Overpowered? Gosh no! Martials need nice things anyway.
How does it make spellcasters look weak? They are spammable sure, but its just a few D6's. Full attacking still does more damage. The D6's rarely add up to D6 per level.
Can I ask where you think you'll run into trouble?
|
I ran into trouble when I decided the group needed realize that they were not invulnerable.
Jolly (a Warblade) killed an undamaged troll in one round.
Dare I mention there were four of them? All of which were ultimately demolished.
I am not saying they don't need nice things. I enjoy the book, but I am not sure whether the party is particularly powerful in general or not.
It's a three person group. (that night anyhow consisting of a Witch, Bard and a Warblade).
The Witch only ever really did one successful action, which was glitter dust. The Bard helped significantly to the Warblade's attack but it still seems a bit off that a group of level fives took out four trolls with little trouble.
To be honest I'd be more worried about the witch spamming save or dies. I don't know what maneuver he was using or his stats, but the damage you gain from a maneuver usually isn't too amazing. At 5th level its at most 4D6+strength 1/2, which isn't quiet as nice as a raging barbarian with 22 strength hitting with his Great Sword twice for 4D6+18, and the barbarian has twice as many chances to crit and rage powers. Don't forget extra damage on manuevers aren't doubled/tripled on a crit. The usual upside to using a warblade maneuver is being able to attack touch, debilitate a foe, or to change a save.
Can I ask how he did 63 damage at level 5?(supposing equal CR.)
Overall, ToB was a very good thing. It did many things that martial classes needed for a long time coming, giving them Su abilities, superhuman techniques, melee battlefield control options, healing, leadership abilities, etc...
It is not without flaws, though. The maneuvers are more focused on damage than I'd like, there should be less that are just +xdy or +Z damage. I think they focused a bit too heavily on making standard action strikes comparable to full attacks, which was important to facilitate more mobile and skirmish-friendly combats, but went possibly a little too far. A few specific maneuvers - White Raven Tactics and Iron Heart Surge - were given a little too much power/leeway. I mean, I LIKE that a warblade can punch his way out of a force cage or shout down a black tentacle field. But it's SO open ended, "RAW" lets you do utterly ridiculous things like turn off the sun. Likewise, I like that WR Tactics gives a potent option to boost allies. But being able to use it on yourself, and being able to use it on people multiple times and/or "chain" them one after another (by having multiple people w/ WR Tactics feeding one into the next) means it's just too strong.
Another flaw that isn't really ToB's fault is that WotC never went around and buffed the other martial classes. It was nice to finally have good ones, but just leaving the originals to rot pissed a lot of people off.
I absolutely think overall its use is a huge net positive and it shouldn't be avoided for its flaws. Compared to most other rule books, its flaws really are tiny. Core spells offer many more broken options, for instance. It could use some reigning in / DM sanity checks, though.
So far, I don't think the ToB stuff is too much in a PF system game.
I'm actually worried that I'll be stuck with low level maneuvers and few higher level ones, that I'll fall behind the power curve as we level up.
Ideally you toss out the low damage ones, especially the ones without cool bonuses like hitting touch, and trade them for higher level damage ones(hopefully with cool side effects.) At 4th and every even after you trade maneuvers, similar to how a spontaneous caster changes spells.
Another thing is your still a full BAB class with quiet a few class features centered around being a martial, and extremely dip friendly(which pathfinder is completely opposed to). You can actually just use the stances/boost for your normal attacks/defenses and then strikes when on the move, and use normal feats to bolster yourself to be a powerful combatant. Don't think of yourself as someone who solely uses maneuvers, but think of the maneuvers as a bonus to being a martial and its a little different, though I preferred 3.5 material for tactical feats and the like.
I probably shouldn't be giving build advice in a thread asking if ToB is overpowered... Oh well!
|
|
He duel wielded Cestus, and on second thought it was a roll of the dice. (two hits, had critical hits.)
He also had Punishing Stance, high strength and I believe used a Desert Wind Maneuver.
On second thought, I can see your point. Ultimately for the issue of balance, how would you recommend making it so that ToB Classes are not the only melee characters ever seen?
He duel wielded Cestus, and on second thought it was a roll of the dice. (two hits, had critical hits.)
He also had Punishing Stance, high strength and I believe used a Desert Wind Maneuver.On second thought, I can see your point. Ultimately for the issue of balance, how would you recommend making it so that ToB Classes are not the only melee characters ever seen?
Honestly, tome of battle characters were more or less a replacement for the melee characters. They are better in every way. And they were meant to be better. They were a way for the fighter, monk and rogue to stand alongside the druid, wizard, cleric, and now their buddies, the oracle, sorceror, summoner, alchemist etc.
If you want to keep up diversity, I think the easiest thing is to just give maneuvers to the other martial classes. If you dont get spells at 1st level, you get the maneuver abiltiies of either the warblade (full bab classes) or the sword sage (non-full bab classes). Problem solved.
On second thought, I can see your point. Ultimately for the issue of balance, how would you recommend making it so that ToB Classes are not the only melee characters ever seen?
Well, awkwardly when I played 3.5 I always felt the ToB was my go to class for martials because the other ones were the ones with problems and ToB happened to fix many of them!(as StreamOfTheSky and Kolokotroni kind of said).
However, in pathfinder the other classes are actually much more attractive and I wouldn't worry too much. At best you could give them access to some of the options ToB gives, but I wouldn't go all out because that's a lot of overhaul. They look flashier, but I don't think they'd overshadow the other classes at all. Haven't had a chance to use ToB in pathfinder to compare them side by side, but I'd think that the other classes buffs should've helped them quiet a bit.(I'd hope anyway!)
Pathfinder really does very little to change the core classes. Tier-wise they are all pretty much the same (save the Paladin probably moved up a tier). The TOB classes are still just better than the core martial classes of PF, because the core martial classes of PF are still fairly crappy.
Seriously, really look at the buffs. They're pretty weak.
Aye, I had that though after I made that last post actually. Personally, I think ToB are more were they should be, but there's always room for improvement. Barbarian's rage powers are amazing, though the loss of his variants is a bit painful. Ranger could've been changed more, but he's not in an awful place. Fighter didn't get anything to solve his problems. Paladin got an overhaul in everything but his alignment and code. Monk got better but still has problems. The big change was filling in empty levels I always thought. Lots of things to compare, but sometimes things are relative sometimes.
Of course, if your in a team with a fighter, monk, rogue, and a warblade, the warblade is going to look nifty(though his damage is likely to be much lower than the fighter.) If your team is Oracle, Barbarian, Wizard, and Warblade I doubt he'll look like a problem.
I wouldn't say the Rage Powers are THAT impressive. They're nice enough (certainly not like the rogue stuff), but that's it. I still think ToB classes would look better in action, though the Barbarian can get some more flexibility than his 3.X counterpart which helps.
They're amazing compared to what the barbarian got before(nothing). They also happen to be amazing relative to the buffs the fighter got. As I said, relative. Probably best not to get into a discussion about its balance. The big thing is that the other classes did get a buff, though I'd pick ToB classes over pathfinder classes if only for nostalgia.