Help me Understand Warblade/ToB

[GSQ|unionjack]

So I've been working on a build for a martial character for a very long time, and ToB keeps coming up. People constantly answer "what's a good melee build?" with "warblade 20." I've been reading through stances and maneuvers but I haven't had a chance to put anything in effect. Can anyone help me understand how a Warblade could be better than a typical barbarian/fighter hybrid? I hear versatility, and while it seems really cool to ignore hardness and bust down walls out of combat, I don't see much beyond that. You take bonus damage from strikes that give say, 4d6, instead of power attack (which works for full attacks, and seems more consistent?) You use maneuvers to preform trips/charges/bonus damage, etc. It seems easy enough to get power attack, imp trip, imp sunder, imp bull rush, storm trooper, pounce, and all that business by level 12 or so. I just don't see where warblade pulls ahead, or why you can't put them both together. More skills, d12, sure.

Here's the build I've been working on for reference.

Human/Half-Minotaur (maybe just Goliath).
lvl 1 - Fighter 1 (power attack, improved bullrush, knockback)
lvl 2 - Barb 1 (rage, pounce)
lvl 3 - Barb 2 (imp. trip from wolf, exotic proficiency/chain or Minotaur war-hammer)
lvl 4 - Warblade 1
lvl 5 - Warblade 2
lvl 6 - Fighter 2 (shock trooper, imp. sunder)
lvl 7 - Warblade 3
lvl 8 - Warblade 4
lvl 9 - Warblade 5 (combat brute, free combat reflexes)
Warblade until 20, take leap attack at 12.

I just don't see how straight warblade would improve the versatility here? You still get top level stances and maneuvers, decent charge combos, a set of great bull-rush options, even sunder. Exotic proficiency you can swap out in 5 minutes, as I understand it, from warblade. Maybe crusader would be better. It doesn't seem like there is a reason to avoid stances, and dip PRC or anything, It just seems like with the power of this normal fighter/barb stuff, you wouldn't be replacing typical attacks or actions with maneuvers all that often. Am I hugely missing something?

[Rebel7284]

Warblade 20 is a SIMPLE build that stays relevant for most of the game. Adding a few dips, such as Lion Totem Barbarian will typically be slightly better even if it delays your maneuvers slightly. The Warblade capstone is pretty great though!

As far as PrCs go, Ruby Knight Vindicator is pretty amazing due to getting divine buffs on top of maneuvers on top of eventual extra actions!

Warblades in particular tend to work nicely with Eternal Blade if you happen to be an elf because of Eternal Blade capstone, but again, nothing says you have to be warblade 10 beforehand, dips can make it better.

As far as your particular build, check out Hit and Run variant fighter. Adding dex to damage against flat footed opponents is bound to be nice. :)

As for taking improved trip, etc, you can still do it on an initiator... those bonuses will typically stack with maneuvers.

[GSQ|unionjack]

I'll check out those Prc, thanks!

In my limited understanding, it seemed like the more useful maneuvers would be things that don't add damage, like iron heart surge, thicket of blades, maybe emerald razor, and of course the stances, and you would just play as a fighter like normal until those situations arose? I'm just worried I'm missing something. I know more levels in fighter or barb is pointless, but it seems crazy to take 16 levels in warblade too, just to get a few stances and maneuvers that are situation, thought perhaps I'm over-thinking it.

[AslanCross]

The White Raven line adds a LOT of tactical options. Warblade 20 will get White Raven Tactics earlier.

I think people mean "versatility" more in terms of "I can optimize this character for lots of different things" rather than "my character is a Swiss Army knife in and out of combat."

A DPS-optimized Fighter/Barbarian with a two-handed weapon will certainly outdamage a warblade. A Warblade can be built to be a credible DPS character while having tactical options, or a TWF build, or a sword/board build.

[Blackhawk748]

I'll check out those Prc, thanks!

In my limited understanding, it seemed like the more useful maneuvers would be things that don't add damage, like iron heart surge, thicket of blades, maybe emerald razor, and of course the stances, and you would just play as a fighter like normal until those situations arose? I'm just worried I'm missing something. I know more levels in fighter or barb is pointless, but it seems crazy to take 16 levels in warblade too, just to get a few stances and maneuvers that are situation, thought perhaps I'm over-thinking it.

Partially, but nothing says "Screw that thing" more than the Mountain Hammer line. The fact that it ignores DR is the primary reason i used it. On top of this Ruby Nightmare Blade and Greater Insightful Strike are just sick. GIS in particular is easy to use to hit stupidly hard.

