Warblade and Swordsage: Overpowered?

[Nail]

Most martial adept classes will burn through their maneuvers faster than a 3.0 hasted wizard would burn through spells, so longer fights will favor the core melee classes over the Tome of Battle ones.

Except that the martial adept classes can get their maneuvers back right in the middle of combat. Can a "hasted wizard" do that?

Last night we had our first meeting with the WB in play. The WB's player is a sharp one, so he knows how to use the rules. His WB *never* ran out of maneuvers...he recharged when he needed to and the opportunity cost was low. It was no problem.

...and he did at least as much damage as the Ftr in the group, despite having inferior weapons (improved unarmed strike).

 

[RigaMortus2]

Yeah, but isn't three rounds a long time to be in the thick of a fight without using your precious class abilities? I'm not sure if these new classes are overpowered, but they add a lot of adaptability and excitement to combat rather than I hit x AC for x damage over and over again. Most martial adept classes will burn through their maneuvers faster than a 3.0 hasted wizard would burn through spells, so longer fights will favor the core melee classes over the Tome of Battle ones. The warblade can recover these as a standard action, so it may be over the top, but I still bet it can't beat a frenzied berserker.

Not really. 90% of the encounters I have been in are at LEAST 3 rounds long, if not longer. And you CAN use the maneuvers within the first 3 rounds and have this "tactic" work, so long as you don't use more than 2 maneuvers in 3 rounds. At that point, you can use any 2 maneuvers (whichever are beneficial to you) every round and having all of them available to choose from.

 

[Nail]

It would be interesting to see a well-built (test) fighter, to compare him to Nail's warblade. I'd do it myself, but I'm lousy at optimisation of any sort. Any takers?

I've done it.

With the WB's I posted, I also made a Ftr. That is: same ability scores, same equipment, same theme (both "Greataxe Warriors") for levels 3, 9, 15, and 20. (The 20th level comparison turned out to depend too much on equipment choices, so I dropped it for purposes of comparing the classes.) I started each at 1st level, and made choices for them level-by-level, so no "optimized for level 15, but couldn't possibly get there" PCs.

If you are interested, I could post these. They include a few house rules of ours (Magical equpment has changed, 32 pt buy, Humans gain a +2/-2 on any 2 ability scores, Dodge feat applies to all opponents)...but since this is a comparison, the changes are irrelevant.

The end result seems to be that at 3rd level the WB wins easily, at 9th level it's a tie, and at 15th level the WB wins again.

 

[Nail]

We passed Broke-Class Mountain somewhere a few miles back.

 

[Aaron L]

A one on one fight between a Fighter and a Warblade is a really poor contest to see which class is better, because one of the primary points several of us have been trying to make is that even though both classes can probably dish out about the same overall damage factor, what puts the Warblade on top is the fact that it has multiple ways of doing this, flashy ways like making fire out of nothing or using super martial arts maneuvers, in addition to being able to use the standard full attack swing-and-hit routine that the Fighter is restricted to.


It can do the straight roll/hit/damage toe-to-toe combat just as well as the Fighter, plus it gets to be a neato Dragonball Z super martial artist when it wants to.


The fact that he gets a higher hit die and more skill points even on top of that just makes us wince all the more.


I really can't see how anyone could argue that the Warblade is balanced with the Fighter. It can do everything the Fighter can, plus so much more.


What makes me grind my teeth is that I love the class. I just wish it wasn't so obviously and horribly overpowered! Theres absolutely no reason at all for it to have 12 sided hit dice. Thats a hallmark of classes that are supposed to be exceptionally hardy like the Barbarian. Make it d10. Why does the class get 4 skill points per level? They devote their lives to learning to fight, just like the Fighter is supposed to, but for some reason they get twice as many skill points? Make it 2 per level. The ability to take Fighter only feats as if they were 2 levels lower is nothing but a slap in the face to the Fighter class, a complete joke and insult to the class, and I'm really shocked they put this in. Especially when they not only get access to these Fighter only feats, they get to do them better than the Fighters do, because they can swap out which weapon they want to be focused in whenever they want! It's unbelievable!! Lets drop that ability too.

Even with all those reductions, I'd still love to play a Warblade! I think those changes would make it a bit more reasonable. And when you can strip several abilities from a class and it STILL looks attractive to play, that should be a damn good indication it's too much.

 

[Slaved]

I've done it.

With the WB's I posted, I also made a Ftr. That is: same ability scores, same equipment, same theme (both "Greataxe Warriors") for levels 3, 9, 15, and 20. (The 20th level comparison turned out to depend too much on equipment choices, so I dropped it for purposes of comparing the classes.) I started each at 1st level, and made choices for them level-by-level, so no "optimized for level 15, but couldn't possibly get there" PCs.

If you are interested, I could post these. They include a few house rules of ours (Magical equpment has changed, 32 pt buy, Humans gain a +2/-2 on any 2 ability scores, Dodge feat applies to all opponents)...but since this is a comparison, the changes are irrelevant.

