Fighter Vs Warblade

[Frosty]

I may participate in a melee duel soon, to see who has the advantage between Warblade and Fighter. I need help building a Warblade to be able to defeat a Fighter in one on one combat that showcases the melee aspect instead of a "who is better as using your wealth" contest. So, given these conditions, what build and what items would you use?

Straight Fighter 20 vs Warblade 20. Books allowed: PHB, All completes. Tome of Battle, PHB2, Races of < > books.

LA +0. Medium or Small sized only.

Fighter can't take Martial Study or Martial Stance. Can't use UMD. Neither character can have any ability to cast spells or have psionic powers.

No cheesy items like Candles of Invocation or Dust of Coughing. We're trying to showcase melee prowess not item prowess. Magic items must be in the DMG.

The arena changes from battle to battle. So we may run repetitions in a feature-less flat plane covered by a dome 200 feet in diameter, and then switch to a heavily forested setting, then to fighting near the mouth of a volcano, and then more. The builds, once decided, would be used for all the fights.

Situation 1) Wealth is limited to 3000 gold. No magical items allowed except one free Heward's Handy Haversack.

Situation 2) Normal WBL. Try not to get an item that does the fighting for you or makes it so the fight isn't a contest of melee. The point of the contest is not to cheese it out to the extreme with items.

[Renegade Paladin]

Don't know about the warblade, but I know how I'd build the fighter.

[Frosty]

That'd be good to, to see what the Fighter might do.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

There are 3 Fighter builds you may face, not counting archery. Lockdown tripper, possibly using karmic strike, ubercharger, and skirmisher. You need a build that can beat all of those.

[tyckspoon]

There are 3 Fighter builds you may face, not counting archery. Lockdown tripper, possibly using karmic strike, ubercharger, and skirmisher. You need a build that can beat all of those.

You may well face two or all three of them. A full Fighter 20 has little better to do with his feats than take on other good feat trees.. actually, I seem to recall we already had this basic thread at least once. A Fighter 20 may have the full Ubercharger set, Elusive Target so you can't smack him back with Power Attack, and the counterstrike set allowing him to return four AoO to every one attack.

A Warblade can't match the variety and number of feats of a Fighter, so obviously you need to counter with your maneuvers. The autostun of White Raven Hammer could be very useful, as could the White Raven boost that denies Attacks of Opportunity for three turns. Alternately, with the no-magic-items rules, your to-hit and damage rolls are likely to be pretty low for level 20, but your skill checks can still be good.. max out Concentration and work with Diamond Mind or Jump and use Tiger Claw.

Warblade 20 gets you the dual-stance ability; you'll need two good ones. Maybe Blood In the Water and Stance Of Alacrity with a crit-hound? Focus on readying counters; when your opponent does anything, you respond twice. And grab Mountain Tombstone Strike 'cause, hey, 2d6 Con damage and no maneuver prerequisite.

[Riffington]

To make it a bit more realistic, you should allow the fighter to take levels of Barbarian, Ranger, etc...

One obvious route for the non-TOB is to outspeed you and outshoot you... and what fighter doesn't "multiclass" even if only to get Rage?

[Frosty]

This is Melee only, so shooting isn't allowed.

tyckspoon: I fully expect Elusive Target. I will also be taking it myself to prevent Ubercharging from killing me straight out.

[Chronos]

Situation 1) Wealth is limited to 3000 gold. No magical items allowed except one free Heward's Handy Haversack.

Is there a feat or feat tree (or for that matter, stance or maneuver) somewhere that gives DR/magic? Ordinarily, such a feat would be useless, but if neither combatant has magical weapons...

[tyckspoon]

Oh. Are you allowed to use Martial Study/Stance to pick up maneuvers from outside the Warblade disciplines for this contest? Dual-stancing Press The Advantage and Child of Shadow would be fun; take two 5-foot steps to activate Child of Shadow and still have a full action to attack or initiate a maneuver with.

Let's see.. Durations tick over on the initiative of the creature that caused them, right? So an opponent recovers from a one-turn effect just before you go again? That prevents some interesting Moment of Alacrity options.

[Frosty]

Oh. Are you allowed to use Martial Study/Stance to pick up maneuvers from outside the Warblade disciplines for this contest?

I was under the impression Warblades can't take Martial Study/Stance?

[ZeroNumerous]

Fighter can't take Martial Study or Martial Stance. Can't use UMD. Neither character can have any ability to cast spells or have psionic powers.

But Binding, Shadowcasting, Invocations, and Incarnum are just golden, right?

I was under the impression Warblades can't take Martial Study/Stance?

Anyone and everyone can take either Martial Study or Martial Stance.. So I don't know where you got that impression.

[Renegade Paladin]

That'd be good to, to see what the Fighter might do.

If the object is just to kill a warblade, then an archery build does it right out; all of a warblade's maneuvers, so far as I'm aware, require being within melee reach. If restricted to melee, then a grappling build might actually cause you trouble, depending on whether your maneuvers require the use of a weapon and normal attack rolls. A fighter grappling build with Weapon Supremacy would be scary to a melee combatant, and the fighter has enough feats to pull it off.

[Frosty]

But Binding, Shadowcasting, Invocations, and Incarnum are just golden, right?



Anyone and everyone can take either Martial Study or Martial Stance.. So I don't know where you got that impression.

