Warblade maneuvers

[Henry]

.. then don't play a fighter, is my point.

The DM shouldn't HAVE to arbitrarily make decisions about what classes can be played. If there's a story driven reason that I can't play a fighter, sure! ... but.. good luck.

Totally unrelated to rules, but yeah, I can see A DM setting up something like this. In a campaign where you're either a crude warrior (Warrior NPC class), or have been trained in one of the Schools for Combat (Warblade), it might make a neat campaign. Or, the "natural mages" are warlocks, and the trained mages are Wu Jen, or something like this.

 

[SadisticFishing]

You'll be amazed how many problems arbitrary banning solves.

Bah most of those aren't arbitrary. Pun-pun? No. Omnifiscer? No. But the game is meant to be fun, and there are supposed to be a lot of options. I've seen a fighter rival, if not beat my Warblade's damage without a real problem.

Plus, fighter is an awesome 2/4 level dip.

 

[hong]

Bah most of those aren't arbitrary. Pun-pun? No. Omnifiscer? No. But the game is meant to be fun, and there are supposed to be a lot of options.

7 years into D&D 3E's release cycle, there are more options than exist on the New York Futures Exchange. There are enough options that people are saying "do we need another X" where X is one of {prestige class, base class, monster book, splatbook, spellcaster}. Lack of options is not something that a D&D player has to worry about. If you want to talk about lack of options, check out any indie RPG.

I've seen a fighter rival, if not beat my Warblade's damage without a real problem.

Good for you. Tell all the people who keep complaining that the warblade pwns the fighter.

Plus, fighter is an awesome 2/4 level dip.

All the more reason to ban it, if the only thing it's contributing to the game is 3 bonus feat slots and Weapon Spec.

 

[JiCi]

Wholy smokes. That would be 12 attacks per round with a two handed sword and 20 attacks per round with TWF and GTWF.

One question though: can he substitute any of his regular attacks with grapples/disarms/trips?

1) That's the beauty of it.
2) An attack is an attack, so feel free to disarm, trip, sunder, grapple or such.

 

[Henry]

All the more reason to ban it, if the only thing it's contributing to the game is 3 bonus feat slots and Weapon Spec.

On the other hand, the fighter is best able of any other class to do the "3-feat dip" into Martial Maneuvers, and get the best of both worlds...

 

[moritheil]

Good for you. Tell all the people who keep complaining that the warblade pwns the fighter.

Did Hong just say . . . testify?!

 

[Zephiel7]

Okay, I created 5 mock battles between a warblade and fighter and with the right stances and maneuvers the level 20 warblade consistently triumphed over the level 20 tripper/disarmer fighter. I am assuming also that strike of perfect clarity has a saving throw associated with it due to massive damage?

Don't get me wrong...I really love how they designed the warblade...he is what martial class roleplayers want to be: a weaponsmaster with an 8 inch [Moderator's Notes: to make Grandma happy, how shall I edit this? "8 inch dirk" amuses me, but might confuse people. "8 inch hedgehog" is probably safe; let's go with that.] hedgehog - so to speak - even without the +5 swords of destruction.

I'm playing a warblade at level 9, and can only have 4 maneuvers readied. Moment of Perfect Mind takes up fully 1/4 of my maneuvers, and doesn't get used every encounter. Even when it does get used, it's only good for the first will save, usually. With it taking an immediate action, you can't refresh next round, and can't use maneuvers the next round when you do refresh. One will save/2-3 rounds... Not that broken.

I gotcha. I was using as my comparison a level 20 warblade though- and he could still keep a couple of maneuvers of action before thought or moment of perfect mind readied. At level twenty, one for the will saving throw, one for the relex saving throw, two for the fortitude saving throw, a strike of perfect clarity, Raging Mongoose, and Time Stands still. Since the warblade already has good fortitude saving throws and receives an intelligence bonus for reflex saves, he can use those in case the wizard is continuously spamming spells mercilessly. If the hypothetical Warblade uses an immediate action to sub in his concentration check, he could subsequently use Strike of perfect clarity and follow up with Raging Mongoose and Time Stands still in the following round. Then he could use the next round to recover the maneuvers and attack. Rinse and repeat. Assuming that in the 3 rounds, the wizard could probably get six spells off at most, and three more if he quickens them, that gives the warblade a fair chance at saving against them and not being "instantkilled" so as to have a fighting chance at cutting through the "squishy" wizard. The Warblade can stand toe to toe against a wizard or cleric - a fighter can't.


As for the gentleman who said that ranged weapons cannot work with maneuvers, I think that was only for strikes and the like. For the diamond mind maneuvers that sub in saving throws for concentration checks, I think it can even be used with ranged weapons. The warblade in question was elven, so he had a long bow just in case he were ever caught in a dangerous position where a dragon or a baalor was flying around hurling fireballs at him . I'll check about the above mentioned Diamon Mind feats though - just in case none of them work with bows.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to add that stance of alacricity helps the warblade recover his saving throw maneuvers since it causes one "counter" to not be an immediate action. So if the warblade were to fight against a wizard, use this stance, along with "moment of perfect mind," "diamond defense", and "iron heart focus" against a mage who would use three "dominate persons" in one round.

 

[Zephiel7]

^lol

 

[castro3nw]

*grins* i'm not trying to argue that a warblade isn't powerful... they're really good.

that said... i complained about using 1/4 of my resources on making saves, and you came back using over half... (and yes, at that level... stance of alacrity is awesome for that)

and yeah i know i said no maneuvers w/ranged weapons... thought i'd implied well enough that i meant maneuvers that actually used a weapon... (ie. strikes mostly) pretty sure that most maneuvers that don't involve attacking anything don't care what you're wielding. good idea with elf for the free longbow though.

anyway though.. *grins* not really tryin to pick an arguement. there are just lots of "warblade is teh broken" people out there, so i try to chip in my opinion on some of the limitations of the class.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

The Warblade makes a great alternative for the Barbarian, when one doesn't want to play another cookie-cutter greataxe Power Attacking meat grinder.

Oh, and while 'most' strikes are standard actions, there are plenty of fullround action strikes.
Level 1 has a fullround strike that is an Improved Bullrush + damage + bounce them farther without following. Also a fullround 'Attack the same target with a weapon in each hand'.

The martial adept classes are what the fighter should have been. And the Barbarian, and the Monk, possibly the Paladin.