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Cataphract

2010-01-22, 06:42 AM

Conclusion:
First of all, I want to thank you all for the different points of view provided, as well as various ideas that you directly gave me. I think this thread has served its purpose, and I found out what my original mistake was: When you want something done good, do it yourself.

Instead of cutting and pasting as I see fit, I'll start working on a different project. A ToB-inspired martial resource. This will probably see various alterations at different points, but I think it'll be for the better. I'll play around with the maneuvers, add some more, join some disciplines etc. etc.

When I have a decent, sizeable draft ready, I'll post again. In the meantime, I'll still be paying attention to this thread, so feel free to say anything you want, as long as it hasn't been said before.

If you still want to read my OP, feel free.

Hello there. This is my first post in the forum, though I've been an avid fan of OOTS for a long time, and have perused many a thread in these forums. Time to step out of the shadows with a debut!

Here's something I wrote a few days ago- several insights about Tome of Battle and how it can be used to make your campaign better as opposed to making it a woefully wonky wuxia world.
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Please keep this in mind before posting:

1) This is a pet project to make the three ToB classes strictly martial. Consider them variants. My variant crusader is a holy warrior who only needs his faith and not divine intervention like a paladin, my variant swordsage is a swordsman (or whatever weapon he's wielding) and not some monk with a sword, and my warblade, is well, pretty much the same thing because it was nearly fine in the first place. This is NOT to rebalance the classes or merely reflavor them, and it's not even suggested. That's what I'm aiming for, no magic at all. Live with it.

2) The rules, in my eyes, exist to support the fluff. If the rules contradict the fluff, the rules get changed or ignored. I don't care what's been published, I don't care if so-and-so book says it's this and that, if I think it's stupid (and about 80% of published D&D is), it's not going to exist. I cut and paste as I see fit. This extends to my grasp of the rules- no I don't know them half as well as most of you do, there's no doubt to that. But it's not relevant, because this is only partially a discussion concerning the rules of ToB.

2a) The only rule portion that I think is viable under critique is the Endurance/Stamina system instead of maneuvers readied and expended. I'm welcome to any suggestion to it, why it works, why it doesn't, and even why it makes any, little, or no sense at all, fluff-wise.

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Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords is a supplement that has generated much controversy among the gaming populace. The first and foremost is game balance: Tome of Battle fighting classes are much superior to standard fighting classes, thus disrupting game balance. That is partially true- even though they are indeed superior to fighting classes, spellcasters still dominate the game, as levels progress. Tome of Battle tried to bridge that gap, and it was a respectable try, but still.

Another argument against it, however, was that it was too anime-esque and had too much wuxia in it. That, would be partially true once more. While some of its maneuvers are indeed not only supernatural but obviously inspired by anime, others are actually quite realistic (well, as realistic as D&D can be, anyway), and would complement a fighter's ability quite nicely. Most, of course, fall somewhere in between, depending on a group's tastes.

Another small issue that has been raised (or, at least, that I perceive as such), is the retarded issue of "prepared maneuvers" and "expended maneuvers" and "recovering them". That, my friends, is outright silly. If you know something, you can perform it. The whole recovery issue is truly annoying (especially in the case of the crusader, and swordsages without the Adaptive Style feat), and it simply does not make sense- if you know a maneuver, you can perform it whenever you bloody like.

These are the main gripes people have with ToB, and I intend to rectify the problem.

We'll address the third issue first, since it is the simplest. There are no "maneuvers readied" and "expended" and what not. You can perform any maneuver you know, whenever you know, as many times as you want (as long as you have the actions available, of course- no maneuver is a free action, after all). This includes maneuvers gained from feats- making them usable only once per encounter is even stupider, after all. That solves the problem third issue, and the first issue partially. However, it has a particular drawback- people will simply keep on using the same high-level maneuvers all the time. Here's what I propose: If you belong to a maneuver-using class, your maneuvers readied (in the case of crusaders, use the number in parentheses always) is your "Endurance". If you have none, then your base Endurance is 0. To that number, add your Constitution modifier. Now, the modified total is your endurance. Every time you use a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level maneuver, reduce it by one point; every time you use a 4th, 5th or 6th level maneuver, reduce it by two; and every time you use a 7th, 8th or 9th level maneuver reduce it by three. If you spend a full round action doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (no swift or immediate actions too), you catch your breath and can regain an endurance point automatically. There will be a feat available (See appendix) that improves that resting capacity.

Then we'll almost fully solve the first problem. Since now you can use all the maneuvers you want as long as you know them, all you need to do is get the Martial Study feat and have the necessary Initiator Level. This is where crusaders, swordsages and warblades have the advantage- they don't need feats. However, you need to get rid of the silly "only three times" for maneuvers through the feat. You can get the feat as many times as you want, and thus get any maneuver you want, as long as you meet the prerequisites. Thus, a fighter could spend all of his fighter bonus feats to get maneuvers- at 20th level he'd have 11 maneuvers, almost as much as a 20th level warblade or crusader. Of course, an outright warblade would still be better (higher HP, more maneuvers+stances, higher initiator level...). But he wouldn't have the versatility of a fighter, would he? He has access to higher level maneuvers, too, but that is fully solved by solving the second issue.

Another way to make Crusaders, Swordsages and Warblades less supernatural is to remove such abilities as they present themselves. They already gained a boost by performing their maneuvers more often, so let's nerf them! Crusaders: No change- while some of their abilities might appear supernatural or divine, they can easily be powered through sheer faith along. Faith can do a lot, after all. Swordsages: Bingo. The only thing to remove here is Sense Magic- that ability is not only extremely powerful, but also way out of context. Warblades: Nothing supernatural here as well. See? It wasn't that hard.

I have found it highly useful to separate maneuvers in the following three categories: Normal, which make almost-perfect sense as martial maneuvers, Outlandish, which stretch the limits of reality and have a slight wuxia feeling, and Anime, which directly bend the laws of physics. To remedy the situation, I suggest allowing all Normal maneuvers and not allowing any kind of Anime maneuver, unless you want the feeling (if you did, you wouldn't be reading all of this, would you?). For Outlandish maneuvers, I suggest allowing them on a case-by-case basis, since it's a particularly broad category. Even if you did allow all of them, though, there wouldn't be much of an issue. Warning, these categories don't measure power- some Normal abilities might be quite powerful (like Iron Heart's Strike of Perfect Clarity) while others in the Anime category might be trivial (like Desert Wind's Burning Blade). Also, even though all supernatural abilities are in the Anime category, the reverse is not true- plenty of non-supernatural abilities qualify for "Anime".

A problem that might arise from disallowing Anime abilities altogether (and it will get even worse if you disallow a lot of Outlandish too) is that sometimes, even if several lower level maneuvers from the same discipline are chosen, they still can't qualify for higher level ones. In that case, if the character has ALL of the lower level maneuvers and stances, he can get it (e.g. if it needs 3 maneuvers and all that is allowed are 2 before it, you can still get it). This won't probably be a common problem, but it might appear, especially in the more exotic disciplines like Desert Wind or Shadow Hand.

Normal Maneuvers
Desert Wind:
2: Flashing Sun
3: Zephyr Dance
6: Desert Tempest

Devoted Spirit
1: Iron Guard's Glare
1: Vanguard's Strike
2: Shield Block
3: Defensive Rebuke
3: Thicket of Blades
7: Shield Counter

Diamond Mind
1: Moment of Perfect Mind
1: Sapphire Nightmare Blade
1: Stance of Clarity
3: Pearl of Black Doubt
4: Bounding Assault
5: Disrupting Blow
5: Rapid Counter
6: Moment of Alacrity
7: Avalanche of Blades
7: Quicksilver Motion
8: Stance of Alacrity

Iron Heart
1: Punishing Stance
1: Steel Wind
1: Steely Strike
2: Disarming Strike
2: Wall of Blades
3: Absolute Steel
3: Exorcism of Steel
4: Lightning Recovery
4: Mithral Tornado
4: Scything Blade
5: Dancing Blade Form
5: Dazing Strike
7: Finishing Move
8: Adamantine Hurricane
8: Supreme Blade Parry
9: Strike of Perfect Clarity

Setting Sun:
1: Counter Charge
1: Mighty Throw
1: Step of the Wind
2: Clever Positioning
3: Feigned Opening
3: Giant Killing Style
4: Strike of the Broken Shield
5: Mirrored Pursuit
5: Shifting Defense
5: Stalking Shadow
7: Hydra Slaying Strike

Shadow Hand
1: Island of Blades
6: Stalker in the Night
7: Death in the Dark

Stone Dragon (Ignore "must step on ground" restriction)
1: Charging Minotaur
1: Stonefoot Stance
2: Mountain Hammer
2: Stone Vise
4: Boulder Roll
4: Overwhelming Mountain Strike
5: Elder Mountain Hammer
6: Crushing Vise
6: Irresistible Mountain Strike

Tiger Claw
1: Blood in the Water
1: Sudden Leap
1: Wolf Fang Strike
2: Rabid Wolf Strike
3: Flesh Ripper
3: Wolverine Stance
4: Fountain of Blood
5: Dancing Mongoose
5: Pouncing Charge
6: Rabid Bear Strike
6: Wolf Climbs the Mountain
7: Hamstring Attack
7: Prey on the Weak
8: Raging Mongoose
8: Wolf Pack Tactics

White Raven
1: Bolstering Voice
1: Douse the Flames
1: Leading the Attack
1: Leading the Charge
2: Battle Leader's Charge
2: Tactical Strike
3: Tactics of the Wolf
3: Lion's Roar
4: Covering Strike
4: White Raven Strike
5: Flanking Maneuver
5: Press the Advantage
6: Order from Chaos
8: Swarm Tactics
8: White Raven Hammer

Outlandish Maneuvers
Desert Wind:
1: Wind Stride

Devoted Spirit
2: Foehammer
4: Entangling Blade
5: Daunting Strike
8: Immortal Fortitude

Diamond Mind
2: Action Before Thought
2: Emerald Razor
3: Mind Over Body
4: Ruby Nightmare Blade
8: Diamond Defense
8: Diamond Nightmare Blade
9: Time Stands Still

Iron Heart
3: Iron Heart Surge
5: Iron Heart Focus
6: Iron Heart Endurance
6: Manticore Parry

Setting Sun:
2: Baffling Defense
3: Devastating Throw
6: Scorpion Parry
8: Fool's Strike

Shadow Hand
2: Drain Vitality
3: Assassin's Stance
5: Bloodletting Strike

Stone Dragon (Ignore "must step on ground" restriction)
3: Bonecrusher
3: Crushing Weight of the Mountain
3: Roots of the Mountain
3: Stone Dragon's Fury
4: Bonesplitting Strike
5: Giant's Stance
5: Mountain Avalanche
7: Ancient Mountain Hammer
7: Colossus Strike
9: Mountain Tombstone Strike

Tiger Claw:
2: Claw at the Moon
3: Leaping Dragon Stance
3: Soaring Raptor Strike
4: Death from Above
7: Swooping Dragon Strike
8: Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip
9: Feral Death Blow

White Raven
3: White Raven Tactics
6: War Leader's Charge
7: Clarion Call
7: Swarming Assault
9: War Master's Charge

Anime Maneuvers
Desert Wind:
1: Blistering Flourish
1: Burning Blade
1: Distracting Ember
1: Flame's Blessing
2: Burning Brand
2: Fire Riposte
2: Hatchling's Flame
3: Death Mark
3: Fan the Flames
3: Holocaust Cloak
4: Fire Snake
4: Searing Blade
4: Searing Charge
5: Dragon's Flame
5: Leaping Flame
5: Lingering Inferno
6: Fiery Assault
6: Ring of Fire
7: Inferno Blade
7: Salamander Charge
8: Rising Phoenix
8: Wyrm's Flame
9: Inferno Blast

Devoted Spirit:
1: Crusader's Strike
1: Martial Spirit
3: Revitalizing Strike
4: Divine Surge
5: Doom Charge
5: Law Bearer
5: Radiant Charge
5: Tide of Chaos
6: Aura of Chaos
6: Aura of Law
6: Aura of Triumph
6: Aura of Tyranny
6: Rallying Strike
7: Castigating Strike
8: Divine Surge, Greater
9: Strike of Righteous Vitality

Diamond Mind
3: Insightful Strike
4: Mind Strike
5: Hearing the Air
6: Insightful Strike, Greater

Iron Heart
8: Lightning Throw

Setting Sun:
4: Comet Throw
5: Soaring Throw
6: Ballista Throw
8: Ghostly Defense
9: Tornado Throw

Shadow Hand
1: Child of Shadow
1: Clinging Shadow Strike
1: Shadow Blade Technique
2: Cloak of Deception
2: Shadow Jaunt
3: Dance of the Spider
3: Shadow Garrote
3: Strength Draining Strike
4: Hand of Death
4: Obscuring Shadow Blade
5: Shadow Stride
5: Step of the Dancing Moth
6: Ghost Blade
6: Shadow Noose
7: Shadow Blink
8: Balance on the Sky
8: Enervating Shadow Strike
8: One with Shadow
9: Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike

Stone Dragon (Ignore *everything* in this list)
1: Stone Bones
6: Iron Bones
8: Adamantine Bones
8: Earthstrike Quake
8: Strength of Stone

Tiger Claw:
1: Hunter's Sense

White Raven
This discipline is SO awesome that nothing is actually anime. It gets the prize!

Appendix
Old feat revisited: You can take Martial Study as many times as you like.

New Feat: Extra Endurance
Prerequisites: Con 13
Benefit: You may add your Constitution modifier twice when counting Endurance.
Special: You can take this feat as many times as you want. Its effects stack. However, the second time, you add half your CON modifier, round down, minimum one, and every time after that you take it, you add only one to your endurance.

New Feat: Quick Recovery
Prerequisites: Con 15
Benefit: Each time you rest (spend a full-round action doing nothing), you regain half your CON modifier, round up, in Endurance. You may spend a standard action to gain 1 point of endurance, if you have a CON of at least 14.
Normal: You regain only one point of endurance per full round action.

Apalala

2010-01-22, 08:29 AM

Djinn_in_Tonic

2010-01-22, 10:19 AM

Another argument against it, however, was that it was too anime-esque and had too much wuxia in it. That, would be partially true once more. While some of its maneuvers are indeed not only supernatural but obviously inspired by anime, others are actually quite realistic (well, as realistic as D&D can be, anyway), and would complement a fighter's ability quite nicely. Most, of course, fall somewhere in between, depending on a group's tastes.

Have you seen the Tome of Battle Reflavoring Project? It offers several nicely fluffed versions of every power, making even things such as Inferno Blast seem fitting to a certain type of character. There's no such thing as "to anime." Instead, there is "it doesn't fit with MY SPECIFIC CONCEPT." My Holy Warrior of Pelor (who's actually a Swordsage) is perfectly justified calling down the Fist of the Sun God in the form of an Inferno Blast.

That, my friends, is outright silly. If you know something, you can perform it. The whole recovery issue is truly annoying (especially in the case of the crusader, and swordsages without the Adaptive Style feat), and it simply does not make sense- if you know a maneuver, you can perform it whenever you bloody like.

Nope. I'm a competitive fencer (and at the national level to boot), and I can't pull the same move whenever I like. Or, rather, I can, but it won't work. Some just require a lot of preparation, some require a lot of energy, and still others require my opponent to respond in a certain way. So what you're saying just doesn't apply in a real fight. As a full system would be impossible to make, D&D has simplified it: I have to take some time to catch my breath, plan my next attack, or prepare for a certain move. However you fluff it, I'm taking that action to refresh my maneuvers. Maybe I'm standing and focusing, and maybe I'm just darting a few attacks towards my opponent with the intent to miss, but also to judge their guard.

I'll sort of agree with how you give powers to non-Adepts, but your reasoning is wrong there as well. A Fighter who has devoted all his feats to the study is, in all ways, WORSE than a Warblade...that versatility you claimed has been eaten up by trying to emulate the Warblade. The fighter now has sub-par maneuvers and no other features.

You also don't account for the fact that, if I can regain Endurance, there's nothing stopping me from spamming 4-9 9th level maneuvers per encounter...and, with that sort of power from 1-2 party members and spells following it up (or Mountain Tombstone Strike eating away my foes Constitution at an incredible rate), I'll never actually exhaust my Endurance before a fight ends.

Conclusion? Nice attempt, but it falls far short of what you were intending to accomplish, IMHO.

JoshuaZ

2010-01-22, 12:01 PM

Another way to make Crusaders, Swordsages and Warblades less supernatural is to remove such abilities as they present themselves. They already gained a boost by performing their maneuvers more often, so let's nerf them! Crusaders: No change- while some of their abilities might appear supernatural or divine, they can easily be powered through sheer faith along. Faith can do a lot, after all. Swordsages: Bingo. The only thing to remove here is Sense Magic- that ability is not only extremely powerful, but also way out of context. Warblades: Nothing supernatural here as well. See? It wasn't that hard.

Powering things on faith isn't supernatural in nature? Am I missing something?