The end result seems to be that at 3rd level the WB wins easily, at 9th level it's a tie, and at 15th level the WB wins again.

Why did you pick those levels? They seem to favor the warblade much like comparing a wizard vs sorcerer at level 3 would favor the wizard.

Why such a high point buy value? That favors people who need more stats which will also favor the warblade.

Why did you limit it to a melee weapon only and why greataxe? Looking over the choices for abilities this would also seem to favor the warblade.

This comparison is completely dependent on which feats are chosen plus the situations that come up.

With all of this how can your one comparison declare that the warblade is always better than the fighter?

 

[charlesatan]

Except that the martial adept classes can get their maneuvers back right in the middle of combat. Can a "hasted wizard" do that?

No, but a martial adept can't prepare the same maneuver either.

I am completely baffled by this type of argument.

WB's are front-line melee combatants. The best comparison would be with another class that is also a front-line melee combatant.

Not really. Gish (spellcaster/fighters) can be front-line melee combatants too, and probably dish out as much damage as Martial Adepts (plus they get full attacks) yet they're still limited by spell slots/spells prepared. But the thing about Martial Adepts is that they have maneuvers which is somewhere in between spells, since you have "slots" for them, but renews itself at the end of the encounter (meaning several encounters doesn't hamper a Martial Adept they way it does other spellcasters).

Some Martial Adept maneuvers don't even function in an anti-magic field (mostly the Desert Wind ones) but in a way, it's still the same principle: expend a maneuver and it's gone. It's obviously more easier to recover than a spell, but then again, most maneuvers aren't as powerful as spells of the equivalent level, and require an attack roll to say the least (and in some cases, not as productive; look at the Devoted Spirit's 9th-level maneuver -- not the best maneuver in my opinion because if you wanted someone to cast heal, you're better off as a Cleric, although it is nice for a "Fighter"-type to have access to it).

 

[charlesatan]

Amen!

Again: The actual rules text in the Tob:Bo9S is does NOT say "attack action". That is brutally clear (read it for yourself, page 22, 3rd paragraph). It says "melee attack". This is fundamentally different than a standard action. A melee attack can be part of a standard action or part of a full attack action or.....etc.

Uh, if you notice in the earlier threads, most of us were on the understanding that a melee attack was just one attack and not part of a full attack. It was you who was insisting on it.

And most maneuvers state "make an attack" yet no one is assuming that it's a full attack. Besides, it's a full round action to make a full attack, while "an attack" is a standard action, which is in the PHB. You're the one who's been mistaking attack = could be a full attack.

 

[dvvega]

Originally posted by Rigamortus2
Actually, the Crusader is probably the most broken of them all. If the Crusader picks his maneuvers carefully, he can actually have access to all his maneuvers every round once he goes through the cycle at least once.

This comment about Crusaders and "endless" maneuvers is incorrect. A common misreading of the Crusader's recovery rules that I've seen on different boards.

I think this is indicative of one of the problems with people trying to compare classes and prove that their favourite is broken or the best or what have you.

In the Crusader's case ...

Crusader has 5 readied maneuvers at the start of an encounter.
2 Accessible
3 Withheld

You gain access to a Withheld maneuver at the end of each of your turns. Note that you can expend maneuvers and still gain access to withheld maneuvers.

R1 (after you have acted)
3 Accessible
2 Withheld

R2 (after you have acted)
4 Accessible
1 Withheld

R3 (after you have acted)
5 Accessible
0 Withheld

R4 (after you have acted)
No Withheld maneuvers thus you recover all your expended maneuvers AND

page 10 BoNS ... a new pair of readied maneuvers is granted to you. Randomly determine which of your maneuvers are granted and which are withheld. At the end of your next turn ...

Whenever you have no Withheld maneuvers you reset back to the start of combat where you have 2 random maneuvers active and 3 withheld. At no stage can you constantly have 5 maneuvers available.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

End Round 2. Going on the quote provided above from ToB... We have can not be granted a manuever because we have no withheld maneuvers remaining. What happens? I recover all EXPENDED Maneuvers (in this case, 2 have been expended) and a new pair (that means 2) of maneuvers is GRANTED to me. I already have 3 GRANTED Maneuvers, but a new pair gets granted to me, so I am back to 5 Granted Maneuvers.

There ya go. After 3 rounds of combat, you will have all your maneuvers available to you provided you can use at least 2 maneuvers every round.

(Sorry if this has been brought up already, didn't get to read all pages)

Your quote is incomplete and the remainder of the paragraph you started to quote show this premise to be incorrect.

Randomly determine which of your maneuvers are granted and which are withheld. At the end of your next turn, a withheld maneuver is granted to you, and the whole process of divine inspiration begins again

This makes it clear to me that their recovery method is basically a reset button. All maneuvers become readied, but only two are immediately granted and you are granted two of your readied maneuvers while the others are withheld.