Swordsage overpowered?

[BIGMamaSloth]

I just recently started playing D&D ( a couple months ago) and I was checking out tome of battle and really liked swordsage. I was telling my group that i wanted to play one but they said it was really over-powered and that they were basically gonna give some kind of penalties to my charecter to make it fair.

do you think this is fair? i dont really know how good they are compared to other classes. We're starting at level 1 and I'm being a human if that helps.

[noiadodh]

roll a druid then, i bet that they wont think its overpowered until u roflpwnlollollol everyone in melee

[NelKor]

Not overpowered at all, it's a normal knee-jerk reaction to ToB and Psionics.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Oh boy... the week haven't even finished and we got another Tob Thread /semi joke.

AFAIK the swordsage is considered to be the weakes of the three base classes introduced in ToB, having said that, they are definetly stronger than your run of the mill melee classes (such as monk which it is considered to be a replacement of).

The point is that is EXTREMELY hard to mess up a swordsage, and as such they are more powerful out of the box, if you group don't optimize much or have the Ideal party (beatstick, skillmonkey, healbot and blaster) a swordsage might seem overpowered.

[herrhauptmann]

I just recently started playing D&D ( a couple months ago) and I was checking out tome of battle and really liked swordsage. I was telling my group that i wanted to play one but they said it was really over-powered and that they were basically gonna give some kind of penalties to my charecter to make it fair.

do you think this is fair? i dont really know how good they are compared to other classes. We're starting at level 1 and I'm being a human if that helps.

If they're going to slap you down with penalties just because they don't like a class, I'd suggest actually finding a new group (unless these are friends of yours). Especially if they're actually more experienced than you are in the game.

ToB is only overpowered if the core fighter with sword and shield is considered a powerful character at all levels. Measured against all classes played to their breakign point, ToB comes out at respectable levels. It's the base fighter that ends up being too weak.
But that's my opinion. Hopefully their nerfs won't make it impossible to play a swordsage. Although playing a batman wizard or something else extremely powerful just to mess with them is really a bad idea.

[Coidzor]

do you think this is fair? i dont really know how good they are compared to other classes. We're starting at level 1 and I'm being a human if that helps.

No. Now if you were a druid and there was a houserule that there were only shapeshift variant druids available, that'd be fair.

As it stands, ToB should either be used or not.

[CockroachTeaParty]

In my experience, both as a player and as a DM, sword sages are hardly overpowered. In fact, they have a tendency to fall behind the other ToB classes, and even certain core melee builds. Their recovery mechanic is horrible, and even with their feat patch/tax, if a battle goes on too long they will start to 'feel the burn.' They are poor endurance fighters, relative glass cannons.

[Emmerask]

I just recently started playing D&D ( a couple months ago) and I was checking out tome of battle and really liked swordsage. I was telling my group that i wanted to play one but they said it was really over-powered and that they were basically gonna give some kind of penalties to my charecter to make it fair.

do you think this is fair? i dont really know how good they are compared to other classes. We're starting at level 1 and I'm being a human if that helps.

In general the swordsage is not overpowered, however

Without further knowledge of overall campaign powerlevel or what the other players will play there can´t be a simple yes or no answer

If everyone else has future builds like fighter 20 weapon focus ftw, barbarian 20, ranger 20 etc
then yes your swordsage will be overpowered, if they play around t3 then the swordsage is perfect, if t1 to t2 then you should optimize that swordsage quite a lot ^^

[Lev]

Shame on you for playing something as powerful as a swordsage.
You should be playing a fighter with improved toughness and combat expertise.

Sarcasm aside, ToB was Wizard's way of replacing the fighters with:

A) A class that can compete with casters.
B) One that doesn't get weaker as it levels.
C) Classes that have more flavor than cardboard mush
D) Gives the fighter (aka swordsage/warblade/ect) OPTIONS..

Fighter's options (generalization):
A) Attack
B) Attack
C) Attack
D) Attack
E) RUN
F) Get a better position, and Attack
G) Defend
H) Get served



No, swordsage is not even tier 1, it's just that Barbarians and Fighters are so underpowered that anything that could actually take down a dragon looks overpowered in comparison.

[tyckspoon]

In my experience, both as a player and as a DM, sword sages are hardly overpowered. In fact, they have a tendency to fall behind the other ToB classes, and even certain core melee builds. Their recovery mechanic is horrible, and even with their feat patch/tax, if a battle goes on too long they will start to 'feel the burn.' They are poor endurance fighters, relative glass cannons.