This seems to be part of the general feeling that melee combat people can't have nice things. I don't fully understand why warriors can't have access to supernatural or nearly supernatural abilities in worlds with dragons and wizards and people regularly being resurrected from the dead like it is an everyday occurence.

The anime claim also simply doesn't hold much water. People who make the claim seem to have simply not read classical Western texts much. I invite people to read the Iliad, Beowulf and the various Arthurian epics. If people want to label those stories "too anime" then good luck for them.

There's also a slight inconsistency in that fighters being able to jump large distances in full armor is ok, but heaven-forfend that a warrior do something unrealistic that actually alters combat.

And for all three major ToB classes you can easily make a character with minimal or no supernatural abilities by choosing appropriate disciplines.

And although I don't have as much direct combat experience as many others on this forum, I wrestled in highschool and did quite well (ok, a very small weight-class but that's besides the point). You can't simply repeat the exact same action repeatedly. You might not be in the exact right position, or the relevant muscles might be too tired to do it effectively, or your opponent might be ready for that move since you've just done it before (and certainly if you've tried something repeatedly). In that regard, the recovery system is surprisingly realistic. Sure, it isn't perfect. But making the system much more complicated would be mechanically unpleasant. But letting you spam the exact same maneuvers repeatedly would be less realistic rather than more so.

Edit: And ninjaed partially by Djin in regards to the last paragraph. And he says it better than I.

industrious

2010-01-22, 12:10 PM

Nope. I'm a competitive fencer (and at the national level to boot), and I can't pull the same move whenever I like. Or, rather, I can, but it won't work. Some just require a lot of preparation, some require a lot of energy, and still others require my opponent to respond in a certain way. So what you're saying just doesn't apply in a real fight. As a full system would be impossible to make, D&D has simplified it: I have to take some time to catch my breath, plan my next attack, or prepare for a certain move. However you fluff it, I'm taking that action to refresh my maneuvers. Maybe I'm standing and focusing, and maybe I'm just darting a few attacks towards my opponent with the intent to miss, but also to judge their guard.

Nice. What weapon?

Jane_Smith

2010-01-22, 12:30 PM

Serenity

2010-01-22, 12:46 PM

Except that those disciplines? Are exclusive to the Swordsage. Who is effectively a better designed Monk. His fluff is that he is a warrior-scholar who studies ancient secrets and mystical martial arts. SO he actually has every reason to have access to such effects. Unless you're prepared to argue that the Monks houldn't have that Dimension Door ability, that a Ninja shouldn't be able to turn ethereal, or that Duskblades shouldn't exist.

Latronis

2010-01-22, 12:47 PM

JoshuaZ

2010-01-22, 12:48 PM

Roderick_BR

2010-01-22, 12:48 PM

Funny, I was doing the same thing here, making the maneuvers less "vancian", and more reliable. I was even doing a point system, for now called "stamina points", that can be used to power some special effects (like action points), and to power maneuvers.
The idea is that as the battle goes, the combatans tire out (lose 1 stamina points/turn), and will eventually end up exhausted (after reaching stamina 0 and fighting for another turn). They can, however, spent their SPs as an extra phisical effort to make some actions (like getting a temp bonus to attack or dodge), or activate maneuvers, that are powerful but tiring moves.

The problem with the spending all your points int high level maneuvers is easily fixable by adding bigger costs. Using Sudden Leap to move quickly through the battle field in short jumps is easy (1 SP), running up to an enemy and attacking with two weapons with a good accuracy with Raging Mongoose (don't remember the level...) is harder, and uses up more SPs. Making a mighty and powerful blow that pretty much breaks the enemy inside with Mountain Tombstone Strike, will take up almost all your strenth(9), demanding you to pull back and get a breather.

I agree that most of the EX stuff is a bit too much. I feel really hawt, so I move my hand and a miniature fire elementar pops up out of nowhere. Wait, what?
Swordsage can get away by being an "animeish" monk, and the crusader has this divine inspiration going, but anyone can learn these maneuvers.

Vadin

2010-01-22, 12:48 PM

@Jane_Smith: Get it straight - fantasy nor not, wizards and magical types like that? ARE NOT LOGICAL! Say it with me now - ARE NOT LOGICAL! Stop trying to -be- logical unless you multiclass into fighter or something else that is required to be boring. and have a better reason for Ed the Wimpy Wizard to suddenly BUST OUT FIREBALLS then its because he thought EXTRA hard!
:smalltongue:
In all seriousness, though- in a world where things are pretty darn magical all the time, justify why martial characters aren't allowed to be competitive. Why do people raise issue when martial characters cause some pseudomagical effects with intense effort and focus and maybe a little bit of magic on their part? Especially considering that no one says "THATS NOT REALISTIC I WONT LET YOU DO THAT" for the wizard, who only has to read a book and think hard enough at someone to catch them on fire. In short, justify calling shenanigans on people who fight and use some magical effects while having nothing wrong with characters who do a lot more with even less justification than "I used intense focus and training to create some magical effects and now I have to get intense and focus before I can do it again."

Cataphract

2010-01-22, 12:48 PM

Forbidding maneuvers for being "anime" is something I've always found silly.

If you tried to convert just about any outlandish anime character, he'd be a wizard. The whole magic /= anime argument is rubbish.

It's a matter of taste, frankly, and one of the main concerns expressed about the supplement.

The thing is, in most western fantasy tales, no matter how good a fighter is, his martial abilities are never magical in nature. It's pure skill and ability. On the other hand, eastern fantasy, usually represented by anime, has fighting skills which have actual magical or near magical (like a 50 kg girl throwing a 150 kg wrestler around) nature and effects. Hence the dichotomy, and some people (including me) don't like it. ToB clearly reflects such a mentality in many, but not all, of its maneuvers.

Have you seen the Tome of Battle Reflavoring Project? It offers several nicely fluffed versions of every power, making even things such as Inferno Blast seem fitting to a certain type of character. There's no such thing as "to anime." Instead, there is "it doesn't fit with MY SPECIFIC CONCEPT." My Holy Warrior of Pelor (who's actually a Swordsage) is perfectly justified calling down the Fist of the Sun God in the form of an Inferno Blast.

I disagree. It IS too anime, as I've explained below- the difference is how much people accept it. Whether or not you rename it and change the fluff, it still does not change that simple fact- you have a martial ability creating a magical effect. Obviously some people don't bother with that- I, and others, do. If not, power to you!

Nope. I'm a competitive fencer (and at the national level to boot), and I can't pull the same move whenever I like. Or, rather, I can, but it won't work. Some just require a lot of preparation, some require a lot of energy, and still others require my opponent to respond in a certain way. So what you're saying just doesn't apply in a real fight. As a full system would be impossible to make, D&D has simplified it: I have to take some time to catch my breath, plan my next attack, or prepare for a certain move. However you fluff it, I'm taking that action to refresh my maneuvers. Maybe I'm standing and focusing, and maybe I'm just darting a few attacks towards my opponent with the intent to miss, but also to judge their guard.

I disagree here as well, at least partially. Of course your moves won't be the same- it's all about openings, and body position, etc etc. However, if I wanted a perfectly realistic system, I'd go and play The Riddle of Steel (which I do, but that's beyond the point). What I want to do is spice up ol' D&D without resorting to the ever present explanation- magic. I hate how EVERYTHING is about magic. Want to explain something that doesn't make sense? One word, five letters. It's lost its novelty a long time ago.
Catching your breath is the point- that's why I have endurance. Even though a warblade's refreshing method makes some sense (keeping your enemy away to assume the position you want), a swordsage's method (6-second meditation...?) is totally off. A crusader's is strange, but it makes the most sense- yet still it's not something purely martial but divine in nature, and I want to remove such things to keep it strictly martial.

What would make sense would be to set up for a maneuver- spending the 'refreshing' action BEFORE. Balance wise, it MIGHT make sense, but I like paying attention to fluff, because that's what the whole RP is about. It'd be like creating the opportunity for your awesome attack to happen, OR right after you've finished it you can't do it again without spending an action to return to the necessary stance and recreate the necessary conditions. Thing is, that's too restrictive, so I came to the endurance concept- you can perform maneuvers, but you start to get tired and you need to catch your breath.

I'll sort of agree with how you give powers to non-Adepts, but your reasoning is wrong there as well. A Fighter who has devoted all his feats to the study is, in all ways, WORSE than a Warblade...that versatility you claimed has been eaten up by trying to emulate the Warblade. The fighter now has sub-par maneuvers and no other features.

Of course, no doubt to that. I've come to the conclusion that as a fighter is a better version of warrior, thus warblade is a better version of fighter. Warriors are people who simply learned how to fight- fighters are those rank-and-file people who know a few tricks and have little training but lots of practical knowledge, and warblades are highly trained people that have received training by masters in fencing academies.

You also don't account for the fact that, if I can regain Endurance, there's nothing stopping me from spamming 4-9 9th level maneuvers per encounter...and, with that sort of power from 1-2 party members and spells following it up (or Mountain Tombstone Strike eating away my foes Constitution at an incredible rate), I'll never actually exhaust my Endurance before a fight ends.

What's to stop you from spamming said maneuvers per encounter? The meager fact you'll be throwing them once every other round? Besides, by the time you get 9th maneuvers, things have gone out of hand anyway (9th level spells, anyone?).

Considering numbers, let's assume a 20th level warblade in both systems. In the "refresh" system, he can simply throw the same 9th level maneuver every other round. In the other system, assuming he has a con of 18, his endurance is 8+4=12. Every 9th level maneuver eats up 3 endurance, so he can throw out four before running out. Then, even if he has the appropriate feat, he needs to spend a full round action to regain 4 endurance, so it's pretty much every other round as well.

Hmm, that's still a bit too much if you ask me. Having each maneuver cost Endurance equal to the level is simply too much, though, because the "recharge" rate is far slower even with the feat. Another idea would be to have a cost equal to half the maneuver's level, rounded up. So, level 1 and 2 costs 1 point, levels 3 and 4 two points, levels 5 and 6 three points, level 7 and 8 four points, and level 9's five points. That actually sounds a lot better.

Conclusion? Nice attempt, but it falls far short of what you were intending to accomplish, IMHO.

Well, it depends on what I was trying to accomplish, to be frank. I'm not trying to make it better for everyone- that's plain impossible. I'm simply adapting it to fit my needs, and the needs of every other person with similar preferences. That, of course, does not mean it doesn't need work, hence why I put it up for criticism :smallbiggrin:

P.S. And I actually came to a very interesting conclusion because of your remarks. Thanks! :smallwink:

JoshuaZ

2010-01-22, 12:52 PM

@Jane_Smith: Get it straight - fantasy nor not, wizards and arcane types like that? ARE NOT LOGICAL! Say it with me now - ARE NOT LOGICAL! Stop trying to -be- logical unless you multiclass into fighter. and have a better reason for Ed the Wimpy Wizard to suddenly BUST OUT FIREBALLS then its because he thought EXTRA hard!

In a world where things are pretty darn magical all the time, justify why martial characters aren't allowed to be competitive. Why do people raise issue when martial characters cause some pseudomagical effects with intense effort and focus and maybe a little bit of magic on their part? Especially considering that no one says "THATS NOT REALISTIC I WONT LET YOU DO THAT" for the wizard, who only has to read a book and think hard enough at someone to catch them on fire. In short, justify calling shenanigans on people who fight and use some magical effects while having nothing wrong with characters who do a lot more with even less justification than "I used intense focus and training to create some magical effects and now I have to get intense and focus before I can do it again."

Well in fairness, some people would prefer that their melee types are badass normal rather than have magical abilities. They want someone like John McClane or James Bond. What they expect from them can be pretty awesome, but they don't want it to use anything where you can point to it explicitly and say "that breaks the laws of physics." The issue is at some level what one considers to be normal. Since wizards explicitly use magic people see that as more ok. Frankly, one of the reasons I like some of the alternate magic systems (especially the binder) is that there's something resembling an explanation for the magic rather than just "I prepared this and now wave my hands to make a fireball."

Vadin

2010-01-22, 12:56 PM

Golden-Esque

2010-01-22, 12:58 PM

Meh, I dislike the animish effects of some of the maneuvers. Mainly shadow hand stuff and the fire-based stuff. I can understand draining an enemys ability scores, negative levels, etc by piercing -just- the right spot of them like a specialized sneak attack, etc? But.... air-walking? For multiple rounds? No. What the hell is this, some kinda jackie chan on steroids crap? Or I dunno, a 100 foot area of effect or so ZOMGHYDUKON style fire blast?

Get it straight - fantasy nor not, fighters and martial types like that? ARE NOT CASTERS! Say it with me now - ARE NOT CASTERS! Stop trying to -be- casters unless you multiclass. and have a better reason for Ed the Iliterate Barbarian to suddenly BUST OUT FIREBALLS then its because he swung EXTRA hard!

Considering that a highly-trained Olympic Athlete is 5th or 6th level when translated to a DnD game, Step of the Dancing Moth (which you can get as early as 15th level) doesn't seem that outlandish when it represents a level of power non-existent in the real world. Who knows what people could do with that much prestige and potential.

And also, in a world with magic, why can't Martial Types have access to supernatural abilities? Maybe in your specifically tailored campaign setting or mind set they can't, and that's perfectly fine. No one's forcing you to add the Tome of Battle to your campaigns. However, many of us see no reason why a character with a lot of training in a world where magic is real can't do things we consider outlandish by our standards? Wizards are turning people into tea cups, and you don't think that maybe everyone has a bit of magical potential that can translate itself in different ways? Just some food for thought :smallcool:.

lesser_minion

2010-01-22, 12:59 PM

Meh, I dislike the animish effects of some of the maneuvers. Mainly shadow hand stuff and the fire-based stuff. I can understand draining an enemys ability scores, negative levels, etc by piercing -just- the right spot of them like a specialized sneak attack, etc? But.... air-walking? For multiple rounds? No. What the hell is this, some kinda jackie chan on steroids crap? Or I dunno, a 100 foot area of effect or so ZOMGHYDUKON style fire blast?

Get it straight - fantasy nor not, fighters and martial types like that? ARE NOT CASTERS! Say it with me now - ARE NOT CASTERS! Stop trying to -be- casters unless you multiclass. and have a better reason for Ed the Iliterate Barbarian to suddenly BUST OUT FIREBALLS then its because he swung EXTRA hard!

If you want to use an overtly magical maneuver, you can. If you don't, you can't (because you don't pick the overtly magical options).

I fail to see how that is an issue. Worse, they are either magical or they suck. First law of things actually making sense is mundanes can't have nice things, not "fighters can't have nice things". Find another way for them not to be mundanes and we'll talk.

The game balance issue is only an issue if you make it into one. ToB provides a completely different system for martial characters to use. Either use it, or use the traditional system. The book has material for you either way, but quantum superpositions of different systems aren't (required to be) playable.

As for the fluff issue, that's not really a problem either. Not all of the maneuvers are overtly supernatural, and the ones that aren't can be described however you want (they don't have to be wuxia). The remaining ones don't have to be in use if you don't like them. Problem solved.

Tavar

2010-01-22, 01:02 PM

Well in fairness, some people would prefer that their melee types are badass normal rather than have magical abilities. They want someone like John McClane or James Bond. What they expect from them can be pretty awesome, but they don't want it to use anything where you can point to it explicitly and say "that breaks the laws of physics." The issue is at some level what one considers to be normal. Since wizards explicitly use magic people see that as more ok. Frankly, one of the reasons I like some of the alternate magic systems (especially the binder) is that there's something resembling an explanation for the magic rather than just "I prepared this and now wave my hands to make a fireball."

Well, then here's a simple solution; DON'T LOOK AT THE DAMN MAGICAL DISCIPLINES THEN!

Seriously, unless you complain that the monk/ninja/duskblade/spellthief is too magical, then you have no legs to stand on. Yes, the disiplines that specifically are supposed to mirror the mystical wise man who can do magical things are magical. Just like the discipline that mirrors the Holy Warrior powers of the Paladin gives, well, holy powers(devoted spirit, even though they seemed to have forgotten to label them). If you want someone who does normal things, just really well, look at the other disciplines. And if you start complaining about the capstone/really, really high level abilities, think about how people have stopped being limited by real world physics since about 6th level. Yes, they should be doing exceptional things, or they should be dead.

Latronis

2010-01-22, 01:10 PM

Don't look at half the material (a third whatever) you paid for! Don't complain about everyone getting magic because the game has higher levels than 5!

how is that remotely helpful?

Djinn_in_Tonic

2010-01-22, 01:16 PM

...yet still it's not something purely martial but divine in nature, and I want to remove such things to keep it strictly martial.

Ah. Seeing this at the beginning would make more sense. The Tome, as presented, was never intended to be strictly martial. The Warblade, the most martial of them, only has a few maneuvers that even come close to the line. The others are specifically pseudo-magical, in the same way the Monk and Paladin are psuedo-magical. Thus, if you're aiming for only martial skill, I can see the problem.

However, I still consider the Ninja/Paladin/Monk to be martial classes, despite their innate magical abilities. This is probably why we disagree: I see something like Inferno blast, and it fits as divine/ki "power" to me.

