Warblade Question 3.5

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. So I checked out the warblade, and they look awesome. But something confused me. So you begin play with your three disciplines, which for the sake of argument, lets say you chose: Tiger claw, stone dragon and diamond mind. So know you can only learn maneuvers from those disciplines right? Or are the abilities you get from your discipline the stances? And as always, go nuts.

[HaikenEdge]

You start play with three maneuvers, not three disciplines; you can select any maneuver that you meet the prerequisites for, and you can select the maneuvers from three different disciplines, or all from the same discipline.

[Piggy Knowles]

There are no restrictions by discipline for warblades, other than fulfilling the pre-requisites for maneuvers and stances. As a warblade, assuming you meet the pre-requisites of a given maneuver/stance, you can take it regardless of the discipline (as long as it's one of the disciplines warblades get access to).

So, for example, you're a level 1 warblade. You can choose three maneuvers and one stance. You want to help your party, so you grab Bolstering Voice for your stance (White Raven). You also know that your will save is a weak point, so your first maneuver choice is Moment of Perfect Mind (Diamond Mind). Then you decide you want to be bulky, so you pick up Stone Bones (Stone Dragon). For your third maneuver, you'd like to pick up Sudden Leap, but it requires that you know at least one Tiger Claw maneuver already. You don't have that pre-requisite, so you instead grab Wolf Fang Strike (also Tiger Claw), which doesn't have any pre-requisites, figuring you'll pick up Sudden Leap down the road.

So, at first level, you know Moment of Perfect Mind, Wolf Fang Strike and Stone Bones, and Bolstering Voice as your stance.

Make sense?

(Also, I'm not recommending you PLAY with the above-referenced maneuver selection - I was just using those as examples. I probably would not pick those exact maneuvers for a warblade.)

[Ryuuk]

Every Discipline has Maneuvers and Stances. Let me post this (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) for clarity. It easier if you look at them as spells.

You have access to the Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, and White Raven disciplines. These are just the 'schools' you can pick your maneuver or stances from.

You start of with three maneuvers, so at level 1 you could pick any from the level 1 maneuvers in those schools. Note that some of them have prerequisites. Say you wanted Sudden Leap from the Tiger Claw school, you need to know one other Tiger Claw maneuver before you can learn it. Because you only start off with 3 maneuvers known, you kind of have to specialize.

Stances are like maneuvers, and count as maneuvers for prerequistes, but are tracked and function slightly different. this is because they act like passive buffs, you pick a stance you know, use a swift action to go into it, and gain its benefits indefinitely, until you leave the stance.

A warblade can pick up maneuvers from any of the 5 disciplines mentioned, but because of the prerequisites of higher level maneuvers, he might not have gone deep enough into the school to learn them. Look here. (http://www.devinlc.com/maneuvers.htm) If you are a warblade of 17th level, you could pick up Strike of Perfect Clarity, but only if you also know 4 other Iron Heart Maneuvers.

If you knew:
Punishing Stance (a stance, but still counts for prerequisites, has no prerequisites on its own),
Wall of Blades (no prerequisites),
Lightning Recovery (2 Iron heart maneuvers needed, already covered if you knew the last two when you learned it)
Finishing Move (3 Iron heart maneuvers needed, already covered if you knew the last 3 when you picked it up.

Then you could pick it up. I just chose these 4 at random, as long as maneuver is of the Iron Heart school, it would count as a prerequisite.

[Teapot Salty]

There are no restrictions by discipline for warblades, other than fulfilling the pre-requisites for maneuvers and stances. As a warblade, assuming you meet the pre-requisites of a given maneuver/stance, you can take it regardless of the discipline (as long as it's one of the disciplines warblades get access to).

So, for example, you're a level 1 warblade. You can choose three maneuvers and one stance. You want to help your party, so you grab Bolstering Voice for your stance (White Raven). You also know that your will save is a weak point, so your first maneuver choice is Moment of Perfect Mind (Diamond Mind). Then you decide you want to be bulky, so you pick up Stone Bones (Stone Dragon). For your third maneuver, you'd like to pick up Sudden Leap, but it requires that you know at least one Tiger Claw maneuver already. You don't have that pre-requisite, so you instead grab Wolf Fang Strike (also Tiger Claw), which doesn't have any pre-requisites, figuring you'll pick up Sudden Leap down the road.

So, at first level, you know Moment of Perfect Mind, Wolf Fang Strike and Stone Bones, and Bolstering Voice as your stance.

Make sense?

(Also, I'm not recommending you PLAY with the above-referenced maneuver selection - I was just using those as examples. I probably would not pick those exact maneuvers for a warblade.)

So essentially, disciplines don't mean anything other than prerequisites for some maneuvers, like sudden leap needing another tiger claw. So I can chose any maneuver I want as long as I have the prerequisite(s) for it?


Every Discipline has Maneuvers and Stances. Let me post this (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) for clarity. It easier if you look at them as spells. So their kind of like spell schools for wizard, instead except instead of specialization, there more of a upgrade tree almost. (Heh, those two things are really nothing alike)

[Dr.Gara]

So essentially, disciplines don't mean anything other than prerequisites for some maneuvers, like sudden leap needing another tiger claw. So I can chose any maneuver I want as long as I have the prerequisite(s) for it?

They also matter for certain feats, but beyond that, no. As long as you have the prerequisites, and it's on your list, you can have it. That's the way it works.

[Teapot Salty]

Thanks everybody!

[dethkruzer]

So essentially, disciplines don't mean anything other than prerequisites for some maneuvers, like sudden leap needing another tiger claw. So I can chose any maneuver I want as long as I have the prerequisite(s) for it?

pretty much, higher level maneuvers require a sufficiently high initiator level, and I believe that chapter that lists maneuvers per level also lists the disciplines a particular class has access to.

[Ryuuk]

So their kind of like spell schools for wizard, instead except instead of specialization, there more of a upgrade tree almost. (Heh, those two things are really nothing alike)

They let you group up the abilities into similar 'themes'. White Raven is for battle commanders, Tiger Claw is savage and bestial, Abjuration places wards and defenses, Enchantment affects the mind.

Beyond that, yeah, they function completely differently.

[Thrawn183]

So essentially, disciplines don't mean anything other than prerequisites for some maneuvers, like sudden leap needing another tiger claw. So I can chose any maneuver I want as long as I have the prerequisite(s) for it?

So their kind of like spell schools for wizard, instead except instead of specialization, there more of a upgrade tree almost. (Heh, those two things are really nothing alike)

Don't forget that you need actual access to the discipline from your class.

[Particle_Man]

Stone Dragon maneuvers require you to be standing on the ground to use them.