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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nogray" data-source="post: 5846386" data-attributes="member: 28028">Warblade Answers (and Opinions)I'm playing a Warblade now, and it has been really fun. As to your questions, let's take a look. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The Warblade is excellent, and it would be just fine even without any additional abilities. The maneuvers and stances are really that good. The level 20 "be-in-two-stances-at-the-same-time" ability (two more levels for me) is nearly game-changing, too. With all that going for it, those abilities that you have mentioned as "rather useless" are just icing on the cake. Swapping them for feats would be overpowered, in my opinion.Weapon aptitude is really nice for campaigns with limited access to magic items tailored for your character. It can also be useful if you don't want to spend your first weapon-related feat on exotic weapon proficiency. You can instead start with something like weapon focus for more accuracy. Once you take the proficiency, you can aptitude the feat (or feats) into the final weapon.The features that add your intelligence modifier are situationally useful. As I mentioned, though, you are fine without them, and replacing them with feats would probably be too good. It's a nice bonus, though, if you take your intelligence to 14 (so +2) for the extra skills that you might be wanting, anyway.Devoted Spirit is sort of the Crusader "specialty." Each class in the Book of Nine Swords gets at least one that the others can't easily access. You are correct, though, that you can access it through the Martial Study and Martial Stance feats. Keep in mind the restriction on Martial Study (only able to be taken three times, I think). You can take the Stance feat as many times as you'd like, though, so if you are looking for a high level Devoted Spirit maneuver (like the level nine "heal" one), you can use stance feats to fill its prerequisites.(On the topic of Martial Study, I feel I should mention Shadow Blink and Inferno Blade. Both are relatively high level maneuvers with no prerequisites. Shadow Blink is awesome for maneuverability. While Inferno Blade is great for damage, you'll do plenty of that anyway, so it's less needed.)As StreamOfTheSky mentioned, there haven't been any other classes produced by Wizards of the Coast that use the Book of Nine Swords as a basis. There are some house-ruled variants floating about, though. I love all three of the classes, though. Each is great within its niche. The Crusader has the best maneuver recharge -- they never run out. The Warblade is a beast for power attacking, weapon specializing, and damage dealing. It also has that quick recharge with relatively low cost. The Swordsage has all those abilities at the ready and it has the largest selection of disciplines -- the breadth is the key there.Anyhow, that is my take on things. I hope my answers and thoughts were helpful. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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