[Homebrew] 5e Warblade

[Ashkelon]

The 5e Warblade

One of my favorite classes from 3e was the Warblade. It was the first time a completely martial warrior was able to accomplish truly heroic martial exploits on the battlefield. It was also the first time a martial warrior was given interesting choices on a round by round basis. I was hoping to see a mechanically interesting martial warrior in 5e, but was disappointed by the Battlemaster Fighter.

If you are like me, and were similarly disappointed by the Battlemaster, take a look at the warblade. It is a dynamic interesting martial warrior with a variety of maneuvers to choose from. Let me know your thoughts.

Note: Damage comparison between Champion Fighter, Barbarian, and Warblade HERE

 

[Samuel Levesque]

Wow. This is one of the rare homebrew that I've found that (my brews included) that are actually original, either mixing up mechanics in a new way or encouraging new mechanics altogether. There's too much stuff offered here, and some of it is clearly broken, but all of it remains downright awesome. And the majority of it remains quite balanced. I think you could have relied a bit more on the archetypes, because they seem like one small part of the whole class, and they don't seem to interact much with the rest of the class features. Anyway, I need to look over all of this again. This gets my juices creative.

 

[Ashkelon]

Thanks, glad you like the concept. Feel free to comment more (either here or on the document). I am always looking for feedback on how to make the class more refined and balanced.

 

[trentonjoe]

The two fighting styles you created are significantly better than the three "book" ones. Other than for roleplaying/style purposes, why wouldn't you take one of your two?

 

[Ashkelon]

The two fighting styles you created are significantly better than the three "book" ones. Other than for roleplaying/style purposes, why wouldn't you take one of your two?

Interesting that you say this. The Great Weapon Style actually deals more DPR than Weapon Specialization from levels 1-20 and only deals ~.75 DPR less than weapon specialization from levels 1-10. Considering weapon specialization is limited to a specific type of weapon while Great Weapon Style is not, I would hardly say specialization is strictly superior.

As for Blade Dancer Style, again, Great Weapon Style deals more damage. Blade Dancer style is good if you want to wield a d10 damage two handed finesse weapon. That certainly has its perks, but you will be doing significantly less damage than warrior using Great Weapon or Weapon Specialization as their style. The unarmored defense bonus is nice, but it is costly to raise both DEX and Wis to a level where you see real advantage over just wearing armor. Again it hardly seems superior.

Finally, if you want to dual wield, two weapon fighting style will be your best bet overall.

The only style that is truly lacking is Duelist, but that was always the case.

 

[trentonjoe]

I don't how you are doing your math but +1 to hit and damage is better than than < +1 damge points GWS gives you.

Also, the game "balance" depends on not increasing the to hit with permanent bonuses. I think throwing out +1's is bad form.

Also, only choosing one type of weapon is kinda like a pseudo-restriction, a PC will attack with her chosen weapon like 95% of the time. It really isn't limiting in my opinion.

Conceptually, I like the specialization ability but I would model it after a spell (or ability) like bless. I would make it like this:

<cool name>

The warblade can enter a <cool verb> and increase her chance against an opponent. When invoking this power the war blade rolls an extra d4 on her attack roll. Every time the warblade is damaged in combat she must make a CON save (DC 10 or 1/2 damage dealt, whichever is greater) or lose the bonus. The ability can be used once per short rest.

 

[Ashkelon]

If you use the damage comparison spreadsheet I linked above, it is fairly easy to see how the different fighting styles compare to one another. I merely copied the sheets, replaced 8.3333333 with 7, increased accuracy by .05, and gave an additional +1 in the damage calculation. You can verify my math if you like, but Great Weapon Style is superior to specialization for levels 11+, and only slightly inferior for levels 1-10.

I like your idea conceptually, but part of the reason I wanted something like weapon specialization was its simplicity. Re-rolling 1s and 2s slows down combat more than you would think, especially at level 11+ where the class is potentially rolling 4d6 damage per attack. Your idea would slow down combat even more so.