If you're going for pure martial, your view makes more sense. Perhaps edit that wish into the OP?

Tavar

2010-01-22, 01:20 PM

Well, you're complaining that some of the classes get magical abilities. Unless I'm mistaken, so do the Monk and the Paladin. I fail to see why classes based on those same archetypes shouldn't get magical abilities, and yet complaints always revolve around the fact that they get magic. So do the classes that they're based on! And people don't complain that their Paladins or Monks get those special abilities. So why are classes that are based on those same archetypes blasted for having them? Isn't that hypocritical?

As for the level thing, again, that's been there from the Players Handbook, so, once again, why are you complaining that this book is introducing it? It's been there since the beginning!

Also, not all of them are magical, just really, really exceptional. The Iron Heart discipline basically boils down to "I hit things REALLY Hard", the Diamond Mind to "I'm REALLY perceptive and fast", and the Tiger Claw "I'm a REAL Beast". They really aren't magical in the slightest (beyond the normal for DnD, ie Mr fighter who falls from low orbit and walks away unharmed), and you know what? Those are the three big disciplines for the Warblade. You know, the only guy in the book whose archetype doesn't include magical powers. Huh, imagine that.

lesser_minion

2010-01-22, 01:25 PM

Don't look at half the material (a third whatever) you paid for! Don't complain about everyone getting magic because the game has higher levels than 5!

how is that remotely helpful?

The material that we're suggesting he ignore happens to be available free on the WotC website, so it's not like money was paid specifically for it.

The bottom line, however, is that the problem this is intended to fix is currently experiencing a variety of minor existence failures which may continue indefinitely.

Fail

2010-01-22, 01:26 PM

Bear with me for a while, let's watch some anime.

---

Celtic anime.

"The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child... he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat... The hair of his head twisted like the tange of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage." He attacks the army and kills hundreds, building walls of corpses.

(...)

Before one combat a beautiful young woman comes to him, claiming to be the daughter of a king, and offers him her love, but he refuses her. The woman reveals herself as the Morrígan, and in revenge for this slight she attacks him in various animal forms while he is engaged in combat against Lóch mac Mofemis. As an eel, she trips him in the ford, but he breaks her ribs. As a wolf, she stampedes cattle across the ford, but he puts out her eye with a sling-stone. Finally she appears as a heifer at the head of the stampede, but he breaks her leg with another slingstone. After Cú Chulainn finally defeats Lóch, the Morrígan appears to him as an old woman milking a cow, with the same injuries he had given her in her animal forms. She gives him three drinks of milk, and with each drink he blesses her, healing her wounds.

Membership was subject to rigorous tests. In one such test the applicant would stand in a waist-deep hole armed with a shield while nine warriors threw spears at him; if he was wounded, he failed. In another his hair would be braided, and he would be pursued through the forest; he would fail if he was caught, if a branch cracked under his feet, or if the braids in his hair were disturbed. He would have to be able to leap over a branch the height of his forehead, pass under one as low as his knee, and pull a thorn from his foot without slowing down. He also needed to be a skilled poet.

---

Germanic anime.

Sigurd agrees to kill Fafnir, who has turned himself into a dragon in order to be better able to guard the gold. Sigurd has Regin make him a sword, which he tests by striking the anvil. The sword shatters, so he has Regin make another. This also shatters. Finally, Sigurd has Regin make a sword out of the fragments that had been left to him by Sigmund. The resulting sword, Gram, cuts through the anvil. To kill Fafnir the dragon, Regin advises him to dig a pit, wait for Fafnir to walk over it, and then stab the dragon. Odin, posing as an old man, advises Sigurd to dig trenches also to drain the blood, and to bathe in it after killing the dragon; bathing in Fafnir's blood confers invulnerability. Sigurd does so and kills Fafnir; Sigurd then bathes in the dragon's blood, which touches all of his body except for one of his shoulders where a leaf was stuck. Regin then asked Sigurd to give him Fafnir's heart for himself. Sigurd drinks some of Fafnir's blood and gains the ability to understand the language of birds. Birds advise him to kill Regin, since Regin is plotting Sigurd's death. Sigurd beheads Regin, roasts Fafnir's heart and consumes part of it. This gives him the gift of "wisdom" (prophecy).

Beowulf's retainers draw their swords and rush to his aid, but their blades can not pierce Grendel's skin as he is immune to human weapons. Finally, Beowulf tears Grendel's arm from his body at the shoulder and Grendel runs to his home in the marshes to die.

(...)

At first, Grendel's mother appears to prevail. Beowulf, finding that Hrunting cannot harm his foe, discards it in fury. Beowulf is again saved from his opponent's attack by his armour and, grasping a mighty sword of the giants from Grendel's mother's armoury (which no other man could have hefted in battle), Beowulf beheads her.

---

Greek anime.

Most notably, Ajax is not wounded in any of the battles described in the Iliad, and he is the only principal character on either side who does not receive personal assistance from any of the gods who take part in the battles.

(...)

The second fight between Ajax and Hector occurs when the latter breaks into the Mycenaean camp, and fights with the Greeks among the ships. In Book 14, Ajax throws a giant rock at Hector which almost kills him. In Book 15, Hector is restored to his strength by Apollo and returns to attack the ships. Ajax, wielding an enormous spear as a weapon and leaping from ship to ship, holds off the Trojan armies virtually single-handedly.

---

Slavic anime.

According to legend, he was defeated by Ilya Muromets, who survived even though Razboynik levelled half of the surrounding forest. Nightingale the Robber was shot down with arrows to the eye and temple by Ilya Muromets, who then dragged the defeated monster to Vladimir, the prince of Kiev. Vladimir the Great wished to hear Nightingale the Robber whistle, but the creature claimed he was too wounded to whistle. Nightingale the Robber requested wine to drink so that his wounds would disappear, then he would whistle for the prince. When he whistled all of Vladimir's palaces were destroyed and many lay dead. After this, Ilya Muromets took Nightingale the Robber into an open field and cut off his head.

---

That's most of the European peoples (counting Greek and Latin cultures as one, which I know it's a small bit of a stretch). There's "anime" in every other continent as well, but I'm listing only Europe because the contention seemingly is that "that stuff only exists in Asia" and "D&D draws from Europe".

lesser_minion

2010-01-22, 01:32 PM

Also, re: the "Badass Normal". Play a warrior, expert, or aristocrat. 'Badass' is in how you play and what you do, not in what your character sheet says you can do.

Serenity

2010-01-22, 01:38 PM

Well in fairness, some people would prefer that their melee types are badass normal rather than have magical abilities. They want someone like John McClane or James Bond. What they expect from them can be pretty awesome, but they don't want it to use anything where you can point to it explicitly and say "that breaks the laws of physics." The issue is at some level what one considers to be normal. Since wizards explicitly use magic people see that as more ok. Frankly, one of the reasons I like some of the alternate magic systems (especially the binder) is that there's something resembling an explanation for the magic rather than just "I prepared this and now wave my hands to make a fireball."

And in equal fairness to the other side--you're able to do that a lot better with the Tome of Battle classes than the core Fighter, so long as you ignore Shadow Hand and Desert Wind disciplines--which, again, are exclusive to a class designed to allow the Mystical (and yes, perhaps Pseudo-Eastern) Warrior archetype--already a part of Core D&D in the form of Monks. And even the Swordsage can play as a Badass Normal if you have him focus on Setting Sun, Stone Dragon, Diamond Mind, and/or Tiger Claw.

Also, the '50 kg person throwing around a 150 kg wrestler' example--well, I won't argue the semantics of whether it's near-magic, but it's anything but unknown in Western Fantasy. Setting aside modern examples like River Tam and superhero stories (Karate Kid has no superpowers, but can put Superboy in a headlock), we can hearken back to Beowulf, who wrestled Grendel to death. Or heck, any Knight vs. Dragon story, where we have a guy with a sword doing any ort of noticeable damage to an armored lizard the size of a jumbo jet.

Terazul

2010-01-22, 01:38 PM

Anything but fail.

Yeah, this. This is why I don't understand everyone who sees shooting fire/lightning/whatever out of your sword, or leaping across a battlefield immediately as "anime-ish". Pretty sure this crazy stuff has been happening in literature long before the term was even coined.

The two overtly supernatural disciplines with actual (Su) maneuvers are available to the one guy who specifically is referred to as a "Blade Wizard". The rest of them? Kinda humdrum. Sure in Setting Sun you can run around throwing a guy alot. By the time you're doing this you have long surpassed mortal bounds of physical strength and speed. Diamond mind's insightful strike? It's just a really focused cut. You concentrate, relying on your ability to strike at an open weak point instead of relying on brute strength, then you hit something. Honestly most maneuvers boil down to "I try to smash a guys face this particular way." Even the Devoted Spirit healing maneuvers can be mundane in that HP can be a representation of fatigue/willpower/ability to continue fighting, rather than a static "this is how much you're bleeding". In which case his Crusader Strike is now "You hit this guy so hard, you inspire your ally to go on just a bit longer."

...Also, Hunter's Sense is too "anime-ish"? Really? Tap into your bestiality like a Barbarian does all bloody the time, and now you can Track. What's so bad about that? Same with Lightning Throw. Throwing your sword like a boomerang seems perfectly acceptable in a world where that guy in the frilly outfit over there can move a mountain by waggling his fingers.

Latronis

2010-01-22, 01:48 PM

Throwing your sword like a boomerang seems perfectly acceptable in a world where that guy in the frilly outfit over there can move a mountain by waggling his fingers.

TC: I want to move away from the overtly magical aspects of the tome of battle

Reply: Spellcasters exist so I think It's ok. Deal.

crazedloon

2010-01-22, 01:53 PM

Also the more animeish maneuvers are only available to swordsages or those who use feats to gain them. The idea behind the swordsage is that they have unlocked secret methods of the universe to perform those feats and they don't try and hide it as melee only. There are plenty of legends of sages of many different cultures performing interesting feats similar to these maneuvers. Also these abilities tend to be limited in fashion furthering the idea that they are unlocking/abusing certain aspects of nature and without the right circumstances they can not do it.

Terazul

2010-01-22, 02:02 PM

TC: I want to move away from the overtly magical aspects of the tome of battle

Reply: Spellcasters exist so I think It's ok. Deal.
Not exactly. Probably my fault for bringing spellcasters into this. Let's just pretend I never said anything.

I was more going "really, is it that bad?", given I don't think that it's overtly magical to begin with. Why does anything fancy always have to be "overtly magical"? Why can the martial character not just be "that good"? It's a common issue that comes up all the time. "No you can't throw that thing. That'd be ridiculous. You'd have to be like... some crazy wind sword master." Oh look let's call it anime now, since for some reason that's the only way we can find to justify it. It's silly. But that's just my opinion, of course.

Serenity

2010-01-22, 02:03 PM

TC: I want to move away from the overtly magical aspects of the tome of battle

Reply: Spellcasters exist so I think It's ok. Deal.

The reply is more that:

A) 'Anime-ish' is not entirely an accurate term, as much of what is represented in Tome of Battle is in line with various Western myths and legends. (See Fail's posts re: Celtic, Greek, Russian, Norse heroes), and
B) The most magical effects are exclusive to a class that is explicitly magical.

Dienekes

2010-01-22, 02:08 PM

Bear with me for a while, let's watch some anime.
That's most of the European peoples (counting Greek and Latin cultures as one, which I know it's a small bit of a stretch). There's "anime" in every other continent as well, but I'm listing only Europe because the contention seemingly is that "that stuff only exists in Asia" and "D&D draws from Europe".

An interesting post, but I think ultimately fails at it's intended task. Most people who go "auurgh anime" tend to be describing people shouting out "kamiamea" or however it's spelled before shooting fire from their hands, or yelling some other technique before jumping up in the air and flying across the world.

What you've described is people performing feats of awesome, no doubt. But Ajax isn't shown doing his super secret move to defend against the oncoming army, he was just that badass. All Sigurd does is hide in a hole and then stab the underbelly of a beast. That's not anime that's just good strategy. He was then given invincibility not because he learned the super awesome multi-strike technique of doom but because the gods told him how to unlock magic.

So really, what you've shown kind of reinforces the stereotype with the possible exception of Cuchulainn who had a half divine template added to him anyway and clearly became not a human anymore.

A note, I am not a ToB is too anime man, I just found your reasoning flawed.

Serenity

2010-01-22, 02:12 PM

You missed the one where Nightingale pulled a Black Bolt, and laid waste to palaces by whistling.

Latronis

2010-01-22, 02:14 PM

The reply is more that:

A) 'Anime-ish' is not entirely an accurate term, as much of what is represented in Tome of Battle is in line with various Western myths and legends. (See Fail's posts re: Celtic, Greek, Russian, Norse heroes), and
B) The most magical effects are exclusive to a class that is explicitly magical.

And TC later clarified a more strictly martial take. So that's not much more than arguing semantics at this point, though it certainly did garner plenty of attention. If i thought for an instant i could reign in the following storm, I may be persuaded do something similiar next time :smallbiggrin:

Even the less magical classes still have a tendency towards being excessive compared to what the more mundane original classes had. Which goes back to the difference between tob and the core martials. While some of it may be solved by a bit of refluffing, some may need complete reworking. There's nothing wrong with wanting inherently martial classes to be less supernatural than presented, or less eastern-inspired.

Though some actual rules\changes\crunch to look at would certainly help with the critiquing

Dienekes

2010-01-22, 02:14 PM

I'll be honest, I don't know slavic mythology that well so I did not comment. Though whistling to destroy castles just by itself goes beyond ridiculous or anime into if you so much as applied that to a game most GMs would laugh at you before realizing you were serious.

Tavar

2010-01-22, 02:16 PM

Can you show how the Crusader or the Warblade are more magical than their counterparts? Or even show things that the monk is conceptually unable to do that the Swordsage can? I've looked, and I really don't see anything.

Serenity

2010-01-22, 02:24 PM

If you're arguing that the Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage are more mechanically powerful than the core Fighter, Paladin, and Monk? Well, yes. That's by design, since the originals were considered terribly weak.

If you mean that their maneuvers make them excessively magical compare to their counterparts, I think that's demonstrably false. The Swordsage does have more powerful and reliable magical effects than the Monl, but since the Monk was always explicitly supposed to be an Anime/Wuxia/Eastern mystic warrior character, that's well within the flavor. Crusaders? They have maneuvers that channel the power fo their God. Paladins cast spells (not very well, but...) And even within Devoted Spirit, many of their maneuvers are still within the realm of Badass Normal. Immortal Stance, for example, which Boromir presumably assumed in his last stand in Fellowship of the Ring.

As for the Warblade--setting aside Lightning Throw, what, in his repertoire, is more explicitly magical than a warrior should have?

DragoonWraith

2010-01-22, 02:53 PM

An interesting post, but I think ultimately fails at it's intended task. Most people who go "auurgh anime" tend to be describing people shouting out "kamiamea" or however it's spelled before shooting fire from their hands, or yelling some other technique before jumping up in the air and flying across the world.

What you've described is people performing feats of awesome, no doubt. But Ajax isn't shown doing his super secret move to defend against the oncoming army, he was just that badass. All Sigurd does is hide in a hole and then stab the underbelly of a beast. That's not anime that's just good strategy. He was then given invincibility not because he learned the super awesome multi-strike technique of doom but because the gods told him how to unlock magic.

So really, what you've shown kind of reinforces the stereotype with the possible exception of Cuchulainn who had a half divine template added to him anyway and clearly became not a human anymore.

A note, I am not a ToB is too anime man, I just found your reasoning flawed.
And where, in ToB, does that happen? Maneuvers have names, but so do moves in Western martial arts. In every martial art. Because it gets exceedingly difficult to discuss the art when you have to say "that thing you do when you turn your leg this way and sweep it under your opponent like this," or something. Maneuvers don't have verbal components, you don't have to (nor is it implied that you should) say anything.

Roderick_BR

2010-01-22, 02:55 PM

Same with Lightning Throw. Throwing your sword like a boomerang seems perfectly acceptable in a world where that guy in the frilly outfit over there can move a mountain by waggling his fingers.
If Xena can do, so can we :smallsmile:

I guess the only path that really gets to me is Desert Strike, with his fire coming out of nowhere. Devoted Mind can go, even if it's a stretch. Everything else, as was pointed, is the warrior hitting things differently.

@OP: I still think that using the maneuver level as cost is fair enough. 9th level maneuvers were designed to be used once in a while, so having to wait from 4 to 9 rounds (less if you still have endurance left) is still good (maybe with some high stats, and some feats, you could even have enough juice for 2 telling blows at once). The player need to wonder if he'll spend all his power in a single powerful attack, or spread it among lesser ones during several rounds.

