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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malacoda" data-source="post: 3202066" data-attributes="member: 6345">Personally, I feel that comparing a Warblade with Insightful Strike to a two-handed weapon type is the wrong approach. The Barbarian or Fighter gets no benefit from a full attack action. Their single attack is not as powerful as the Warblade’s Insightful Strike, and they have no real way to compensate.A better choice might be a dual-weapon type, who can get a benefit from a full attack action.For example:Dual-Weapon Specialist: Fighter 5 (Dwarf); HD 5d10+15 (47 hp); Init +2; Spd 20 ft. (4 squares); AC 17 (+5 breastplate, +2 Dexterity), touch 13, flat-footed 15; Base Atk/Grpl +5/+8; Atk +1 Dwarven Waraxe +10 melee (1d10+6/x3); Full Atk +1 Dwarven Waraxe +8 melee (1d10+6/x3) and +1 Dwarven War Axe +8 melee (1d10+4/x3) Str 16, Dex 15, Con 16 Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 6Feats: Two-Weapon Fighting, Over-sized Offhand Weapon, Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe), Weapon Specialization (Dwarven Waraxe), 1 other featAgainst a troll (AC16), this character does an average of 13.65 damage per round it does a full attack action (65% chance to hit, 11.5 and 9.5 average damage per weapon). Over two rounds this is 27.3 points of damage.Against the troll the warblade with the 1d20+17 damage Insightful Strike does 20.63 average damage (75% chance to hit, 27.5 average damage). On the second round it does an average of 7.88 (75% chance to hit, 10.5 average damage). Total over two rounds is 28.5.As you can see this brings the two closer. The warblade is not dependent on the full attack action, so it has another edge over the fighter. Combine that with flexibility, and the warblade overall wins.But, that is just 5th level. What about 6th level?Give the Warblade Weapon Specialization and a +2 Strength item. Give the Fighter Two Weapon Pounce and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and a +2 Dex item (so it can qualify for ITWF).Against an Ettin (AC18) the fighter does an average of 22.05 damage when it can do a full attack action (4 attacks, 2 at 65% and 2 at 40%, same average damage). If it cannot do a full attack action but can charge, it does 13.65 damage on average. If it can full attack every round, it does 44.10 damage over two rounds. If it has to charge one round and full attack the next, it does 35.7 damage over two rounds. The warblade’s Insightful Strike does up to 21.38 points of damage on average against the ettin, and it’s second round it full attacks for an average of 16.88 damage. Over two rounds, that is 38.25 points of damage.In one level, the two-weapon specialist can leapfrog the warblade in shear damage, given the examples set forth. There might be other maneuver or stances or whatever that levels this back out, but given the parameters set out, the fighter isn’t doing that poorly, in my opinion.None of my calculations include the cloak or whatever that gives +5 to Concentration checks. I know this means I am not arguing the RAW. It would add 3.75 points to the Warblade’s numbers (75% chance to hit, 5 points of damage). Personally, I find the usage of the cloak in this manner to be so cheesy I want to spread it on a cracker, but that is for individual DMs to decide. It impacts the 5th level comparison a fair amount, and shores up the difference in the 6th level comparison when full attacking.Insightful strike is nice. Compared to some fighter-type builds it is going to look real good, but against others, like the two-weapon build, not as much.This is only a commentary on shear damage, not other abilities. Having not read through ToB completely it is hard for me to comment much further than this.</blockquote>

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