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Jan 16, 2013 -- 6:17PM, draco1119 wrote:

Jan 16, 2013 -- 5:57PM, Tempest_Stormwind wrote:

A Fighter deprieved of his weapon, finding a better weapon of a different type, or similar will be at a great disadvantage, and heaven help him if he tries to use multiple weapon types at once... while a warblade can switch between weapons with ease, only changing a bit of the base damage and damage type.)

The beautiful thing that Tempest doesn't specify about the warblade is that it can still qualify for the fighter-only feats, but change those feats to suit whatever weapon he's currently using.

Once per day with an hour's practice, but yes, that is beautiful. Something that probably should have been on the fighter from the get-go. (And, for clarity, the fighter-feat qualification has a slight delay on it - big enough to make the weapon spec tree less desirable for a warblade, but small enough that it means someone entering warblade as a Fighter doesn't lose hope of Weapon Supremacy.)

Still, I was talking more about on the fly, even with no fighter feats. A historical example would be a Roman gladiator, who might reasonably expect to fight with a net and a trident, until he loses them (entangling opponents or having the net slashed, or sticking the trident in one enemy or throwing it at another), then drawing a short sword and fighting with that (until it breaks or gets disarmed or something), then fighting hand-to-hand, then disarming his foe of whatever weird crowd-pleasing weapon he was using and turning the tide amidst a sea of cheers. That's quite possible with a warblade - all of his maneuvers work with all of his weapons* pretty much exactly the same. Mountain Hammer with your greatsword? 2d6+2d6 slashing (bypassing all DR or hardness). Suddenly against a rust monster or someone enchanted with Greater Ironguard? Rip a branch of a tree as a club, and use Mountain Hammer for 1d6+2d6 bludgeoning (bypassing all DR or hardness). 

Or, if you'd prefer a purely fantastic example, check the Silmarillion. Húrin's last stand at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears comes to mind. He's perhaps the most badass of all Men in pretty much all of Tolkien's extended work: that particular last stand involved killing the hordes of Morgoth until his blade wore down, then picking up a discarded battleaxe and continuing, cutting down war trolls until he was eventually defeated. Not killed, but captured - and the only reason that happened was because he was buried under a pile of the corpses of his enemies. His name means "Steadfast Hero" and he'd almost certainly be Tolkien's equivalent of a crusader.

It's also possible to use some of the Tome's moves, most commonly boosts (although Time Stands Still works!), with ranged weapons (see the Heavy Weapons Elf and Flip the Bird for this taken to extremes). And this ignores maneuvers that work without referencing weapon mechanics at all (Iron Heart Endurance, Moment of Alacrity, Sudden Leap, and so on).

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