I'd say that would be a good "fix" for maneuvers. Start endurance equal to your highest level maneuver (or possible highest if you for some reason can't get it now) + Str modifier. You can recover 1 point when resting for a round without attacking or using magic (can still use defensive maneuvers), some feat allows you to recover 1 each round even when making normal attacks or 2 when resting, and another feat that allows you to recover 1d4 points each encounter, use only the maneuvers readied as maneuvers known in the classes tables, and have them cost their level in endurance points.
You could then replace the fighter with the warblade, and the monk with the swordsage. I'm not sure about crusaders and paladins, as I think paladins works better as divine casting warriors. Oh well, something to think up later.

DragoonWraith

2010-01-22, 02:56 PM

But Desert Wind is explicitly magical. It's not arcane, vancian magic like a wizard, but it is magic. Swordsages are magical, like Monks. And even then, if you don't want them to be, just eliminate Desert Wind and Shadow Hand, and they're not.

Tavar

2010-01-22, 03:02 PM

Plus, if you want your swordsage to be less overtly magical in that sense, then simply don't take the overtly magical maneuvers. It's an option presented to you; it's easy to make a swordsage without even touching those.

Fail

2010-01-22, 03:05 PM

Cúchulainn went fighting as a flaming deformed giant.

The Fianna could make themselves weightless.

Sigurd is an ornithomancer.

Beowulf didn't care that Grendel's skin and his mother's sword were immovable objects.

Ajax fought an army doing giant leaps with a giant weapon.

Ilya Muromets shrugged off 2 landscape-destroying attacks.

---

What is supposedly lacking to tell reality to shut up and screw off?

---

I'll be honest, I don't know slavic mythology that well so I did not comment. Though whistling to destroy castles just by itself goes beyond ridiculous or anime into if you so much as applied that to a game most GMs would laugh at you before realizing you were serious.Lack of knowledge of mythology hampering a game about mythology is a problem. Want non-epic stuff? Go GURPS (which I actually do play, for the record), it even actually works way better for that.

And, BTW: at high levels (as "high" as, say, level 9), your list of opponents is mainly composed of guys able to create fire, ice and/or darkness at will, control the weather, create illusions at will, teleport at will, swim through castles, be ethereal whenever desired, communicate imperceptibly over 50 miles, find whatever people nigh-flawlessly as often as needed, and so on. The idea that you'd beat them while "not being supernatural" doesn't even make sense.

Not to mention that, as already pointed, even the human, "normal", warriors presented in the official material survive full-on ambushes by predators several times larger than elephants, and kill creatures more structurally sound than tanks with swords.

Rithaniel

2010-01-22, 03:13 PM

Yeah, freaking Weeaboo's and their Superman flying around everywhere, shooting lazers from his eyes.

http://www.leonardohidalgo.net/photos/superman_with_american_flag1.jpg

Tavar

2010-01-22, 03:15 PM

Huh? I'm sorry, I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say.

arguskos

2010-01-22, 03:17 PM

I believe his point is that people flying about shooting lasers out of their eyes is hardly an "anime" thing exclusively, and folks should just chill out about it.

Or, that's what I gathered anyways.

Ponce

2010-01-22, 03:18 PM

As far as balance goes in 3.5, I find that the Warblade is to Achilleas as the Fighter is to Don Quixote. If you want a system in which low-key warriors remain relevant, go play earlier editions or something.

Rithaniel

2010-01-22, 03:19 PM

Fail

2010-01-22, 03:25 PM

Yeah, just, with a lot of extra sarcasm.Possible further elaboration: Superman is a high-level paladin in every relevant way. Nothing more.

Well, when he's not using super-speed, which's utterly unplayable. :(

arguskos

2010-01-22, 03:27 PM

Yeah, just, with a lot of extra sarcasm.
Figured as much, when the "weeaboo" got tossed around like it ain't no thing. :smallwink:

As for ToB in general, I personally dislike it for a variety of reasons. It is by no means a bad system though, and the OPs theory on how to improve it might be worth trying. You never know if it's good or not until you do it after all.

Fail

2010-01-22, 03:29 PM

As for ToB in general, I personally dislike it for a variety of reasons. It is by no means a bad system though, and the OPs theory on how to improve it might be worth trying. You never know if it's good or not until you do it after all.Actually, I do. Strike of perfect clarity isn't a good maneuver, and burning blade isn't a bad maneuver. That being having been presented exactly backwards* tells me all I need to know.

*: to be fair, he didn't say war master's charge was crappy. But still.

arguskos

2010-01-22, 03:32 PM

Actually, I do. Strike of perfect clarity isn't a good maneuver, and burning blade isn't a bad maneuver. That being having been presented exactly backwards* tells me all I need to know.

*: to be fair, he didn't say war master's charge was crappy. But still.
No, that means his understanding of maneuver balance does not match your own. It could well be that in his experience, Burning Blade has sucked immensely. None of this means that his suggestion is automatically without merit, just that it likely isn't going to match what you want, and thus isn't very helpful for you specifically, which is completely fair.

Fail

2010-01-22, 03:36 PM

Catch

2010-01-22, 03:40 PM

No, that means his understanding of maneuver balance does not match your own. It could well be that in his experience, Burning Blade has sucked immensely. None of this means that his suggestion is automatically without merit, just that it likely isn't going to match what you want, and thus isn't very helpful for you specifically, which is completely fair.

Perceptions based on experiences can be wrong, and can betray a weak grasp of the rules.

"In my experience" Shivering Touch isn't broken.
"In my experience" Polymorph isn't broken.
"In my experience" Gate isn't broken.

Yes, in the course of your play, you may not have encountered the flaws of a system. That's not evidence contrary to their existence, only to the myopia of your perception. It's not a matter of condescension, but the collected experience of entire communities of CharOp gurus.

Whether or not these D&D truths apply to your game depends on how you play, but in general, if your single experiences generate a conclusion in direct opposition to those of an entire community, it's likely you're just wrong.

Speaking more directly to the subject, the WEEABOO FIGHTAN MAGIC complaints are more of a knee-jerk reaction than a rational argument.

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 03:42 PM

I... don't really get this. Is it supposed to be for people who like Tome of Battle's mechanics but not it's fluff? You do realize fluff can be ignored as the DM deems necessary? Well I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I just don't understand the need. As for ToB characters being "Animesque", what do you mean? If you are talking about Martial Arts Comedy or To Be a Master Shonen, then the best way to represent Anime characters is with spells and divine ranks. If you are talking about the billions of Anime that are just D&D ripoffs, you can make a nice argument that all D&D is like Anime. And as far as detective Anime, romance, etc., I don't see it. There is a Wuxia influence, but if's just fluff. To clarify: spell descriptions that don't involve numbers are fluff. The same goes for maneuvers and the like.

arguskos

2010-01-22, 03:42 PM

So, is a fighter who spent all 11 bonus feats in maneuvers more versatile than a warblade? Why, why not, or it's "an opinion" as well? On that track, who wins a fight without equipment, monk or druid? Just opinion too?
Note that I never said any of that, nor implied it. All I'm saying is that an assessment of balance does not make a suggested change in mechanics instantly invalid. Suspect, perhaps. Invalid? Not until tested to be such.

That was my only point, not that Fighters>Warblades (not something I believe, btw), not that opinion>fact (both have their place), or any other such topic.

With this, I take my leave, for I think no good will come of this debate. :smallwink:

Fail

2010-01-22, 03:48 PM

If you are talking about Martial Arts Comedy or To Be a Master Shonen, then the best way to represent Anime characters is with spells and divine ranks.Thank you very much. For reminding me that DBZ Goku is a mystic theurge.

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 03:49 PM

Thank you very much. For reminding me that DBZ Goku is a mystic theurge.

He's a blaster Wizard with nothing but custom force spells and like 50 divine ranks.

arguskos

2010-01-22, 03:49 PM

Thank you very much. For reminding me that DBZ Goku is a mystic theurge.
Ok, that's too funny to pass without comment. :smallbiggrin: The idea of Goku using a holy symbol and casting Magic Missile is just hilarious. Thank you for that insane yet hilarious image.

Fail

2010-01-22, 03:52 PM

He's a blaster Wizard with nothing but custom force spells and like 50 divine ranks.Well ... I tried to approximate via existing rules. But yes, assuming custom homebrew, you nail it almost correctly: he doesn't really have any salient divine ability, IIRC - he doesn't even have any salient ability. :P

EDIT: dammit, I misread it as "cleric with custom force spells". Which's what I'd agree with - he seriously has a buff sequence I'd expect from a cleric; I mean, wizard buffs tend to be weird stuff, while Goku clearly gets "merely bigger numbers".

Dienekes

2010-01-22, 04:03 PM

Cúchulainn went fighting as a flaming deformed giant.

He was a half-god. So already divine magic is getting involved.

The Fianna could make themselves weightless.

Where exactly? I don't remember this at all. And the required listings you gave don't imply weightlessness but a very skilled understanding of how not to affect nature. Go see skilled hunters, they don't make a sound (don't break twigs), see a skilled jumper to leap over their own head, ect.

Sigurd is an ornithomancer.

Again, gained not through martial prowess but because he drank the magic elixir, in this case dragon blood. So yeah, magic solves all life's problems

Beowulf didn't care that Grendel's skin and his mother's sword were immovable objects.

So he was really strong, still nothing too anime like that I can tell. Being strong isn't what I've described earlier.

Ajax fought an army doing giant leaps with a giant weapon.

Enormous spear is complicated since if we go back to the time described an enormous spear could range anywhere from 9 feet to 15 both of which were natural weapons later on in history, and jumping from ship to ship isn't particularly hard considering I've done it. Even easier if rope is involved (which was readily available) or if the ships were stationary and docked (which they were).

Ilya Muromets shrugged off 2 landscape-destroying attacks.

Yeah, he was a high powered dude since he was according to legend given super human strength via magic. So once again, magic trumps everything.

And where, in ToB, does that happen? Maneuvers have names, but so do moves in Western martial arts. In every martial art. Because it gets exceedingly difficult to discuss the art when you have to say "that thing you do when you turn your leg this way and sweep it under your opponent like this," or something. Maneuvers don't have verbal components, you don't have to (nor is it implied that you should) say anything.

Partially it has to do with aesthetics. Again, read, I do not agree with this I am merely giving arguments that I have heard. To me ToB is simply another example of giving goodies and then limiting how they can be used such as vancian magic or rage per day (you can only get really angry once a day, honestly).

Some people link certain naming conventions with anime. For some of them, picking an example, such as Emerald Razor, Steel Wind, Swooping Dragon Strike they have some point in this. Lets be fair here, these sound like pokemon moves. Others, such as Shield Counter, Finishing Move, Hamstring Attack don't have these connotations.

Whether the mechanics justify it or not, this sort of things break immersion.

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 04:08 PM

Well ... I tried to approximate via existing rules. But yes, assuming custom homebrew, you nail it almost correctly: he doesn't really have any salient divine ability, IIRC - he doesn't even have any salient ability. :P

EDIT: dammit, I misread it as "cleric with custom force spells". Which's what I'd agree with - he seriously has a buff sequence I'd expect from a cleric; I mean, wizard buffs tend to be weird stuff, while Goku clearly gets "merely bigger numbers".

Well, a variant Cleric that is powered by "KI" and casting everything except the custom force spells is a free action. As fro the divine ranks, well they were they to explain why he is virtually invulnerable to damage, but we can assume that there are Cleric spells at work. His level would be over 9000 though.

arguskos

2010-01-22, 04:10 PM

Well, a variant Cleric that is powered by "KI" and casting everything except the custom force spells is a free action. As fro the divine ranks, well they were they to explain why he is virtually invulnerable to damage, but we can assume that there are Cleric spells at work. He'd be over level 100 though.
Again, I can't let this pass.

There is an obvious joke here. But you missed it. I am saddened by lack of 9000 in the proper context.

Fail

2010-01-22, 04:34 PM

First things first:

Just to further expound on the classics, Samson (the Bible, Judges 14) kills one thousand Philistines with an improvised weapon (good thing he has Weapon Aptitude) and Tiger Claws a lion apart, as well as, at the end of his life, using Stone Dragon to collapse an entire temple. See, even God approves of ToB.

Having an archive of (good) old WotC threads is awesome.

---

He was a half-god. So already divine magic is getting involved.Pretty much every mythic character is half-whatever. Including the "spellcasters". And pretty much every mythic character actually relied on objects worth noting. Including the "spellcasters". That's because humanity is a tool-using species, and used to ascribed natural phenomena to gods (well, not all have stopped, but further mention of that is off-limits).

Where exactly? I don't remember this at all. And the required listings you gave don't imply weightlessness but a very skilled understanding of how not to affect nature. Go see skilled hunters, they don't make a sound (don't break twigs), see a skilled jumper to leap over their own head, ect.While running? Also, what hunters I do know seldom have anything to do with undisturbed hair.

Again, gained not through martial prowess but because he drank the magic elixir, in this case dragon blood. So yeah, magic solves all life's problems.He killed a dragon and drank XP.

So he was really strong, still nothing too anime like that I can tell. Being strong isn't what I've described earlier.Hm. Hello, buster sword. Exclusive to anime.

Enormous spear is complicated since if we go back to the time described an enormous spear could range anywhere from 9 feet to 15 both of which were natural weapons later on in history, and jumping from ship to ship isn't particularly hard considering I've done it. Even easier if rope is involved (which was readily available) or if the ships were stationary and docked (which they were).Both make sense. But I'm willing to bet real money that, should you ever be faced with a Trojan army, you'd call good software to fight for you. :D

Yeah, he was a high powered dude since he was according to legend given super human strength via magic. So once again, magic trumps everything.A giant gave him strength, yes. Strength that, according to D&D, isn't magic.

Some people link certain naming conventions with anime. For some of them, picking an example, such as Emerald Razor, Steel Wind, Swooping Dragon Strike they have some point in this. Lets be fair here, these sound like pokemon moves. Others, such as Shield Counter, Finishing Move, Hamstring Attack don't have these connotations.

Whether the mechanics justify it or not, this sort of things break immersion.Salmon leap. (http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/redbranch.html) That is all.

Tavar

2010-01-22, 04:59 PM

Also, for the Greeks/Romans, everyone had divine power. Seriously, if you did something amazing, you were either descended from a god, blessed by a god, or a god. Pick as many as apply.

This even applies to historical figures; the family of Julius Caesar claimed to be descended from Venus. Many other Romans of interest claimed other divine relations, and Caesar himself was later made a god.

hiryuu

2010-01-22, 05:04 PM

So. Here we have a world (or series of worlds) with a cosmology that includes extradimensional locations, access to potentially free and limitless energy, and demons, angels, aberrations, undead, elementals, and sentient psychic tapeworms that eat your brain before mutating the rest of you into a purple tentacle faced monster. Alchemical items dot the land, scrolls can be had in shops, floating masses of land likely exist, and magic storms are a threat. We have people who, through rigorous training and mental discipline, can learn to control certain aspects of this world through book and tome, crystals, faith in their gods, faith in a lightswitch, singing really well, making pacts with otherworldly beings, cutting holes in reality with sheer willpower alone, just faking it, making gizmos through some indeterminate means, random chance, and just trying really hard.

Yet when the guy who decided to pick up a sword learns to do this to augment his physical prowess, it breaks your immersion?

What is this i dont even...

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 05:08 PM

Again, I can't let this pass.

There is an obvious joke here. But you missed it. I am saddened by lack of 9000 in the proper context.

His level would be over 9000 though
Good point. I fixed. I do apologize for going off topic.

So. Here we have a world (or series of worlds) with a cosmology that includes extradimensional locations, access to potentially free and limitless energy, and demons, angels, aberrations, undead, elementals, and sentient psychic tapeworms that eat your brain before mutating the rest of you into a purple tentacle faced monster. Alchemical items dot the land, scrolls can be had in shops, floating masses of land likely exist, and magic storms are a threat. We have people who, through rigorous training and mental discipline, can learn to control certain aspects of this world through book and tome, crystals, faith in their gods, faith in a lightswitch, singing really well, making pacts with otherworldly beings, cutting holes in reality with sheer willpower alone, just faking it, making gizmos through some indeterminate means, random chance, and just trying really hard.

Yet when the guy who decided to pick up a sword learns to do this to augment his physical prowess, it breaks your immersion?

What is this i dont even...
This. I don't get this at all. All mythical fighters either had magic, a magic item, or divine intervention. Sword and Board fighters at best were great on the battlefield with other Sword and Board fighters, they didn't slay dragons without one of the above three.

Fail

2010-01-22, 05:17 PM

faith in a lightswitch, just faking it, cutting holes in reality with sheer willpower alone, and just trying really hard.Shadowcaster, factotum, ???, ??? ... ?

This. I don't get this at all. All mythical fighters either had magic, a magic item, or divine intervention. Sword and Board fighters at best were great on the battlefield with other Sword and Board fighters, they didn't slay dragons without one of the above three.As long as it's gods (who are spellcasters), or magic items (made by spellcasters), it's OK. Despite the fact that restricting either goes against the source material. Yay.

hiryuu

2010-01-22, 05:21 PM

Shadowcaster, factotum, ???, ??? ... ?