I know Adaptive Style is useful for a Swordsage, but I think it's more for the ability to reselect your readied maneuvers so you can access the other half of your Maneuvers Known than it is as a means of fixing their recovery mechanic. Swordsages can ready almost as many maneuvers as a Warblade even knows, and will generally be capable of using a boost or counter plus a strike for 3-5 rounds running. Which should be the significant part of most fights. They might not all be the absolute most appropriate maneuvers, but.. I would say that if you just wanted to use the same maneuvers over and over, you shouldn't have gone in for Swordsage to start with.

[Zorzark]

It really depends on the rest of your group. Swordsage, and other ToB classes, get a strong start in the early levels and that can make them look a little too good to the level 1-4 group, depending on their mastery of the rules and the classes of their own PCs. Penalties shouldn't be required. Is it only Swordsage that's penalized, or all of the ToB?

[HunterOfJello]

Don't accept unnecessary nerfs to your character because someone else doesn't understand it properly. Play a different character instead.

Instead, play a Druid as optimized as you can make him and once they complain enough, switch to your Swordsage.

[Koury]

I know Adaptive Style is useful for a Swordsage, but I think it's more for the ability to reselect your readied maneuvers so you can access the other half of your Maneuvers Known than it is as a means of fixing their recovery mechanic. Swordsages can ready almost as many maneuvers as a Warblade even knows, and will generally be capable of using a boost or counter plus a strike for 3-5 rounds running. Which should be the significant part of most fights. They might not all be the absolute most appropriate maneuvers, but.. I would say that if you just wanted to use the same maneuvers over and over, you shouldn't have gone in for Swordsage to start with.

Ever played with a Swordsage without Adaptive Style? Ugh, painful to watch. And the Swordsage is the only one who ever runs out of maneuvers. Warblade is out? He keeps wailing away (most likely with a full attack by the time hes out). Crusader? Yeah, never out. Swordsage? Burns about 15% of his turns recovering, assuming he has AS.

[Kylarra]

I highly recommend against the "play something T1 to show them that they are wrong" tactics.

[Grynning]

Also, they're starting at level 1. A druid isn't going to blow anyone's minds until they pick up wild shape at level 4, and even then it may take a while before people start to notice the druid edging out the fighter. Their spell list isn't that impressive until higher levels, really (except for summoning). A Wizard or Sorcerer is still pretty solid from level 1, but even then a non-optimizing group may think the swordsages per encounter maneuvers vs. the casters per-day spells are "overpowered."

The power gap between a swordsage and a normal core melee character IS more glaring at the very low levels, so in this case, switching to a rogue, barbarian or fighter may be a good idea. Maybe build toward Saph's Core Horizon Tripper or something.

[Dralnu]

Swordsages can ready almost as many maneuvers as a Warblade even knows, and will generally be capable of using a boost or counter plus a strike for 3-5 rounds running. Which should be the significant part of most fights.

This is true. The versatility is the big advantage, both in terms of maneuvers known and readied, and shouldn't be overlooked. Also more skill points and probably better AC. I'd say that the Warblade is still ahead though. Better BAB (not huge considering we're using strikes), HP (big), recovery mechanic, and primary stat (INT compared to WIS). I'd even say that the class abilities are way better on the Warblade's end -- that's a ridiculous amount of bonus feats, which melee generally wants a lot of!

That's not to say that swordsages are bad. They're amazing at being melee and are tremendous fun. If anything, I think warblades are a little too good.

[OracleofWuffing]

Any idea what, specifically, the penalties are going to be?

To people that haven't used ToB classes, Batmen Wizards, CoDzillas, Uberchargers, Ultratrippers, Habatabits, Pun-Puns, or housecats, a Swordsage will appear too powerful. I remember dominating that time I first rolled out ToB on a DM. The fact of the matter, though, was that if the DM had any encounters with Fire Resistance or Immunity, half to 75% of my awesomeness would have been locked out.

What I'm circling around is that ToB classes are going to be a little different than melee classes, and I could expect there being cases where they'll give you penalties that don't really influence your character. At which point, yeah, you could just eat the penalty and keep playing as normal, maybe whine a bit about them so they don't catch on that you don't need full-round attacks or that additional point in STR.

[LordBlades]

Would be interesting to know what the rest of the group is playing. If they play really weak chars (sword&board fighters, monks and the like) then a swordsage might be overpowered for that group.

Second: ask them why they think a swordsage is overpowered. I for one am really curious about their reasoning.

[Kaww]

Second: ask them why they think a swordsage is overpowered. I for one am really curious about their reasoning.

+1

I pumped up ToB/martial classes in my campaign so they might keep up with the casters. If your group is avg wizard, cleric, fighter & rogue you will have more balance issues than wizard, cleric, swordsage & beguiler.

Then again that's my experience, and my copper piece.

[Lev]

Would be interesting to know what the rest of the group is playing. If they play really weak chars (sword&board fighters, monks and the like) then a swordsage might be overpowered for that group.

