What, If Anything, Might be Wrong with the Warblade?

[Nail]

The ability is great and I think it should be expanded to cover more things and be an option for everyone.

Weapon Aptitude would make a fine Ftr bonus feat, with a Ftr 9 prereq. As a class ability for others, it's distinctly lousy.

 

[Slaved]

You want to make people spend a feat for it?

Ew. Why do you hate fighters so very much nail?

 

[Mort]

Weapon Aptitude would make a fine Ftr bonus feat, with a Ftr 9 prereq. As a class ability for others, it's distinctly lousy.

My thought would be to just give it to fighters as a class ability. This may cause some issues by the time weapon supremacy comes around - but frankly I doubt it.

As for Warblades, I have only seen a few, but I have yet to see anyone fit any of the weapon focus/specialization etc. feats into their build - too many other feats to take - so frankly it's been a total non-issue.

 

[Amitiel]

I agree. Fighter bonus feats a magic powers that for the most part match a spell caster that they can use almost as much as a warlock? No.

On the other hand, most of what D&D has put out is just powergaming. The next book will be 'Complete Gestalt with no Dead levels!'

---Rusty

That's because they've been using the RPGA to beta test their stuff and (unfortunatly) been listening to their suggestions. The results are fairly obvious, some stuff gets powergamed(Warblade) , some stuff gets nerfed (Truename magic, we've had one in our game for a while and she lawyered like Cochran to get every possible bonus at her level, without the Amulet of the silver tongue she has to roll 18 to affect something equal CR/HD to herself. Anything higher it starts becoming roll 20 or fail. It got so frustrating for me, much less her, I pretty much just handed her one)

Its also started affecting how some of the adventures are written. More and more their becoming 'let us DM for you', which would be fine for newbie or uncreative DMs, but I'm finding less and less use out of sold adventures and I've gotten more out of the back pages of Dungeon than the adventures.

 

[Nail]

You want to make people spend a feat for it?

Ew. Why do you hate fighters so very much nail?

Ftrs get tons of feats. How is creating a cool new feat for them to take "hate"?

"I hate Ftrs. So I'll make a bonus Ftr feat that allows them to switch around their weapon focus as often as they want to whatever weapon they wish. That'll show 'em!"

 

[Slaved]

Ftrs get tons of feats. How is creating a cool new feat for them to take "hate"?

Cool new ability I will grant you. I have said as much already.

Cool new feat? Not really. It is highly situational and generally useless. It is just not powerful enough to be a worthwhile feat.

Much like the old ambidexterity feat. I suppose you could create that one next and make it Fighter 6 required or something.

As a granted ability for everyone with certain time limitations? That is good.
As a feat expenditure, especially one limited to fighter only apparently? Very bad.


Assuming that you are not using the retraining rules, or various abilities which could accomplish similar things, and will not let people trade out things if asked and have a decent reason maybe then someone would take it. If the feat allowed very rapid change instead of the warblades time allotment and the character had several weapons that they needed to use and knew that they would be switching around often.

But really, is the ability worth a whole feat? Especially a feat with that sort of prerequisite? And what is up with making it an odd fighter level prerequisite anyway?

If it had lesser requirements and did not require being a fighter and was part of a tactical style feat with several abilities granted? That might work.

 

[Nail]

But really, is the ability worth a whole feat?

One of the big factors boils down to a question of gear. Does the DM make it easy to swap out gear? Hard? How expenisve? Etc.

If you go down the weapon focus feat path, then find the Uber-Weapon of Nastiness +5, which is a different weapon than the one you took the weapon focus feat for.....without Weapon Aptitude, you'd pro'ly end up selling it. I've seen that countless times as a DM and as a player.

Boy-howdy, does that suck.

In addition, Weapon Aptitude allows you to customize your weapon chouces for the day. Are you saying there's no good reason to do so?

The reason for the Ftr requirement is simple: It's all about the Ftr role.

 

[DungeonMaester]

That's because they've been using the RPGA to beta test their stuff and (unfortunatly) been listening to their suggestions. The results are fairly obvious, some stuff gets powergamed(Warblade) , some stuff gets nerfed (Truename magic, we've had one in our game for a while and she lawyered like Cochran to get every possible bonus at her level, without the Amulet of the silver tongue she has to roll 18 to affect something equal CR/HD to herself. Anything higher it starts becoming roll 20 or fail. It got so frustrating for me, much less her, I pretty much just handed her one)

Its also started affecting how some of the adventures are written. More and more their becoming 'let us DM for you', which would be fine for newbie or uncreative DMs, but I'm finding less and less use out of sold adventures and I've gotten more out of the back pages of Dungeon than the adventures.

Which is why I make my own Campaign settings..And be picky aout what books I allow...

---Rusty

 

[Amitiel]

Which is why I make my own Campaign settings..And be picky aout what books I allow...

---Rusty

Ditto, I'm more apt to allow Mongoose books than some of the latest stuff from WOTC.

 

[DungeonMaester]

The feat is called Martial Study (or Martial Stance), and it allows you to select one manuever (or stance), so long as you meet the manuever's prerequisites.

Thats what I thought. Now..Give a Fighter or a Paladin the same progression as a Warblade and see if they match up.


---Rusty