Psions and Wilders can conceivably fill that gap, so do Sorcerers. Philosophy clerics can get their powers from a lightswitch if they have a philosophy for it. I suggest "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (which is about a nightlight) for a hymn. I'd forgotten Shadowcasters, though. I can add "stabbing your shadow with a willpower stick" and "saying words" to that list now.

Roderick_BR

2010-01-22, 05:58 PM

Well, a variant Cleric that is powered by "KI" and casting everything except the custom force spells is a free action. As fro the divine ranks, well they were they to explain why he is virtually invulnerable to damage, but we can assume that there are Cleric spells at work. His level would be over 9000 though.
Racial bonuses. I don't want to see his LA. Or Superman's.

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 06:01 PM

Racial bonuses. I don't want to see his LA. Or Superman's.

Saiyans would have a huge level adjustment, sure, but it would be meaningless due to their x100 to all XP earned.

Cataphract

2010-01-22, 08:02 PM

Wow.

First of all, thank you all for taking the time to bother with this thread. I always like stirring up a conversation with varying points of view- there's always something to be learned even if the other guy is yelling at you.

Secondly, in an attempt to answer all of you but keep the post as short as possible, I'll first provide some much needed clarification to my original intentions and then answer stuff that needs more specialized attention.

My original problem with D&D is that everything is mixed up and thrown in a blender- oftentimes, it's like combining Munchkin sets. There are plenty of interesting concepts and ideas, but they are often ignored because they are not up to par with other supplements- and yet some of them are just plain wrong (in my eyes). To explain my case, I still need to explain a few things. When I play a Western fantasy game, I don't want eastern stuff creeping in like they're commonplace. I don't want to see ki fireballs against dragons like I'm playing DBZ. It's ruining my suspension of disbelief, and as I'm a fan of realism, I accept three things- reality (with a small degree of heroic/cinematic bend), a magic/supernatural system that makes sense, and outright fairy tales. Unfortunately, anime is between the second and third category and tries to disguise itself oftentimes as the first, and this annoys me. That's why I don't allow anything with ki (monks included) or other such nonsense in my games. And I do believe a fair share of gamers (especially old-school ones) share that sentiment. So if you like those things, then there's no need to say it's not anime, because it is- you're just comfortable with it, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there are people like me out there who hate it, so please respect it :smallredface:

That being said, another necessary clarification is that I want my character's abilities to be consistent with their concepts, which in D&D is summed up by classes, both base and prestige. What I hate is when things get mixed up, simply because class-based systems are not afforded the luxury of skill-based systems. If you want varying abilities, go ahead and multiclass. What I don't like is seemingly non-magical characters producing magical effects, which exists in plenty of classes- specifically in the three we have. If I want a non-magical bard, simply not casting spells is unfortunately not an option because it does limit my character a lot, and it does screw up balance. And the list goes on. Thus, the argument about powerful things needing to be supernatural is not necessarily true. Now, some classes are exempt from this rule, because they are by nature (read: fluff) using arcane or divine power, casting spells through knowledge or beseeching the aid of deities. That makes sense to me. But to call on the shadows just because you wave your blade around- that's a spell too, isn't it? Why does it have to be a maneuver? Why is it necessary for people to do the same damn thing in 15 different ways when one suffices? (The best example is the fog strip from OOTS which I can't find right now.)

Powering things on faith isn't supernatural in nature? Am I missing something?

It depends on what kind of things you power. If you power sheer determination like the Crusader- no, sheer belief will be just as good. If it's supernatural, however, then you do need more than faith- you need the deity to reward you for said faith. That's the difference between a paladin and a crusader in my book. A paladin is a cross between a fighter and a cleric, while I want the crusader to simply be a zealous fighter with no divine power whatsoever (personal taste).

This seems to be part of the general feeling that melee combat people can't have nice things. I don't fully understand why warriors can't have access to supernatural or nearly supernatural abilities in worlds with dragons and wizards and people regularly being resurrected from the dead like it is an everyday occurence.

As I said, it's a matter of preference. I already dislike worlds where dragons are more common than dogs, wizards are as common as dirt, and people get resurrected like it's a simple temporary inconvenience, and thus I don't DM such worlds. Hence why I believe my attempt to remove sheer faith from actual divine power.

The anime claim also simply doesn't hold much water. People who make the claim seem to have simply not read classical Western texts much. I invite people to read the Iliad, Beowulf and the various Arthurian epics. If people want to label those stories "too anime" then good luck for them.

I have a passing familiarity with the last two, but being Greek, I have been taught the Odyssey and the Iliad. Thus, I do not recall explicitly any occurence where sheer skill, without aid from the gods, broke the laws of reality. Sure, plenty of things were far-fetched, but nothing was outright magical or divine with already being so (like children of the gods or direct divine aid).

There's also a slight inconsistency in that fighters being able to jump large distances in full armor is ok, but heaven-forfend that a warrior do something unrealistic that actually alters combat.

I thought the AC penalty applied to Jump checks too :smalltongue:

And for all three major ToB classes you can easily make a character with minimal or no supernatural abilities by choosing appropriate disciplines.

And to save people from the trouble of doing it themselves (and to have a handy reference myself), I perused all the maneuvers in the book and categorized them.

And although I don't have as much direct combat experience as many others on this forum, I wrestled in highschool and did quite well (ok, a very small weight-class but that's besides the point). You can't simply repeat the exact same action repeatedly. You might not be in the exact right position, or the relevant muscles might be too tired to do it effectively, or your opponent might be ready for that move since you've just done it before (and certainly if you've tried something repeatedly).

I've been practicing longsword in the ARMA for over 3 years, as well as several other weapons (mainly rapier, sword & buckler, dagger and spear/staff) as well as unarmed combat. You can obviously not repeat the same action repeatedly, of course, but truth be told, D&D's combat
system is extremely abstract. I do not see maneuvers as the EXACT same move, otherwise your opponent should get a bonus to AC each time you did it! I see them more as applicable concepts that are viable and have been practiced to such a degree that despite their difficulty they can still be done (you'd be surprised at how many amazing things I've watched experienced fencers pull off). However, the more demanding the "move/maneuver/concept" is, the more difficult it is to do it again and again, hence Endurance (though I might rename it stamina so as not to confuse it with the feat, thanks for the idea to the guy who proposed it!).

In that regard, the recovery system is surprisingly realistic. Sure, it isn't perfect. But making the system much more complicated would be mechanically unpleasant. But letting you spam the exact same maneuvers repeatedly would be less realistic rather than more so.

I disagree, for the reasons expressed above. You can't "spam" high level maneuvers, and low-level maneuvers are pretty simple in concept that they can actually be done repeatedly (a good example is Flashing Sun), but you'll eventually get tired. I believe the problem stems from what we understand maneuvers to be; you, I think, consider them rigid, specific movements, like katas, which is entirely false. In actual combat, everything is fluid and mutable, and you adjust everything to the circumstances.

You know, I think that you've helped me coalesce an idea. I think that one by one, I'll try to rewrite the fluff of each maneuver to make it seem more like what I envision it to be, and maybe I'll give some explanation and clarify it both for me and for you (though that'll take time).

Meh, I dislike the animish effects of some of the maneuvers. Mainly shadow hand stuff and the fire-based stuff. I can understand draining an enemys ability scores, negative levels, etc by piercing -just- the right spot of them like a specialized sneak attack, etc? But.... air-walking? For multiple rounds? No. What the hell is this, some kinda jackie chan on steroids crap? Or I dunno, a 100 foot area of effect or so ZOMGHYDUKON style fire blast?
Get it straight - fantasy nor not, fighters and martial types like that? ARE NOT CASTERS! Say it with me now - ARE NOT CASTERS! Stop trying to -be- casters unless you multiclass. and have a better reason for Ed the Iliterate Barbarian to suddenly BUST OUT FIREBALLS then its because he swung EXTRA hard!

That would be my thoughts phrased in a different manner.

Except that those disciplines? Are exclusive to the Swordsage. Who is effectively a better designed Monk. His fluff is that he is a warrior-scholar who studies ancient secrets and mystical martial arts. SO he actually has every reason to have access to such effects. Unless you're prepared to argue that the Monks houldn't have that Dimension Door ability, that a Ninja shouldn't be able to turn ethereal, or that Duskblades shouldn't exist.

I am not going to argue- Monks and Ninjas do not exist in my campaigns :smalltongue:, and Dusbklades are just casters (and actually make more sense than wizards to be frank, I hate the vancian system. Spellpoints ftw).

While I do agree in part, I don't like the way they work for more standardized DnD. I find the system quite agreeable for more Wuxia-styled games. And am currently considering a sort of psionics(mechanically) and ToB hybrid d20 system for such games as a break from my own campaign world

That's the same idea as mine but with a different approach. However, I still prefer to keep such things separate for the time being, letting martial characters being martial without any supernatural aid. Though I'd love to see your approach when you get to it, since I am in the process of making a campaign without arcane or divine magic, just psionics and incarnum.

I understand this somewhat but a lot of this can be reflavored. And if necessary, just play a character who doesn't use Shadow Hand or Desert Wind. That solves most problems if it really bothers one. That still leaves 7 major disciplines and three classes all of whom are still weaker than straight casters but aren't pathetic.

That would be a solution as a player, but as a DM, you can't bar your players from choosing what you don't like on a case-by-case basis (or, at least, I can't). I like to have my things clean and organized. As for them being still weaker than casters- Ugh, can't beat that.

Funny, I was doing the same thing here, making the maneuvers less "vancian", and more reliable. I was even doing a point system, for now called "stamina points", that can be used to power some special effects (like action points), and to power maneuvers.
The idea is that as the battle goes, the combatans tire out (lose 1 stamina points/turn), and will eventually end up exhausted (after reaching stamina 0 and fighting for another turn). They can, however, spent their SPs as an extra phisical effort to make some actions (like getting a temp bonus to attack or dodge), or activate maneuvers, that are powerful but tiring moves.

Stamina sounds so much better than Endurance, and it won't get confused with the feat. Mind if I borrow it?

The problem with the spending all your points int high level maneuvers is easily fixable by adding bigger costs. Using Sudden Leap to move quickly through the battle field in short jumps is easy (1 SP), running up to an enemy and attacking with two weapons with a good accuracy with Raging Mongoose (don't remember the level...) is harder, and uses up more SPs. Making a mighty and powerful blow that pretty much breaks the enemy inside with Mountain Tombstone Strike, will take up almost all your strenth(9), demanding you to pull back and get a breather.

Exactly what I was thinking. Perhaps having the cost being the same as the level is simpler and better, and will definitely limit those high level maneuvers. I think I'll adopt that one too. Thanks!

I agree that most of the EX stuff is a bit too much. I feel really hawt, so I move my hand and a miniature fire elementar pops up out of nowhere. Wait, what?

Actually, that's explicitly a supernatural ability as stated, but that makes your job easier- simply disallow it like I did :smalltongue:

Swordsage can get away by being an "animeish" monk, and the crusader has this divine inspiration going, but anyone can learn these maneuvers.

It's annoying that such an interesting concept (a highly skilled fighter that is more of a wanderer/bladeslinger than one trained for actual war like the warblade) is so polluted by considering it a monk and giving it such silly abilities. And I always wanted to see a religious warrior that did NOT actually rely on divine aid (which meshes perfectly in a world where gods do not really exist, or at least do not interfere directly with spells and stuff). And I agree about the part that anyone can learn said maneuvers.

In all seriousness, though- in a world where things are pretty darn magical all the time, justify why martial characters aren't allowed to be competitive.

I'm of the school that if everything is magical, then all the real magic is taken away from the game. It's like a modern world, but instead of magic, replace it with technology. They can be competitive without needing magic, frankly. Just aid them mechanically, because otherwise they will suck in D&D.

Why do people raise issue when martial characters cause some pseudomagical effects with intense effort and focus and maybe a little bit of magic on their part?

Because (in my eyes) it messes up their concept. They are swordsmen and warriors and what have you. If you want magical effects, multiclass into a spellcaster. If you want to progress both, get a prestige class. But not just like that!

Especially considering that no one says "THATS NOT REALISTIC I WONT LET YOU DO THAT" for the wizard, who only has to read a book and think hard enough at someone to catch them on fire. In short, justify calling shenanigans on people who fight and use some magical effects while having nothing wrong with characters who do a lot more with even less justification than "I used intense focus and training to create some magical effects and now I have to get intense and focus before I can do it again."

First of all, you have to do something that D&D doesn't do- actually explain how magic works. In D&D, everything is explained by magic, but noone bothers to explain magic itself! The reason I've separated out the maneuvers is that if you want them to be supernatural, go ahead. But I don't want them to be simply because I want to make strictly martial characters, and they mess it up. So I trim the tree!

Well in fairness, some people would prefer that their melee types are badass normal rather than have magical abilities. They want someone like John McClane or James Bond. What they expect from them can be pretty awesome, but they don't want it to use anything where you can point to it explicitly and say "that breaks the laws of physics." The issue is at some level what one considers to be normal. Since wizards explicitly use magic people see that as more ok. Frankly, one of the reasons I like some of the alternate magic systems (especially the binder) is that there's something resembling an explanation for the magic rather than just "I prepared this and now wave my hands to make a fireball."

Exactly what he said. As I said to the previous guy, I want things to make damn sense and not have an excuse for a mechanical advantage. I want the fluff to create the mechanics to support the fluff, not the other way around!

Fully understood, it just always irks me that people will scream and shout about the mouse in the bedroom and ignore the rats in the kitchen.

I'm not going to change D&D itself, since that is too much effort for what I'll get (there's waaay better systems out there). But I can still cut and paste as I like, no?

Considering that a highly-trained Olympic Athlete is 5th or 6th level when translated to a DnD game, Step of the Dancing Moth (which you can get as early as 15th level) doesn't seem that outlandish when it represents a level of power non-existent in the real world. Who knows what people could do with that much prestige and potential.

I definitely doubt 5th or 6th level is what people have achieved. Consider the Fighting Masters of the Renaissance, who trained their whole lives and went to war and taught dozens of students each. But still, they might have had awesome talent and skill, and achieved some far-fetched things, but that doesn't mean they are supernatural due to simple training.

And also, in a world with magic, why can't Martial Types have access to supernatural abilities? Maybe in your specifically tailored campaign setting or mind set they can't, and that's perfectly fine. No one's forcing you to add the Tome of Battle to your campaigns. However, many of us see no reason why a character with a lot of training in a world where magic is real can't do things we consider outlandish by our standards? Wizards are turning people into tea cups, and you don't think that maybe everyone has a bit of magical
potential that can translate itself in different ways? Just some food for thought :smallcool:.

I've already addressed the "magic world" argument, but there's another thing worth mentioning, about including ToB: It gives a lot of potential to martial characters to bridge that damn gap, and adds a lot of nice fluff aside from mechanics. But it's over the top in what I presented, and thus I chop the parts I dislike.

If you want to use an overtly magical maneuver, you can. If you don't, you can't (because you don't pick the overtly magical options).

I fail to see how that is an issue. Worse, they are either magical or they suck. First law of things actually making sense is mundanes can't have nice things, not "fighters can't have nice things". Find another way for them not to be mundanes and we'll talk.

As I said, as a player that's fine, but as a DM, or actually, as a campaign builder? That's what I was thinking when I wrote this. As for the mundanes can't have nice things, why? Just no need to make them magical to be cool.

The game balance issue is only an issue if you make it into one. ToB provides a completely different system for martial characters to use. Either use it, or use the traditional system. The book has material for you either way, but quantum superpositions of different systems aren't (required to be) playable.

Definitely, but if you do want to make them playable, there's work involved. And I tried to do some of it for my own benefit.

As for the fluff issue, that's not really a problem either. Not all of the maneuvers are overtly supernatural, and the ones that aren't can be described however you want (they don't have to be wuxia). The remaining ones don't have to be in use if you don't like them. Problem solved.

Err, which is what I did? I merely presented it to you for thoughts (and already have gained a much clearer perspective).

Well, then here's a simple solution; DON'T LOOK AT THE DAMN MAGICAL DISCIPLINES THEN!

Seriously, unless you complain that the monk/ninja/duskblade/spellthief is too magical, then you have no legs to stand on. Yes, the disiplines that specifically are supposed to mirror the mystical wise man who can do magical things are magical. Just like the discipline that mirrors the Holy Warrior powers of the Paladin gives, well, holy powers(devoted spirit, even though they seemed to have forgotten to label them). If you want someone who does normal things, just really well, look at the other disciplines. And if you start complaining about the capstone/really, really high level abilities, think about how people have stopped being limited by real world physics since about 6th level. Yes, they should be doing exceptional things, or they should be dead.

Don't look: Already addressed it :smalltongue: Same thing for monk/ninja etc. And the 6th level part as well.

Don't look at half the material (a third whatever) you paid for! Don't complain about everyone getting magic because the game has higher levels than 5!

how is that remotely helpful?

It's not, but it's always a good exercise to reply to that.

Ah. Seeing this at the beginning would make more sense. The Tome, as presented, was never intended to be strictly martial. The Warblade, the most martial of them, only has a few maneuvers that even come close to the line. The others are specifically pseudo-magical, in the same way the Monk and Paladin are psuedo-magical. Thus, if you're aiming for only martial skill, I can see the problem.