Second: ask them why they think a swordsage is overpowered. I for one am really curious about their reasoning.

Fighter, Truenamer, Horizonwalker and a wizard with 3 base int.

[Godless_Paladin]

I was telling my group that i wanted to play one but they said it was really over-powered and that they were basically gonna give some kind of penalties to my charecter to make it fair.

do you think this is fair?

No.

It is highly likely that your group has no idea what they are talking about. Tough luck, eh?

[Morph Bark]

Fighter, Truenamer, Horizonwalker and a wizard with 3 base int.

Base 3 Int still makes the Wizard better than the rest, especially if he's of a +Int race, after aging to venerable, getting a tome, adding all level bonuses to stats onto Int, can easily get to 18. 9th-level spells are then still out of reach unless he constantly wears a +Int magic item though.


But yeah, the Swordsage isn't that bad, especially since its recovery mechanic is the worst of the ToB classes. If you're at level 1, it may be understandable a little, since at level 1 ToB classes overshadow other melee classes a bit due to their special moves. If they're over level 5 and the others picked their feats right they shouldn't complain though, or the party members should discuss and divide their roles better so you don't have too many melee-ers on the same role.

[Greenish]

A druid isn't going to blow anyone's minds until they pick up wild shape at level 4 5

Fixed that.

I'd even say that the class abilities are way better on the Warblade's end -- that's a ridiculous amount of bonus feats, which melee generally wants a lot of!

4 over 20 levels, picked from a very poor list is "ridiculous"?

[dsmiles]

Warblade is out? He keeps wailing away (most likely with a full attack by the time hes out).

Warblades run out? What happened to: Take a swift action then attack = maneuver recovery?

[Greenish]

Warblades run out? What happened to: Take a swift action then attack = maneuver recovery?

That's what he said.

[Douglas]

Also, they're starting at level 1. A druid isn't going to blow anyone's minds until they pick up wild shape at level 4, and even then it may take a while before people start to notice the druid edging out the fighter.

You're forgetting the Animal Companion, which can almost match a typical Fighter all by itself.

[faceroll]

Also, they're starting at level 1. A druid isn't going to blow anyone's minds until they pick up wild shape at level 4, and even then it may take a while before people start to notice the druid edging out the fighter. Their spell list isn't that impressive until higher levels, really (except for summoning). A Wizard or Sorcerer is still pretty solid from level 1, but even then a non-optimizing group may think the swordsages per encounter maneuvers vs. the casters per-day spells are "overpowered."

Level 5.
But if in core, get a Riding Dog AC, put animal fang on it. Against most level 1 enemies, it's going to knock them down.

If outside of core, take the feats Wild Cohort and Natural Bond. For the Wild Cohort, get a Warbeast Riding dog. For the Animal Companion, get a Warbeast Fleshraker.

Pwn everything.

[El Dorado]

It also depends on what classes the rest of the group is playing. Not to mention how they are playing those classes. My buddy had been playing a mid-level druid and almost dropped it because he thought our party needed "more melee". Don't worry, I stopped him.

[sonofzeal]

Ehehehe....

I actually think I know what this is about. BIGMamaSloth, are you in Mr Kee's newbie game?

If so, I'm the one who made the comment, and for everyone else here, this is why...

- The game starts at level 1. Now, I love ToB, but martial adepts get off to a faster start than most other classes. That evens out a bit after a few levels, but I'd put them substantially ahead in power in early game.

- Everyone else in the game, or at least the vast majority, has never even made a D&D character before and have no access to expanded resources. There's a fair amount of expert help going around, but we're talking the newbiest of newbies. Like, still figuring out what dice to roll, and thinking that Self-Sufficient and Acrobatic are awesome feats.

- That same day I made the comment, the DM (experienced in 4th ed but not 3rd) was looking over someone else's character sheet, a Samurai with no stat modifier higher than a +2, and was telling them they were massively overpowered. I stepped in to try and correct that mistake, but hopefully that illustrates the kind of group we're talking about.

....so in that context, yes, I think it's appropriate that the more experienced player throwing together a Swordsage should face some RP restrictions. Not massive ones, and not permanent ones, but I think it's fair to put some dampers on.

[Douglas]

- That same day I made the comment, the DM (experienced in 4th ed but not 3rd) was looking over someone else's character sheet, a Samurai with no stat modifier higher than a +2, and was telling them they were massively overpowered.

*blink*

What.

Ok, with that kind of background, yes a Swordsage is extremely overpowered. Tome of Battle is not overpowered in general, but its bottom end of typical power is a lot higher than the bottom end for typical non-ToB melee, and it sounds like the specific game in question is hitting the really low end. In that case, any ToB character will outclass everyone else.