That's fine. Fundamentally, I think my gripe is that low level Blackguards kind of have to play against type. I'm impatient and want to play my crazy berserker nowwwww x'(

So if there was a way give Blackguards just a little bit more resilience or damage in the early game, that would be awesome.

But if not, that's fine. The class is still a lot of fun and very unique.

Default point buy spends 4 of 20 points for 1 point of Dex, which I think is always a mistake unless that increases your blows (at 17, 18/20, and 18/40) and even then I'm very loath to do it. A Dunadan BG can get back 7 character points by going to DEX 17 (or 6 pts at 18). Spend at least one of those to get INT to 13 and you'll have 1 more SP from levels 1-10 and 2 more from 11-20. Totally worth that 1 point investment.

Try to end your battles with enough SP to cast the cheap but critical spells you will soon need. Getting into this habit is critical, but a bit anti-thematic and that vexed me during the design process. Maybe I'll figure out a good way to get around that in the future, but for now it remains a key skill. Save enough to detect or leap or whatever else you anticipate needing. DON'T REST unless you have near zero SP anyway. Carry !CLT or =Open Wounds (now available in the Magic Shop) for maximum carnage per turn.

Looking at Dunadan Paladin vs BG with default birth points and equipment:
Doesn't look so bad to me. Bless gives +10 to-hit, Bers gives +75 melee skill which is roughly as good as +25 to-hit in melee (downsides to Bers, obviously).

I worked hard to get BGs to play to type. That's basically the only way I've ever played them, occasional fortuitous item find aside. It's possible that playing them like very bad Rogues is still the optimal strategy -- maybe we'll have a competition and find out -- but I know that playing them as lovers of melee combat is fun and at least reasonably effective.

I never even considered using a ring of open wounds to improve SP gain. Ill have to try that.

And my difficulties with the damage output is more how variable it is. Blackguards in the early game are very feast or famine. On paper they are similar, but whiffing once with the Blackguard hurts a lot more than with the paladin.

I might also have to try with the Oposband style weapon damage. That might end up being a buff for Blackguard since it puts less emphasis on blows.

It recovers 40 HP when activated and recharges pretty fast.

There's a compatibility issue with the BG spells, tho, that we haven't worked out yet: The melee blows spells aren't very effective at dealing damage.

@David--
Sure, the BG starting character is as strong as a paladin. But as soon as there is +dam on the lighter weapon, it will start going ahead. Even a ring of reckless attacks will nearly double that pally's damage.

I think this does a great job of clarifying the difficulties I'm having with Blackguard's early game. Because the game is balanced around multiple blows, the Blackguard gains offensive capabilities much more slowly than the paladin or warrior, and while the spells are fun and interesting, they don't quite make up the difference. This means combat takes longer, which means there are more opportunities for things to go wrong, and I burn through more consumables. I almost never get gorged on CLW, but I find that happening all the time with my Blackguard, to the point that I will rest in town until I'm down to 60% satiation, and take a few rations with me when I go down.

I fear orc uniques while playing a Blackguard in a way I don't really with the Paladin or Warrior.

I want to emphasize that I love the idea of the Blackguard, and I appreciate all the work
that's being put into this class. We're just going against the grain of the game here, and I'm not sure we've quite gotten there yet.

Or I'm playing the Blackguard wrong. I'll have to try with a ring of open wounds as a source of renewable healing, and see if that makes a difference.

Also, does the incompatibility with the alternate damage style affect just the blows accompanied by spells like Leap Into Battle and Whirlwind, or does it also affect the extra blows you get from Werewolf? Because if it's just the former, I might try it anyway. Except for a brief period in the early game, I never use those spells for the damage (in fact, I rarely use Whirlwind at all).

Playing a Dunedain BG and up to lvl 37 using OA damage. Early game was delicate but then had to really slog through for equipment. The RNG gave me 3 low dam. Gondolins and two branded weapons for the longest time. A major saving grace was tactical use of the Leap Into Battle exploit.

Once I finally found a decent artifact weapon I started dropping like a stone and its become a hoot. What I've really appreciated is that heavy weapons I never touched before due to low attack numbers suddenly have competitive damage. Kind of gratifying when a Thanc dagger gets tossed in favour of a Trident of Venom.