However, I still consider the Ninja/Paladin/Monk to be martial classes, despite their innate magical abilities. This is probably why we disagree: I see something like Inferno blast, and it fits as divine/ki "power" to me.

If you're going for pure martial, your view makes more sense. Perhaps edit that wish into the OP?

My bad for not clarifying it up; I'll work on what I wrote, and definitely that part. Sometimes, when you're writing something, the most obviously glaring facts are left unsaid, not thinking that they're not obvious to the others :smallsmile:

Well, you're complaining that some of the classes get magical abilities. Unless I'm mistaken, so do the Monk and the Paladin. I fail to see why classes based on those same archetypes shouldn't get magical abilities, and yet complaints always revolve around the fact that they get magic. So do the classes that they're based on! And people don't complain that their Paladins or Monks get those special abilities. So why are classes that are based on those same archetypes blasted for having them? Isn't that hypocritical?

I've already answered that, so I don't think I'm hypocritical when I disallow them (or have the fluff ready to support them). As Djinn keenly pointed out, I failed to mention I'm shooting for strictly martial ability for those three classes. As for monks, I already think they're one of the stupidest classes fluff-wise in D&D, and as for paladins, well, they have their deities to back them (though I always hated how almost all paladins are LG).

As for the level thing, again, that's been there from the Players Handbook, so, once again, why are you complaining that this book is introducing it? It's been there since the beginning!

Err, what level thing? I lost you here. Do you mean the 5th-6th level being the real world cap? I'm taking it with A LOT of salt, knowing that if anything, D&D writers know nothing of the actual world.

Also, not all of them are magical, just really, really exceptional. The Iron Heart discipline basically boils down to "I hit things REALLY Hard", the Diamond Mind to "I'm REALLY perceptive and fast", and the Tiger Claw "I'm a REAL Beast". They really aren't magical in the slightest (beyond the normal for DnD, ie Mr fighter who falls from low orbit and walks away unharmed), and you know what? Those are the three big disciplines for the Warblade. You know, the only guy in the book whose archetype doesn't include magical powers. Huh, imagine that.

True, and I like Warblades for that reason exactly, but as I said, I'm shooting for strictly martial. A Crusader for me is not a paladin with another name- he's a trained, zealous fighter who believes in his faith (whether there is a deity to help him or not), and the Swordsage is not a monk with a sword or a mystical warrior but a wandering bladeslinger, duelist, and martial artist (in the actual sense of the word).

The material that we're suggesting he ignore happens to be available free on the WotC website, so it's not like money was paid specifically for it.

The bottom line, however, is that the problem this is intended to fix is currently experiencing a variety of minor existence failures which may continue indefinitely.

Money is irrelevant, actually. I never bother with it. Now, the second paragraph got be perplexed. Care to explain? :smallconfused:

Bear with me for a while, let's watch some anime.

Now this will take some time. As I said, my familiarity lies mainly in the greek department, but I'll try what I know and see.

The Cuchulainn part: From what I know, he was a demigod, and what you wrote is clearly a battle between two shapechanging individuals (there's a similar concept in Arabian Nights that I've been reading recently). Nothing martial here.

The Fianna part: Again, nothing but sheer skill involved, even if it IS far-fetched.

The Sigurd part: The sword striking the anvil is pretty common as a concept of sword "strength" even today with displays of "battle-ready" swords, and it's as fallacious as ever. Bathing in blood is an obvious ritual, nothing martial involved here either. Same as the heart-eating.

The Beowulf part: Now we're looking at something. However, assuming the "tears the arm" refers to actual tearing, i.e. with bare hands, and then the part that he used a giant sword, this is merely some form of superstrength and not martial skill.

The Iliad part: Again, sheer strength. Nothing actually martial. Also, same as above, don't forget we're talking about epics which tend to exaggerate not actual skill as much as physical attributes.

The Slavic part: Yet again, nothing martial about whistling. An obviously magical effect. Not something you learn in an academy of martial arts.

As you can see, there's nothing about martial skill producing supernatural powers. It's either one of the following: divine aid, ritual magic, innate magical abilities, and exaggerated physical attributes or tests of skill.

Also, re: the "Badass Normal". Play a warrior, expert, or aristocrat. 'Badass' is in how you play and what you do, not in what your character sheet says you can do.

This is D&D, I'm afraid. No matter how cool you look, when the proverbial feces hit the fan, if you can't back it up, then you're just a barking dog. That doesn't mean that you need to kill everything in sight, but you do need to hold your own.

And in equal fairness to the other side--you're able to do that a lot better with the Tome of Battle classes than the core Fighter, so long as you ignore Shadow Hand and Desert Wind disciplines--which, again, are exclusive to a class designed to allow the Mystical (and yes, perhaps Pseudo-Eastern) Warrior archetype--already a part of Core D&D in the form of Monks. And even the Swordsage can play as a Badass Normal if you have him focus on Setting Sun, Stone Dragon, Diamond Mind, and/or Tiger Claw.

Again, this has been addressed to its fullest.

Also, the '50 kg person throwing around a 150 kg wrestler' example--well, I won't argue the semantics of whether it's near-magic, but it's anything but unknown in Western Fantasy. Setting aside modern examples like River Tam and superhero stories (Karate Kid has no superpowers, but can put Superboy in a headlock), we can hearken back to Beowulf, who wrestled Grendel to death. Or heck, any Knight vs. Dragon story, where we have a guy with a sword doing any ort of noticeable damage to an armored lizard the size of a jumbo jet.

Actually, it is. I don't remember any story where a 50-kg nobody just tossed around people because of some mystical ki. Beowulf was a guy with super strength who could wield 10-kg greatswords like willow sticks, so he doesn't count as a mundane person in my book, really. The people who could do this are extremely skilled, and is actually strong enough to pull it off. But the Knight vs Dragon is a pretty good example though, frankly. But it is D&D after all, eh?

Yeah, this. This is why I don't understand everyone who sees shooting fire/lightning/whatever out of your sword, or leaping across a battlefield immediately as "anime-ish". Pretty sure this crazy stuff has been happening in literature long before the term was even coined.

Please, direct me to that. At least in the Greek epics that I know of it doesn't happen, sort of being the direct act of the gods.

The two overtly supernatural disciplines with actual (Su) maneuvers are available to the one guy who specifically is referred to as a "Blade Wizard". The rest of them? Kinda humdrum. Sure in Setting Sun you can run around throwing a guy alot. By the time you're doing this you have long surpassed mortal bounds of physical strength and speed. Diamond mind's insightful strike? It's just a really focused cut. You concentrate, relying on your ability to strike at an open weak point instead of relying on brute strength, then you hit something. Honestly most maneuvers boil down to "I try to smash a guys face this particular way." Even the Devoted Spirit healing maneuvers can be mundane in that HP can be a representation of fatigue/willpower/ability to continue fighting, rather than a static "this is how much you're bleeding". In which case his Crusader Strike is now "You hit this guy so hard, you inspire your ally to go on just a bit longer."

This is due to the abstract nature of combat in D&D, but sometimes, things are over the top (like dealing damage equal to your Concentration check. What? No matter how hard I concentrate, a steel sword will not cut a steel armor. End of story).

...Also, Hunter's Sense is too "anime-ish"? Really? Tap into your bestiality like a Barbarian does all bloody the time, and now you can Track. What's so bad about that? Same with Lightning Throw. Throwing your sword like a boomerang seems perfectly acceptable in a world where that guy in the frilly outfit over there can move a mountain by waggling his fingers.

Tapping into your bestiality translates like a feral rage, not altering your olfactory organs to make them equal to a dog's. And that guy
in the frilly outfit is not moving the mountain by his strength, but by manipulating cosmic energy or what-have-you. Again, it all boils down to how much magic you want to have in every aspect of your campaign.

TC: I want to move away from the overtly magical aspects of the tome of battle

Reply: Spellcasters exist so I think It's ok. Deal.

Part of my frustration.

Also the more animeish maneuvers are only available to swordsages or those who use feats to gain them. The idea behind the swordsage is that they have unlocked secret methods of the universe to perform those feats and they don't try and hide it as melee only. There are plenty of legends of sages of many different cultures performing interesting feats similar to these maneuvers. Also these abilities tend to be limited in fashion furthering the idea that they are unlocking/abusing certain aspects of nature and without the right circumstances they can not do it.

Again, I don't like that concept of swordsages, hence why I present an alternative. And I don't think there's any such equivalent, really, if yes, please enlighten me.

Not exactly. Probably my fault for bringing spellcasters into this. Let's just pretend I never said anything. I was more going "really, is it that bad?", given I don't think that it's overtly magical to begin with. Why does anything fancy always have to be "overtly magical"? Why can the martial character not just be "that good"? It's a common issue that comes up all the time. "No you can't throw that thing. That'd be ridiculous. You'd have to be like... some crazy wind sword master." Oh look let's call it anime now, since for some reason that's the only way we can find to justify it. It's silly. But that's just my opinion, of course.

There's a line, or at least that's what I see, that if crossed simply ruins my suspension of disbelief. You want to cut that guy in two? Easily done. You want to hold the pass and defeat a whole army single handedly? Far-fetched, of epic proportions, but yeah, alright, it's an exaggeration. Throw your sword like a boomerang and have it return in your hand- wait, WHAT? No thanks. If you want it so badly, go and enchant it or cast a spell on it. Don't tell me it's part of your "martial training".

The reply is more that:

A) 'Anime-ish' is not entirely an accurate term, as much of what is represented in Tome of Battle is in line with various Western myths and legends. (See Fail's posts re: Celtic, Greek, Russian, Norse heroes), and
B) The most magical effects are exclusive to a class that is explicitly magical.

A) I respectfuly disagree. Since when do strictly martial heroes in Western myths and legends call fire, create shadows or other strange stuff like that?

B) That is a matter of taste. I'm not debating why it shouldn't be magical in everybody's game, but why it's not going to be in mine.

An interesting post, but I think ultimately fails at it's intended task. Most people who go "auurgh anime" tend to be describing people shouting out "kamiamea" or however it's spelled before shooting fire from their hands, or yelling some other technique before jumping up in the air and flying across the world.

What you've described is people performing feats of awesome, no doubt. But Ajax isn't shown doing his super secret move to defend against the oncoming army, he was just that badass. All Sigurd does is hide in a hole and then stab the underbelly of a beast. That's not anime that's just good strategy. He was then given invincibility not because he learned the super awesome multi-strike technique of doom but because the gods told him how to unlock magic.

So really, what you've shown kind of reinforces the stereotype with the possible exception of Cuchulainn who had a half divine template added to him anyway and clearly became not a human anymore.
A note, I am not a ToB is too anime man, I just found your reasoning flawed.

Exactly my thoughts. Nothing of what he showed relates to what ToB is supposed to show.

You missed the one where Nightingale pulled a Black Bolt, and laid waste to palaces by whistling.

Which he no doubt learned from his skill with weapons?

And TC later clarified a more strictly martial take. So that's not much more than arguing semantics at this point, though it certainly did garner plenty of attention. If i thought for an instant i could reign in the following storm, I may be persuaded do something similiar next time :smallbiggrin:

Even the less magical classes still have a tendency towards being excessive compared to what the more mundane original classes had. Which goes back to the difference between tob and the core martials. While some of it may be solved by a bit of refluffing, some may need complete reworking. There's nothing wrong with wanting inherently martial classes to be less supernatural than presented, or less eastern-inspired.

Though some actual rules\changes\crunch to look at would certainly help with the critiquing

No doubt as to that last part, but to be frank I think that those that I left are fine, really. It's not the mechanics that ever was an issue with ToB, it's the fluff that put me off, hence my focus on it.

I'll be honest, I don't know slavic mythology that well so I did not comment. Though whistling to destroy castles just by itself goes beyond ridiculous or anime into if you so much as applied that to a game most GMs would laugh at you before realizing you were serious.

Or, like I said earlier, fairy tale-ish stuff, which is mighty fine in my book.

Can you show how the Crusader or the Warblade are more magical than their counterparts? Or even show things that the monk is conceptually unable to do that the Swordsage can? I've looked, and I really don't see anything.

A Crusader or Warblade is not more magical by itself, but the maneuvers they have access to clearly are. As for a swordsage, he IS indeed magic-liter than the monk per se (all that is magical as a class ability is Sense Magic), but his maneuvers are even worse than the others'.

If you're arguing that the Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage are more mechanically powerful than the core Fighter, Paladin, and Monk? Well, yes. That's by design, since the originals were considered terribly weak.

If you mean that their maneuvers make them excessively magical compare to their counterparts, I think that's demonstrably false. The Swordsage does have more powerful and reliable magical effects than the Monl, but since the Monk was always explicitly supposed to be an Anime/Wuxia/Eastern mystic warrior character, that's well within the flavor. Crusaders? They have maneuvers that channel the power fo their God. Paladins cast spells (not very well, but...) And even within Devoted Spirit, many of their maneuvers are still within the realm of Badass Normal. Immortal Stance, for example, which Boromir presumably assumed in his last stand in Fellowship of the Ring.

As for the Warblade--setting aside Lightning Throw, what, in his repertoire, is more explicitly magical than a warrior should have?

When I point at a flawed system, and then point out the flaws, and you try to counter my logic with the parts I claim to be correct, what's
the point in that? No offense, really. A swordsage, as you say, has magical effects- end of story here. I don't want my swordsage to have magical effects at all. It's a matter of preference. Same for the crusader- I don't want him to be aided by his gods, but to persist on his faith alone. As for the warblade, it's already good as it is, with that minor exception, so no need to keep bringing him up.

And where, in ToB, does that happen? Maneuvers have names, but so do moves in Western martial arts. In every martial art. Because it gets exceedingly difficult to discuss the art when you have to say "that thing you do when you turn your leg this way and sweep it under your opponent like this," or something. Maneuvers don't have verbal components, you don't have to (nor is it implied that you should) say anything.

Now we're entering an area I know well off. True, maneuvers do have names in Western martial arts, but the thing is, maneuvers are not a strict thing. They, back then, had no need for strict, rigid fighting systems. They were fluid, graceful, and definitely not hung up in semantics. A horizontal strike was called a horizontal strike (Zwerchau, to be exact), regardless of the angle it was delivered, and so forth. And they didn't have extremely complex maneuvers, simply because they were not of any use. They espoused simple, quick, effective, and elegant attacks and defenses, all in one time. Even the Italians, who were much more complicated as far as naming goes, had the same concepts.

That, in ToB, is represented by maneuvers from the Iron Heart and Diamond Mind disciplines, mostly. But that doesn't mean they have to be set in stone.

Cataphract

2010-01-22, 08:08 PM

If Xena can do, so can we :smallsmile:

I guess the only path that really gets to me is Desert Strike, with his fire coming out of nowhere. Devoted Mind can go, even if it's a stretch. Everything else, as was pointed, is the warrior hitting things differently.

Same here, even though the few maneuvers that I considered normal are pretty cool.

@OP: I still think that using the maneuver level as cost is fair enough. 9th level maneuvers were designed to be used once in a while, so having to wait from 4 to 9 rounds (less if you still have endurance left) is still good (maybe with some high stats, and some feats, you could even have enough juice for 2 telling blows at once). The player need to wonder if he'll spend all his power in a single powerful attack, or spread it among lesser ones during several rounds.

I guess you're right, that'll stop people from spamming high level maneuvers. As I said so many posts ago, I already find the notion of maneuver level=stamina/endurance cost extremely appealing.

I'd say that would be a good "fix" for maneuvers. Start endurance equal to your highest level maneuver (or possible highest if you for some reason can't get it now) + Str modifier. You can recover 1 point when resting for a round without attacking or using magic (can still use defensive maneuvers), some feat allows you to recover 1 each round even when making normal attacks or 2 when resting, and another feat that allows you to recover 1d4 points each encounter, use only the maneuvers readied as maneuvers known in the classes tables, and have them cost their level in endurance points.

Why STR modifier? I think CON is better suited. Also, why maneuvers readied? That's far too few for known maneuvers, you'd probably have to specialize in a single discipline.

You could then replace the fighter with the warblade, and the monk with the swordsage. I'm not sure about crusaders and paladins, as I think paladins works better as divine casting warriors. Oh well, something to think up later.

Ugh, monks are already a parasite, no need to put a normally wholesome class (with a few tweaks) in the same sorry state. And I already consider fighter should stay, as a fluff concept. And crusaders in my book have no divine power, just faith.

But Desert Wind is explicitly magical. It's not arcane, vancian magic like a wizard, but it is magic. Swordsages are magical, like Monks. And even then, if you don't want them to be, just eliminate Desert Wind and Shadow Hand, and they're not.

Again, it's not what I'm aiming for. I'm not looking for a reason for them to exist, I'm citing a reason they should be ignored if you're going for something completely martial.

Plus, if you want your swordsage to be less overtly magical in that sense, then simply don't take the overtly magical maneuvers. It's an option presented to you; it's easy to make a swordsage without even touching those.

