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The background: my current warblade is too powerful compared to the rest of my party. I am aware, that the issue might be inefficient builds of other characters, but I wanted to focus on this individual mechanical switch. You can find details of the conversation here: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/82575/28926

The goal: reduce the power of my class

The hypothesis: replacing the maneuver mechanics of a Warblade with a Swordsage.

The plan:

  1. Keep access to the same five warblade schools. Everything else (HD, skills, features, saves, etc.) stays the same as a warblade, except the following:

  2. The number of warblade maneuvers known, and maneuvers readied are replaced with the numbers of the sword sage. Keep the number of warblade stances the same.

  3. The maneuver recovery mechanic of the warblade is replaced by the recovery mechanic of the swordsage.

Analysis:

  1. It will be much harder to recover maneuvers without the Adaptive Style feat, but even so it still will take a full-round action doing nothing else.

  2. The class will have access to a greater selection of maneuvers then a warblade.

The question: Will these changes in fact make this new hybrid class mechanically weaker than a regular warblade?

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Yes... but not much. The warblade recovery is very good, and the swordsage recovery is very bad, but with swordsage maneuvers readied, you may find yourself not needing to recover all that often. Combats in 3.5 tend to be rather short (in rounds), after all.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I think, you should mention the impact on prestige classes and feats dependant on number of known maneuvers, which is basically doubled in comparision to regular Warblade, \$\endgroup\$
    – Momonga-sama
    Jun 19, 2016 at 1:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Momonga-sama None of those requirements are particularly onerous so I don’t think that has any effect on balance. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Jun 19, 2016 at 1:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Momonga-sama I can see why to the general public maybe it's useful, but I have zero plans to go prestige. \$\endgroup\$
    – FrancisJohn
    Jun 19, 2016 at 1:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ How does the use of the feat Adaptive Style affect the balance between the two mechanical systems? \$\endgroup\$
    – FrancisJohn
    Jun 20, 2016 at 4:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ @FrancisJohn If you need to recover maneuvers as a swordsage without Adaptive Style, you are out of the fight. If you need to recover maneuvers as a swordsage with Adaptive Style... you can rejoin the fight in a round, but there probably won’t be much fight left at that point. Either way, you are way worse off, at that point, than a warblade, and you had to spend a feat to get there. I’m honestly starting to believe that Adaptive Style is actually kind of a trap for swordsages; in my experience it just helps so rarely. So I don’t think it changes anything here. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Jun 20, 2016 at 4:24

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