[Gildedragon]

Enter warblade at an odd level, either 1 or 5 to get a whole initiator level

[J-H]

Can anyone help me understand how a Warblade could be better than a typical barbarian/fighter hybrid? I hear versatility, and while it seems really cool to ignore hardness and bust down walls out of combat, I don't see much beyond that. You take bonus damage from strikes that give say, 4d6, instead of power attack (which works for full attacks, and seems more consistent?)
Power attack on a full attack is more consistent, but if you can't set up a charge with pounce, or if your opponent is moving, you don't get to full attack. In difficult terrain or with mobile enemies, the ability to do one extra-effective hit reliably trumps the ability to do a series of power hits once every few rounds.

On your off rounds (no charge, no full attack), a fighter/barbarian is limited to "standard attack" plus maybe a trip or disarm. A warblade can bypass DR, give himself temporary DR, keep his enemy from moving (allowing a full attack the next round), power attack for ++ damage with a melee touch attack, do bonus damage, etc. ToB gives melee some variety to pick from instead of "I standard attack. I full attack. I standard attack. I full attack."


You use maneuvers to preform trips/charges/bonus damage, etc. It seems easy enough to get power attack, imp trip, imp sunder, imp bull rush, storm trooper, pounce, and all that business by level 12 or so. I just don't see where warblade pulls ahead, or why you can't put them both together. More skills, d12, sure.
I just don't see how straight warblade would improve the versatility here? You still get top level stances and maneuvers, decent charge combos, a set of great bull-rush options, even sunder. [/quote]
You just listed 7-8 feats. For a barbarian or partial fighter, you've just burned almost all of your character customization. A Fighter-20 gets 11 bonus feats.
A warblade has 13 maneuvers known, can swap them out as he levels up, plus he has 4 stances and 4 bonus feats... that's 21 options to the Fighter's 11.

Your barbarian/fighter 20 goes up against a Wizard. He rolls a 1 on his Will save (1d20+8?) and loses 1d3 rounds of actions to paralysis.
Your warblade 20 goes up against a Wizard. He uses Moment of Perfect Mind to replace his will save with a Concentration check (1d20+28 assuming full ranks, con 20, no concentration items) and doesn't auto-fail when he rolls a 1.

Your barbarian/fighter 20 goes up against a dragon with high AC and can't afford to power attack. He does 4d6+20 (str 30 + magic weapon).
Your Warblade 20 is in the same situation. He either uses Emerald Razor to make one touch attack, and power attacks for -10/+20, OR he uses Greater Insightful Strike to do 2x concentration check damage (effectively 2d20+56).

It's full attack time! Your B/F 20 makes 4 attacks, 3 hit. He power attacks for -10/+20 and does 12d6+120 damage in total.
Your Warblade uses Time Stands Still and makes TWO full attack routines, while still power attacking for whatever.

Both characters charge an enemy wizard, slaying him and maybe using Shock Trooper. With their ACs lowered, they are vulnerable to an equally-levelled charging mounted knight with a valorous lance who is going to do 4x damage.
The barbarian gets speared.
The Warblade uses Wall of Blades, replacing his low AC (25?) with his attack roll (1d20+35?), giving him a decent chance of avoiding the triple-digit HP loss.

Additionally, many boosts or maneuvers can be initiated with a swift action; fighters and barbarians have nothing at all to do with their swift actions unless they're doing the "swift intimidate" thing. More actions used = more effective.

There are some situations where a barbarian/fighter will do better than a Warblade, but a Warblade will always have several useful, powerful options at his fingertips, both defensively and offensively.


If you'd like to play this out, I'd be happy to build a quick Warblade 20 for a couple of rounds (best of 3) of arena combat versus the fighter/barbarian build of your choice, so you can see it for yourself.

[Troacctid]

Basically everything fighters and barbarians get is worse than basically everything warblades get.

Fighter gets Power Attack with full BAB? Okay, so does the warblade, except the warblade also gets a bunch of other extra damage, plus the ability to make her attacks against touch AC. (Your example of the fighter using Power Attack where the warblade deals 4d6 extra damage? The warblade is making that attack at her full bonus, while the fighter is taking a -7 penalty.) Barbarian gets rage a limited number of times per day? The warblade's stances are active all the time. Barbarian gets pounce at 1st level? The warblade doesn't even need pounce, because she can just move and attack normally...but she still gets pounce at 9th level anyway, because she's a boss.

Yeah, an ubercharger fighter or barbarian can burn almost all their build resources to do a ton of damage on a charge with Shock Trooper. Guess what? Warblades can take those feats too if they want—but they usually don't even bother, because the tricks they already have are good enough that they don't need Shock Trooper.

Of course, there's nothing stopping the warblade from dipping fighter or barbarian, but if you know you're going the full 20 levels, then stance mastery is a powerful, unique capstone that rewards you pretty well for sticking to your guns, and anyway, warblade isn't really a class with the kind of natural break points that you see in the core martial classes.