Again, it's been said over and over again.

Cúchulainn went fighting as a flaming deformed giant.

Shapechange.

The Fianna could make themselves weightless.

With what martial skill?

Sigurd is an ornithomancer.

So he is a kind of oracle or at least trained in such an art. Where's martial skill in that?

Beowulf didn't care that Grendel's skin and his mother's sword were immovable objects.

Because of his superstrength? No martial skill here.

Ajax fought an army doing giant leaps with a giant weapon.

Same as above. Exaggerated physical abilities are not an indication of martial skill.

Ilya Muromets shrugged off 2 landscape-destroying attacks.

That is getting closer, but it's either a)magical, so we're not dealing with magical attacks, or b)superhuman dodging ability due to martial skill, which is, again, exaggeration.

What is supposedly lacking to tell reality to shut up and screw off?

We're arguing semantics here.

Lack of knowledge of mythology hampering a game about mythology is a problem. Want non-epic stuff? Go GURPS (which I actually do play, for the record), it even actually works way better for that.

Since when does D&D have anything to do with actual mythology? Otherwise, we'd be whistling enemies to oblivion without even the need for arcane magic. And if I wanted non-epic stuff (and there's no need to be supernatural to be epic, re: Ajax), I'd try Alternity or The Riddle of Steel which are far superior to D&D.

And, BTW: at high levels (as "high" as, say, level 9), your list of opponents is mainly composed of guys able to create fire, ice and/or darkness at will, control the weather, create illusions at will, teleport at will, swim through castles, be ethereal whenever desired, communicate imperceptibly over 50 miles, find whatever people nigh-flawlessly as often as needed, and so on. The idea that you'd beat them while "not being supernatural" doesn't even make sense.

Depends on how you became supernatural. Sheer martial skill does NOT make you supernatural. Or at least that's the way I see it. You want to become supernatural? There's about a ton of options available, none of which have to do with improving your martial skills.

Not to mention that, as already pointed, even the human, "normal", warriors presented in the official material survive full-on ambushes by predators several times larger than elephants, and kill creatures more structurally sound than tanks with swords.

Hence why the game is epic in scope and not realistic. That still does not grant me an excuse why martial skills provide supernatural effects.

As far as balance goes in 3.5, I find that the Warblade is to Achilleas as the Fighter is to Don Quixote. If you want a system in which low-key warriors remain relevant, go play earlier editions or something.

Ok, it's gotten tiring by this point, no offense. There's nothing constructive in such kind of posts- if I wanted a system in which warriors actually have a say in game play, I'd go play TROS or Alternity or plenty of other games. That doesn't mean I can't try to improve the situation in D&D with the minimal effort required. Please don't bother posting if you're going to simply suggest I play another game.

Actually, I do. Strike of perfect clarity isn't a good maneuver, and burning blade isn't a bad maneuver. That being having been presented exactly backwards* tells me all I need to know.

*: to be fair, he didn't say war master's charge was crappy. But still.

Ok, to be honest, I did clarify that the categorization of maneuvers had nothing to do with balance and everything to do with fluff. The fact that in the long run what I presented as two examples of good and bad are not well-thought out mechanically has nothing to do with the original purpose of what I wrote.

No, that means his understanding of maneuver balance does not match your own. It could well be that in his experience, Burning Blade has sucked immensely. None of this means that his suggestion is automatically without merit, just that it likely isn't going to match what you want, and thus isn't very helpful for you specifically, which is completely fair.

So, is a fighter who spent all 11 bonus feats in maneuvers more versatile than a warblade? Why, why not, or it's "an opinion" as well? On that track, who wins a fight without equipment, monk or druid? Just opinion too?

Perceptions based on experiences can be wrong, and can betray a weak grasp of the rules.

"In my experience" Shivering Touch isn't broken.
"In my experience" Polymorph isn't broken.
"In my experience" Gate isn't broken.

Yes, in the course of your play, you may not have encountered the flaws of a system. That's not evidence contrary to their existence, only to the myopia of your perception. It's not a matter of condescension, but the collected experience of entire communities of CharOp gurus.

Whether or not these D&D truths apply to your game depends on how you play, but in general, if your single experiences generate a conclusion in direct opposition to those of an entire community, it's likely you're just wrong.

Speaking more directly to the subject, the WEEABOO FIGHTAN MAGIC complaints are more of a knee-jerk reaction than a rational argument.

Note that I never said any of that, nor implied it. All I'm saying is that an assessment of balance does not make a suggested change in mechanics instantly invalid. Suspect, perhaps. Invalid? Not until tested to be such.

That was my only point, not that Fighters>Warblades (not something I believe, btw), not that opinion>fact (both have their place), or any other such topic.

With this, I take my leave, for I think no good will come of this debate. :smallwink:

Again, these are mechanic implications and failed assumptions of the rules on my part. No offense, but I'm not even going to bother with such trivialities. I have no issue with being wrong- you've obviously spent a lot of time dealing with the whole D&D mechanics, much more than I have. But, frankly, it's like practicing Guitar Hero instead of learning to play the guitar. There's no such thing as D&D truth, simply because it's a collection of arbitrary rules with little grasp of reality in all of its forms. Wherever possible and with the minimum fuss necessary, I like to adapt the mechanics to something that is not blaringly unrealistic. If it requires more than that, I don't bother, or I play a more thought-out RPG.

(Side note: While reading Catch's post, it immediately gave off a V aura. Awesome).

I... don't really get this. Is it supposed to be for people who like Tome of Battle's mechanics but not it's fluff? You do realize fluff can be ignored as the DM deems necessary? Well I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I just don't understand the need. As for ToB characters being "Animesque", what do you mean? If you are talking about Martial Arts Comedy or To Be a Master Shonen, then the best way to represent Anime characters is with spells and divine ranks. If you are talking about the billions of Anime that are just D&D ripoffs, you can make a nice argument that all D&D is like Anime. And as far as detective Anime, romance, etc., I don't see it. There is a Wuxia influence, but if's just fluff. To clarify: spell descriptions that don't involve numbers are fluff. The same goes for maneuvers and the like.

And you do realize that's exactly what I did and I presented my thoughts for other DMs of similar mind who wanted a shortcut? I'm not presenting the be-all end-all of ToB approaches, just my approach which I deemed useful. And ToB itself, right in the beginning, page 6, clearly defines the Far Eastern approach and how it was Westernized- as if we need to Westernize eastern martial arts :smallsigh:

Sorry for considering fluff to be more important than mechanics.

He was a half-god. So already divine magic is getting involved.

Where exactly? I don't remember this at all. And the required listings you gave don't imply weightlessness but a very skilled understanding of how not to affect nature. Go see skilled hunters, they don't make a sound (don't break twigs), see a skilled jumper to leap over their own head, ect.

Again, gained not through martial prowess but because he drank the magic elixir, in this case dragon blood. So yeah, magic solves all life's problems

So he was really strong, still nothing too anime like that I can tell. Being strong isn't what I've described earlier.

Enormous spear is complicated since if we go back to the time described an enormous spear could range anywhere from 9 feet to 15 both of which were natural weapons later on in history, and jumping from ship to ship isn't particularly hard considering I've done it. Even easier if rope is involved (which was readily available) or if the ships were stationary and docked (which they were).

Yeah, he was a high powered dude since he was according to legend given super human strength via magic. So once again, magic trumps everything.

Partially it has to do with aesthetics. Again, read, I do not agree with this I am merely giving arguments that I have heard. To me ToB is simply another example of giving goodies and then limiting how they can be used such as vancian magic or rage per day (you can only get really angry once a day, honestly).

Some people link certain naming conventions with anime. For some of them, picking an example, such as Emerald Razor, Steel Wind, Swooping Dragon Strike they have some point in this. Lets be fair here, these sound like pokemon moves. Others, such as Shield Counter, Finishing Move, Hamstring Attack don't have these connotations.

Whether the mechanics justify it or not, this sort of things break immersion.

Pokemon moves :smallbiggrin: That was nice. Seriously though, thank you for presenting my thoughts from a different angle, it helps clarify them. And maybe they do need a name change after all.

First things first:

Having an archive of (good) old WotC threads is awesome.

---

Pretty much every mythic character is half-whatever. Including the "spellcasters". And pretty much every mythic character

actually relied on objects worth noting. Including the "spellcasters". That's because humanity is a tool-using species, and used to ascribed natural phenomena to gods (well, not all have stopped, but further mention of that is off-limits).

While running? Also, what hunters I do know seldom have anything to do with undisturbed hair.

He killed a dragon and drank XP.

Hm. Hello, buster sword. Exclusive to anime.

Both make sense. But I'm willing to bet real money that, should you ever be faced with a Trojan army, you'd call good software to fight for you. :D

A giant gave him strength, yes. Strength that, according to D&D, isn't magic.

Salmon leap. (http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/redbranch.html) That is all.

No offense, but all I see is a certain hostility that I think stems from the fact I called something anime. Or is it something else?

Honestly I'm baffled by your approach to this matter. It's as if you're looking for flaws in what I've presented merely for the sake of doing so, and thus you present arguments that do not hold up merely for the sake of presenting arguments in the first place.

Also, for the Greeks/Romans, everyone had divine power. Seriously, if you did something amazing, you were either descended from a god, blessed by a god, or a god. Pick as many as apply.

This even applies to historical figures; the family of Julius Caesar claimed to be descended from Venus. Many other Romans of interest claimed other divine relations, and Caesar himself was later made a god.

Which explains a lot of exaggerations in earlier myths and legends.

So. Here we have a world (or series of worlds) with a cosmology that includes extradimensional locations, access to potentially free and limitless energy, and demons, angels, aberrations, undead, elementals, and sentient psychic tapeworms that eat your brain before mutating the rest of you into a purple tentacle faced monster. Alchemical items dot the land, scrolls can be had in shops, floating masses of land likely exist, and magic storms are a threat. We have people who, through rigorous training and mental discipline, can learn to control certain aspects of this world through book and tome, crystals, faith in their gods, faith in a lightswitch, singing really well, making pacts with otherworldly beings, cutting holes in reality with sheer willpower alone, just faking it, making gizmos through some indeterminate means, random chance, and just trying really hard.

Yet when the guy who decided to pick up a sword learns to do this to augment his physical prowess, it breaks your immersion?

What is this i dont even...

Yes, he does. But that's because all the things you mentioned before either don't exist in my world (when I'm playing D&D as an RPG and not as a board game) or when they do, they make sense.

Again, you're still not getting it. I should've put it in the first place. I'm not doing this as a general project- it's part of a whole thing to keep things seperate, so when you mix and match, you don't have to worry about having magical powers in a world without magic, like the campaign I'm working on.

Good point. I fixed. I do apologize for going off topic.

This. I don't get this at all. All mythical fighters either had magic, a magic item, or divine intervention. Sword and Board fighters at best were great on the battlefield with other Sword and Board fighters, they didn't slay dragons without one of the above three.

Or, as I said, they had some exaggerated sort of physical power or skill.

Shadowcaster, factotum, ???, ??? ... ?

As long as it's gods (who are spellcasters), or magic items (made by spellcasters), it's OK. Despite the fact that restricting either goes against the source material. Yay.

Who gives a crap about source material? :smallconfused:

Psions and Wilders can conceivably fill that gap, so do Sorcerers. Philosophy clerics can get their powers from a lightswitch if they have a philosophy for it. I suggest "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (which is about a nightlight) for a hymn. I'd forgotten Shadowcasters, though. I can add "stabbing your shadow with a willpower stick" and "saying words" to that list now.

See right above.

P.S. Oh my god, I have created a monster (post). Two, actually.
P.S.2: I'll try to sum it up in another, much much smaller post.

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 08:14 PM

Terazul

2010-01-22, 08:15 PM

Tapping into your bestiality translates like a feral rage, not altering your olfactory organs to make them equal to a dog's.

See now, If I got Track via a feat as normal, would that suddenly grant me a dog's olfactory organs, or would it just be me training to hunt someone down? Why does a stance/method of thinking or acting from my primary school of combat have to suddenly become a metamorphosis instead of being mundane like the first instance is? (And if it's a question of forgetting how to track, it's just a difference of getting into the mindset for it)

I think the reason we're going to have a disagreement is that we have two separate ideas of where the so-called "ok this is too crazy" line is crossed. Which is a problem for this basis of discussion, because we leave the realm of real-world capabilities around level 5 or so. But while everyone else gets to continue onto their fantasy epic levels of ability and strength, the martial characters have to stay behind in that realm of level 5, or get "magic" if they want to do it, apparently, given your response to Lightning Throw. (Even when flavored as skill to begin with, because you refuse to acknowledge anyone ever having a level of skill that high, when it's something we can't comprehend in the first place. We're commoners dude.)

But you don't want them to be magical. But anything that wouldn't be real-world reasonable is magical.

So they're just boned.

Edit: Nother example.

This is due to the abstract nature of combat in D&D, but sometimes, things are over the top (like dealing damage equal to your Concentration check. What? No matter how hard I concentrate, a steel sword will not cut a steel armor. End of story).

So a guy could do a straight up Sunder check to cut through something, but looking for a flaw in armor to deliver a blow is considering "over-the-top" just because it's a maneuver? This is why I'm confused.

Cataphract

2010-01-22, 08:16 PM

In case you didn't read my two bigass posts (and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't), here's a few facts I'd like to point out.

1) This is a pet project to make the three ToB classes strictly martial. Consider them variants. My variant crusader is a holy warrior who only needs his faith and not divine intervention like a paladin, my variant swordsage is a swordsman (or whatever weapon he's wielding) and not some monk with a sword, and my warblade, is well, pretty much the same thing because it was nearly fine in the first place. This is NOT to rebalance the classes or merely reflavor them, and it's not even suggested. That's what I'm aiming for, no magic at all. Live with it.

2) The rules, in my eyes, exist to support the fluff. If the rules contradict the fluff, the rules get changed or ignored. I don't care what's been published, I don't care if so-and-so book says it's this and that, if I think it's stupid (and about 80% of published D&D is), it's not going to exist. I cut and paste as I see fit. This extends to my grasp of the rules- no I don't know them half as well as most of you do, there's no doubt to that. But it's not relevant, because this is only partially a discussion concerning the rules of ToB.

2a) The only rule portion that I think is viable under critique is the Endurance/Stamina system instead of maneuvers readied and expended. I'm welcome to any suggestion to it, why it works, why it doesn't, and even why it makes any, little, or no sense at all, fluff-wise.

These, and any more assumptions are to be added in the original post. Please try to keep them in mind when posting. Thank you, and pardon me for the somewhat rough tone, but I've had to reply to the same handful of things over and over again.

Cataphract

2010-01-22, 08:25 PM

Hmm, I guess now that I understand your goal a little better you did a good job. I commonly alter the fluff considerably in my games, I guess what really baffled me was that someone would need a guide. It seems to me anyways that if people don't like ToB fluff they could make all the same changes you did without your help. But to those who need a poke in the right direction, I suppose this could be useful.

The thing is, this was aimed not at people who use ToB, altered or not, but to those people who wouldn't even bother picking it up to even do this. It's not as much to help people who want to do this, as much as to poke people who had the same problem as I had some time ago.

See now, If I got Track via a feat as normal, would that suddenly grant me a dog's olfactory organs, or would it just be me training to hunt someone down? Why does a stance/method of thinking or acting from my primary school of combat have to suddenly become a metamorphosis instead of being mundane like the first instance is? (And if it's a question of forgetting how to track, it's just a difference of getting into the mindset for it)

This is why:

Scent
This extraordinary ability lets a creature detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell.

A creature with the scent ability can detect opponents by sense of smell, generally within 30 feet. If the opponent is upwind, the range is 60 feet. If it is downwind, the range is 15 feet. Strong scents, such as smoke or rotting garbage, can be detected at twice the ranges noted above. Overpowering scents, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, can be detected at three times these ranges.

The creature detects another creature’s presence but not its specific location. Noting the direction of the scent is a move action. If it moves within 5 feet of the scent’s source, the creature can pinpoint that source.

A creature with the Track feat and the scent ability can follow tracks by smell, making a Wisdom check to find or follow a track. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10. The DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry’s odor is, the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour that the trail is cold, the DC increases by 2. The ability otherwise follows the rules for the Track feat. Creatures tracking by scent ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.

Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.

Water, particularly running water, ruins a trail for air-breathing creatures. Water-breathing creatures that have the scent ability, however, can use it in the water easily.

False, powerful odors can easily mask other scents. The presence of such an odor completely spoils the ability to properly detect or identify creatures, and the base Survival DC to track becomes 20 rather than 10.

You're telling me all that can be done by learning a simple level 1 stance?

While I've heard of cases where experienced hunters learn to use their noses extremely effectively, I doubt that will ever make them as capable as a creature that uses smell as one of its primary senses for its entire life, and already has organs evolved for that purpose.

