not going to have a problem. (And the maneuvers which aid in a charge normally eliminate AoO as you charge, making them quite useful for getting to the back ranks of an enemy group.)

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Warblades (and comparing it to Ftr) for the last 11 days or so. I think for my game I'll reduce their HD to d10 (which reduces the "psychological weight"), and leave the rest alone....and then have a really clever player of mine give it a go.

Spoiler

(He's bringing in a new PC....his "dex Ftr" was CdG-ed by a BBEG, FWIW.)

I'm positive he'll turn up the unbalanced bits.

And in our group we have a player with a straight Ftr. So the comparison potential is high.

Be sure to let us know how it turns out, Nail!

Cheers

 

[Nightfall]

Anyway I do apologize to people, like Firelance, but I had thought I'd cut and pasted this correctly. Fix that in a bit...

In any case if you could tumble as a Barbarian, my idea of a Raging Barbarian/Battle Dancer would be way cooler.

 

[Victim]

The crusader is less of a problem because of the random nature of his maneuvers. The lack of control is very limiting. A maneuver that aids in a charge is usually worthless if you don't get it on the first round.

True, but crusaders will be granted a significant subset of their readied manuevers if they spend the feat, and will know that they have random manuevers when they're picking stuff out. If chances are you won't have a charge boosting manuever when you charge, then it's easy enough to avoid some of the more situational manuevers. Moreover, crusaders do have unlimited access to their stances (even if the progression does screw them, so that they'll need to spend a feat to get their top stance). They have pretty exclusive access to devoted spirit. Crusaders are the only class that does not need to spend actions to recharge manuevers. With their automatic recharges, healing manuevers and stances, and damage defering class ability, the class seems to pack almost limitless endurance.

 

[Nail]

Be sure to let us know how it turns out, Nail!

So...is that Moderater-sanctioned Thread Necromancy?

Done!

 

[Nightfall]

It's only non-sanctioned if you wait like....2 months and then bring it back up.

 

[Nail]

Given that this is a long-term campaign, and given that we meet once/2 weeks, I can't imagine I'll have any solid data in less than 3 months, really.