When they take damage, they store up to a certain amount (starting at 5, scaling up to 30) in a reserve pool.

Steely Resolve is a major part of this classвЂ™s unique and weird mechanics.

They also learn a few stances, starting with 1 and scaling up to 4.

White Raven is the precursor of the 4e warlord. Stone Dragon is about strength, immovability, and crushing things to death.

IвЂ™ll go into more detail on this later, but Devoted Spirit is the particularly zealous style, themed around all the things youвЂ™d expect a paladin to do.

Think of it as a weird deck-builder, I guess? They must discard their hand and redraw when their draw pile is empty. Instead, they randomly select 2 (scaling up to 4) that they can use, and another maneuver becomes available from their prepared list at the end of each turn.

They have an unusual style of readying maneuvers (which, in case this isnвЂ™t obvious, parallels preparing spells): they prepare 5 (which eventually scales up to 7), but canвЂ™t use all of them at the start of an encounter.

Everyone gets Stone Dragon, and they share White Raven with warblades. TheyвЂ™re the only class to use Devoted Spirit style.

They learn a modest number of maneuvers (starting with 5 and scaling up to 14) much fewer than swordsages, one more than warblades.

Proficiency in simple and martial weapons, armor up to heavy, and shields.

Good Fortitude, poor Reflex and Will saves.

They get Balance and Jump but not Climb or Swim? IвЂ™m not sure what story this is trying to tell.

4 + Int modifier skills the skill list is sort of odd for a paladin-flavored class.

In playstyle, itвЂ™s a lot more like a different approach to the Iron Heroes armiger class. The first of the three new classes is the crusader, a non-spellcasting concept of a paladin or blackguard within the Bo9S framework. I donвЂ™t plan to cover each maneuver and stance in detail, because that would take many more articles, but IвЂ™ll say a few words about the styles as we go through them. The nine fighting styles arenвЂ™t available to all three classes nor are they distributed evenly. That this goes on to inform the 5e Battle Master is, well, self-evident. Maneuvers are encounter powers, plain and simple, though there are also mechanics to recover some maneuvers during combat. Up to this point, fighter-like classes rarely had any concept of a per-encounter or per-day attack option. If youвЂ™re looking for a missing link between 3.5e design and 4e, this is it. ThatвЂ™s the longer-term importance of this book, of course. If youвЂ™ve ever argued that everyone in 4e D&D fights like a spellcaster (because of the format of powers), well, that started here. At least in format, these are all but indistinguishable from spells. These fighting styles package their content in maneuvers and stances. It gets there by dividing the fighter into three classes, which draw on the titular nine fighting styles. ItвЂ™s not a new Oriental Adventures, though вЂ“ instead, itвЂ™s aiming for a more stylized combat dynamic.

Instead, IвЂ™m covering the Book of Nine Swords, which may be the most anticipated entry in the whole History of the Fighter, if the comments section up to this point is any measure. Sure, I said IвЂ™d be reviewing an adventure this week, but I changed my mind when faced with more writing time.

Friends, this is an exciting day вЂ“ the most important milestone of my life as a stay-at-home dad until my older son can safely handle a lawnmower. As I write this, my younger son has gone to his first day of preschool.

Warblade maneuver cards