Since the book list does not have any sources that includes Binding, shadowcasting, and Incarnum, the point is moot. I don't see how a Fighter 20 can have Invocations to be honest.

As for martial Study, I made a mistake. I was thinking of a feat that allows you to ready one more maneuver than normal.

[tyckspoon]

Extra Granted and Extra Readied Maneuver are restricted to Crusaders and Swordsages, respectively. Martial Study and Stance have no prerequisites that would stop a Warblade from taking them to improve his Maneuvers Known; he just can't use a feat to ready any more.

[ZeroNumerous]

18 Base Strength, +5 Book, +6 Str Item, +5 from Levels gives you a DC 31 Save or Die that you can pull off every other round. It also deals your normal damage+20d6 if your opponent succeeds on the save.

Just spam Feral Death Blow until he fails a save, fails the Massive Damage Save, or dies from normal damage.

EDIT: Alternatively, Mountain Tombstone Strike deals 2d6 CON damage every other round.

[Lord Tataraus]

18 Base Strength, +5 Book, +6 Str Item, +5 from Levels gives you a DC 31 Save or Die that you can pull off every other round. It also deals your normal damage+20d6 if your opponent succeeds on the save.

Just spam Feral Death Blow until he fails a save, fails the Massive Damage Save, or dies from normal damage.

EDIT: Alternatively, Mountain Tombstone Strike deals 2d6 CON damage every other round.

Or you can alternate, start out with Mountain Tomestone Strike to drop his con, then follow up with Feral Death Blow (his con and thus his fort save is now lower). Rinse and repeat as necessary. You'll want Supreme Parry Stance for the DR5/- and possibly Stance of Alacrity with Lightning Recovery (though with the low ACs you might not need it) and Wall of Blades, possibly use Rapid Counter instead if he goes for charging or something.

[Frosty]

Charging is not generally a concern for me, due to Elusive Target, but having a counter for it never hurts I guess.

[ZeroNumerous]

Wall of Blades is a great shutdown for an ubercharger that lacks pounce. Suddenly your AC 16 becomes AC AB+1d20.

Tartarus: It's a huge devotion of maneuvers, but you could do both.

[SadisticFishing]

Hrm. I'm sure there's some way to get Pearl of Black Doubt to own his face. Maybe that, Child of Night, tons of AC (DMG magic items can get your AC DAMN high)... You'll win by sheer audacity, and I'm a fan of that :D

[Kurald Galain]

Since the book list does not have any sources that includes Binding, shadowcasting, and Incarnum, the point is moot. I don't see how a Fighter 20 can have Invocations to be honest.

Me neither, but you can learn Binding and Truenaming purely from feats, if you really want to.

[Lord Tataraus]

Wall of Blades is a great shutdown for an ubercharger that lacks pounce. Suddenly your AC 16 becomes AC AB+1d20.

Tartarus: It's a huge devotion of maneuvers, but you could do both.

How is it a huge devotion of maneuvers? If you use everything I listed its only 5 and that leaves 2 more to be readied, maybe some White Raven. It is a better tactic to have a string of maneuvers before recovery than just one then recover. Unless you're referring to prereqs, well, you can change your maneuvers around with some freedom and you do have the other 6 unreadied maneuvers for that.

[Worira]

I suggest, first off, Raptoran. Flight, plus a nice jump bonus for Tiger Claw.

[MammonAzrael]

You could also do Dragonborn, with the Wings focus. Yay for flight.

Also Moment of Alacrity, Pouncing Charge, Raging Mongoose, and TWF with Wounding Kukris? That should be some good starting Con damage. Covering Strike from White Raven. Maybe Bonecrusher from Stone Dragon?

[Hurlbut]

Actually come to think of it, it would be interesting to see an aerial duel between fighter and warblade, take your pick of any aerial race within the restrictions listed in this thread.

[AslanCross]

I was under the impression Warblades can't take Martial Study/Stance?

They can. It's how they qualify for prestige classes like Master of Nine.

[MammonAzrael]

Actually come to think of it, it would be interesting to see an aerial duel between fighter and warblade, take your pick of any aerial race within the restrictions listed in this thread.

That's one way to make the Stone Dragon Maneuvers useless.

EDIT: What the stat and HP method?

[Frosty]

Please feel free to post entire builds for both sides. I'd be itnerested in them. Stat generation method is 32 point buy. HP is max first level, half +1 the rest.

[AmberVael]

With the amount of feats a fighter has, and options at this level, I think it might be good to point out (just in case I'm the only one who thought of it) that it is possible for him to have Sunder...
And honestly, while a Warblade's power isn't really in the weapon that they choose, you can't deny that your effectiveness is going to be hampered without one.
I recommend buying multiple weapons of the same type. You have 3000 gold- a few extra coins spent on buying weapon duplicates won't matter, and could help you out quite a bit.

[Frosty]

And quickdraw. Very useful against sunders?

[Chronos]

Me neither, but you can learn Binding and Truenaming purely from feats, if you really want to.

Incarnum, too. In fact, by the rules, a chameleon can actually end up being a better meldshaper than a genuine Incarnate, at the same ECL.

But while it's possible for a fighter to pick up Truenaming through feats, I don't think it's possible for him to make the DC 55 check to actually do anything with it, under the given constraints.