I think the reason we're going to have a disagreement is that we have two separate ideas of where the so-called "ok this is too crazy" line is crossed. Which is a problem for this basis of discussion, because we leave the realm of real-world capabilities around level 5 or so. But while everyone else gets to continue onto their fantasy epic levels of ability and strength, the martial characters have to stay behind in that realm of level 5, or get "magic" if they want to do it, apparently, given your response to Lightning Throw. (Even when flavored as skill to begin with, because you refuse to acknowledge anyone ever having a level of skill that high, when it's something we can't comprehend in the first place. We're commoners dude.)

But you don't want them to be magical. But anything that wouldn't be real-world reasonable is magical.

So they're just boned.

Ditto on the "crazy line", you hit the spot. But I disagree on the 5-level cap of real world capabilities, as I said. The thing is, having actively trained in martial arts, and seen people with five times my experience, I still haven't seen anybody throw a weapon and have it return, or create fire by flicking their blades. But I've seen some incredibly awesome stuff, nonetheless.

But yeah, we're on a different train, so it's difficult to consider where we want our fluff. Thus, it's best to stop going down that road :smallsmile:

DragoonWraith

2010-01-22, 08:32 PM

Cataphract

2010-01-22, 08:40 PM

I don't understand (at all) the distinction between "fairy-tale" and "anime-ish". You need to define your terms better, because right now you're coming off as exceedingly arbitrary. I'm all for differing opinions, but have a reason for having an opinion. Ajax's incredible, superhuman martial feats are OK, but the Warblade's aren't? Why not? I really am not seeing whatever difference you claim is there.

Arbitrary? Of course it, is, no offense. We have a different mindset, to say the least, thus we perceive things differently. But I can still try to explain:

Fairy tale would be Arabian Nights, or bedtime tales or old legends, where gods and myths and demigods walked the earth.

Anime would be having the power of all the above in the reach of (usually) anybody who just tried really hard.

Which basically means, I have absolutely no idea why on earth you have a problem with Monks. I don't understand that at all. I mean, bravo for consistency, but I don't get it. The mystical warrior is hardly an Eastern-only concept. Nor does it make any sense, to me, that it being Eastern is somehow a problem.

The mystical warrior who beats things up with his bare hands is obviously an eastern-only concept. The closest western analogy would be the knights seeking the grail, most closely represented by a paladin. And it is a problem, because as some other post summed it up, D&D is so mixed up, it's like blending munchkin sets together, where half-elf russian ninja wizards fight alongside half dwarf half cyborg fighter bounty hunters.

And why are Paladins allowed to have Divine backing, but Crusaders aren't? That makes no sense to me. The Crusader is supposed to be a Paladin that actually works. To say "to me the Crusader is supposed to be entirely martial" when it isn't, and then say "I'm annoyed that the Crusader is not entirely martial when it should be", just makes absolutely no sense to me.

It's not SUPPOSED to be, it's how *I* envision it. Really, I apologize for not making it clear in the first place, but that was my intended purpose. I'm making this for a campaign where no divine magic exists.

So, what I'm getting is, you don't like Monks, and therefore don't like Swordsages, and you like Paladins but Crusaders aren't Paladins and so the fact that they are Paladins is a problem. For the former, just ban the class, or change the Sense Magic feature and ban Desert Wind and Shadow Hand, if a lightly-armored martial artist is acceptable. Find a couple of homebrew disciplines (there are a lot of them) that replace them, if you want. For the latter, uhm. Well, I really don't understand what the issue is, so I just can't help you.

Which is exactly what I'm doing, no offense. I'm sorry if my OP came across as "Hey, this is much better than ToB, use it", instead of the intended purpose of "Hey, if you want ToB to be strictly martial instead of pseudo-magical, try this approach".

Was I so unclear on this? Honestly, now.

Drolyt

2010-01-22, 08:42 PM

Serenity

2010-01-22, 08:51 PM

In fairness, it seems like he doesn't have a problem with Warblades.

Re: the '50 kg vs 150 kg' and Beowulf--I may be wrong, but wasn't Grendel a giant monster--at least the size of a D&D Ogre or Troll? That was my impression when I drew the comparison--the proportional size difference is similar. And no, Beowulf wasn't mundane, but then, neither is any example of the 50 kg girl throwing around giant bruisers. In both cases, we have a highly trained and disciplined badass wrestling people larger and seemingly more powerful than they are and coming out on top. Having read your new posts, I understand the position you're coming from with this variant, and I respect it, even if it's not a style I'm interested in. It is, at the least, consistent. But I'd posit that this situation belongs in your 'Outlandish' category at worst, and certainly comes nowhere near the fantastic level you wish to avoid.

hiryuu

2010-01-22, 08:53 PM

You know, like everyone's been saying, and you've been dismissing out of hand, you can just ignore the supernatural maneuvers and move on, kind of like how my group ignores half of the optimization cheese that's possible and ignore pretty much everything post faction-war involving Planescape and lots, lots more, but I don't come on here and say it's a "problem" that Manual of the Planes exists and get irate when people point out that, no, it's not a problem.

If you wanted a world where magic doesn't really exist (well, first we'd have to define what magic is before we go chopping it up and about willy-nilly and saying what it can and can't do, which will vary for everyone, so much so that this topic will generate pages and pages of... oh, wait), then d20/3.5/D&D is probably not your system, since after about the level 5-7 range, everything the characters are doing is pretty much supernatural already.

Tavar

2010-01-22, 09:35 PM

Just to point out; yes, 6th level is the hight of skill, based on what people have achieved. Current day olympic athletes, who train from young ages, can essentially reach the same level of skill as a 6th level character who isn't using magic.

Plus, somethings are even more ridiculous. For instance, archery as a whole. Archers generally couldn't fire more than 6 arrows a minute. That's 1 per 10 seconds. In other words, a first level character can exceed this. It's even worse once you get to 6th level; they're firing 3 shots per 6 seconds (rapid shot), or over 3 times the supposed fastest rate.

Then we have stuff like falling from orbit doesn't equal death, and drown healing and the like, but those are even more obviously artifacts in the rules.

I'd like to clear somthing up though; how is a completely martial character supposed to contribute in play at high level unless he has what are effectively supernatural skills?

Short answer; he can't. The dragon kills him with flame, or tears him up due to his size+natural killing ability. Oh, and spells. Pretty much any high level threat is so much better than a normal man that unless he has supernatural ability, then he can't compete.

Also, why don't you want the crusader to be an analogue with the paladin? The only way they seem to differ in flavor is that the crusader can be alignments other than LG from the start. Seems...odd.

Edit:
Also, if everything that isn't possible that's done by a human isn't supernatural, what is?

DragoonWraith

2010-01-22, 11:22 PM

OK, well, I didn't realize you were also dropping Divine Magic. That's also possible, but I don't think you mentioned that.

Does that mean you intend to keep Arcane Magic? If so... that's a problem. If everyone except Wizards is without magic, then there is absolutely no way a Wizard can play in the same group as anyone else.

If not (and you are getting rid of Arcane Magic), ok, so you have a low-magic/no-magic setting. Why didn't you just say that? That's perfectly reasonable. Just use the Warblade, he fits best. If you really want, the Crusader's not too hard to use, most of his abilities are ambiguous about being supernatural (not Su supernatural, just magic-powered). Sounds like even if perfectly mundane, you're not going to like the Swordsage, so whatever.

That said, you better be really careful about what monsters you use. D&D is "balanced" (to use the term loosely) around magic. Quite a lot of it, in fact. Past level 5, you're going to run into trouble.

Which is why you should look up E6. It will work a lot better for something like this.

Knaight

2010-01-23, 01:07 AM

It's a matter of taste, frankly, and one of the main concerns expressed about the supplement.

The thing is, in most western fantasy tales, no matter how good a fighter is, his martial abilities are never magical in nature. It's pure skill and ability. On the other hand, eastern fantasy, usually represented by anime, has fighting skills which have actual magical or near magical (like a 50 kg girl throwing a 150 kg wrestler around) nature and effects. Hence the dichotomy, and some people (including me) don't like it. ToB clearly reflects such a mentality in many, but not all, of its maneuvers.

I disagree. It IS too anime, as I've explained below- the difference is how much people accept it. Whether or not you rename it and change the fluff, it still does not change that simple fact- you have a martial ability creating a magical effect. Obviously some people don't bother with that- I, and others, do. If not, power to you!

Naturally, this argument again. First thing first, there are lots and lots of characters in western fantasy that go very near magical. Most are in mythology, and may have some connection to the gods. However, look at even the normals in greek mythology. Theseus was able to pull off things just as ridiculous as tossing someone three times your weight. And if you bring in those which are touched by divinity, hello Heracles and Beowulf. And this is without even touching Arthurian myth, which while mostly realistic has people survive things that they really shouldn't a little more often than they have any right too. And while a lot of examples have been pointed out, Theseus wasn't, and is a near perfect example. Not supernatural, beats things up with his bare hands, on the smaller side, and somehow breaks the horn of a giant monster from a position which implies crap leverage, simply by martial skill.

As for anime, it is a medium, not a genre, and does a lot more than just eastern fantasy. Furthermore, eastern fantasy has plenty of cases where the martial types are just martial types. Look at Seirei no Moribito, which actually featured the supernatural. Martial types never get more ridiculous than landing a moderate length fall, in mud, or surviving wounds without help for a bit long. Sure, some are extremely talented, but it never crosses into the supernatural. Furthermore, there are plenty of genres that feature either no or next to no combat anyways. The romance genre is a good example, particularly those set in historical settings, but it is far from the only one.

Cataphract

2010-01-23, 04:19 AM

I guess I still don't get where you are coming from. Thing is, D&D as a whole isn't very consistent as far as flavor goes. Heck, not even the PHB is. There are very few fictional worlds diverse enough to warrant 11 classes, much less the dozens the supplements add. It ends up being a decision between a) Limited character options but a more coherent setting or b) Lots of options but a less coherent setting. If you want the former mass bannings are the only real solution, though you could always try another system.

I'm coming from a place where rules =/= setting. Mainly, the Alternity game, which is far superior to D&D. And I also play several other much better systems too, like TROS and even White Wolf. But I don't find people willing to DM/GM/ST/Whatever such games, so I have to fall back on D&D. So this answers the "why I don't play another system". I do, but it's not really relevant to the conversation, no offense. And yes, mass banning is what I do. My current project will have all non-magical classes (and most low-magic ones made into no-magic ones), psionic classes and incarnum classes, and it all seems to mesh in fine with one another.

In fairness, it seems like he doesn't have a problem with Warblades.

Re: the '50 kg vs 150 kg' and Beowulf--I may be wrong, but wasn't Grendel a giant monster--at least the size of a D&D Ogre or Troll? That was my impression when I drew the comparison--the proportional size difference is similar. And no, Beowulf wasn't mundane, but then, neither is any example of the 50 kg girl throwing around giant bruisers. In both cases, we have a highly trained and disciplined badass wrestling people larger and seemingly more powerful than they are and coming out on top. Having read your new posts, I understand the position you're coming from with this variant, and I respect it, even if it's not a style I'm interested in. It is, at the least, consistent. But I'd posit that this situation belongs in your 'Outlandish' category at worst, and certainly comes nowhere near the fantastic level you wish to avoid.

Beowulf and that 50 kg girl is NOT a highly trained and disciplined badass. It's an example of a person that in the end, is not defined by laws of reality. No 50 kg girl, even if she had trained all her life, can throw around giant bruisers. End of story. It's a matter of plain physics. Throwing people around IS a matter of leverage about 80% of the time, no doubt. I have seen people my size (80 kg) throw around people twice my size with the proper holds and application of pressure, pain (as in I'll twist your hand off pain, not I'll touch you with my secret ki finger pain) and leverage. But there's always a certain limit. Mighty throw is mighty fine, but the Ballista/Comet Throw stuff?

I won't even touch Beowulf and other mythical heroes. Remember mythical is not the same as epic, though they often intermingle. I'd like to see how Ajax (epic) fights Heracles (myth/demigod).

You know, like everyone's been saying, and you've been dismissing out of hand, you can just ignore the supernatural maneuvers and move on, kind of like how my group ignores half of the optimization cheese that's possible and ignore pretty much everything post faction-war involving Planescape and lots, lots more, but I don't come on here and say it's a "problem" that Manual of the Planes exists and get irate when people point out that, no, it's not a problem.

Mate, I just said that this is not intended as a be-all and end-all replacement of ToB for everyone in the world. I specifically stated (albeit very recently, but still before your post) that it's for those people who hate ToB for exactly the same reasons as me, and unlike me, are not willing to give it a try.

If you wanted a world where magic doesn't really exist (well, first we'd have to define what magic is before we go chopping it up and about willy-nilly and saying what it can and can't do, which will vary for everyone, so much so that this topic will generate pages and pages of... oh, wait),

That's totally a matter of preference, so indeed there's no reason to go there.

then d20/3.5/D&D is probably not your system, since after about the level 5-7 range, everything the characters are doing is pretty much supernatural already.

Yes, but it's the system of most of the people willing to run campaigns, and I've made my peace with it a long time ago. That doesn't mean I'll stand around idly.

Just to point out; yes, 6th level is the hight of skill, based on what people have achieved. Current day olympic athletes, who train from young ages, can essentially reach the same level of skill as a 6th level character who isn't using magic.

I'm still not getting the whole "6th level" issue, honestly. Is it some theory proven a long time ago that I'm not familiar with, or some clause somewhere in the source material? I still don't think that a guy training his entire life for war and actually killing people and showing others how to do the same would only be level 6.

Plus, somethings are even more ridiculous. For instance, archery as a whole. Archers generally couldn't fire more than 6 arrows a minute. That's 1 per 10 seconds. In other words, a first level character can exceed this. It's even worse once you get to 6th level; they're firing 3 shots per 6 seconds (rapid shot), or over 3 times the supposed fastest rate.

Hence why D&D is simplistic. Or epic. Depending on your point of view. If I wanted realism, I'd play a game written by people who actually have a grasp of reality. (And I *do*, as I said, when I get the chance).

Then we have stuff like falling from orbit doesn't equal death, and drown healing and the like, but those are even more obviously artifacts in the rules.

Or you can just use Rule 0 and be done with it.

I'd like to clear somthing up though; how is a completely martial character supposed to contribute in play at high level unless he has what are effectively supernatural skills?

Short answer; he can't. The dragon kills him with flame, or tears him up due to his size+natural killing ability. Oh, and spells. Pretty much any high level threat is so much better than a normal man that unless he has supernatural ability, then he can't compete.

First of all, I don't understand why 95% of the time you have to fight monsters. What happened to intrigue, wars, duels at noon etc. What happened to the ever present human(oid) warring? Will everybody you face just be a wizard? Come on, that's silly.

Now, if you DO need to fight monsters, then it should be something monumental, and thus a quest. And thus you can get quest-specific aid. And use your brains for crying out loud. Make up a plan. Etc. Not just waltz up to the monster and say "Hello, my numbers are better, please die".

Also, why don't you want the crusader to be an analogue with the paladin? The only way they seem to differ in flavor is that the crusader can be alignments other than LG from the start. Seems...odd.

Personal taste :smallsmile: Redundancy, at first, and secondly, because in my campaign there are no paladins. Thus I have divine minds (which have faith that creates the necessary drives for psionics) and crusaders, which are warriors powered through faith.

Edit:
Also, if everything that isn't possible that's done by a human isn't supernatural, what is?

Everything is very, very vague. In any case, it's either over the top (movie-stuff), or way over the top (myth-stuff). Or outright magical.

OK, well, I didn't realize you were also dropping Divine Magic. That's also possible, but I don't think you mentioned that.

Does that mean you intend to keep Arcane Magic? If so... that's a problem. If everyone except Wizards is without magic, then there is absolutely no way a Wizard can play in the same group as anyone else.

No, in my campaign, all magic is out. They are both horribly overpowered compared to psionics, and I always wanted to try D&D psionics.

If not (and you are getting rid of Arcane Magic), ok, so you have a low-magic/no-magic setting. Why didn't you just say that? That's perfectly reasonable. Just use the Warblade, he fits best. If you really want, the Crusader's not too hard to use, most of his abilities are ambiguous about being supernatural (not Su supernatural, just magic-powered). Sounds like even if perfectly mundane, you're not going to like the Swordsage, so whatever.

I did say it, it probably got lost somewhere in the huge ass posts noone read. And as I said, I *do* like the swordsage, or at least what I see the swordsage as.

That said, you better be really careful about what monsters you use. D&D is "balanced" (to use the term loosely) around magic. Quite a lot of it, in fact. Past level 5, you're going to run into trouble.

Which is why you should look up E6. It will work a lot better for something like this.

That's indeed a pain in the ass, but we'll live with it. E6? What's that?

Naturally, this argument again. First thing first, there are lots and lots of characters in western fantasy that go very near magical. Most are in mythology, and may have some connection to the gods. However, look at even the normals in greek mythology. Theseus was able to pull off things just as ridiculous as tossing someone three times your weight. And if you bring in those which are touched by divinity, hello Heracles and Beowulf. And this is without even touching Arthurian myth, which while mostly realistic has people survive things that they really shouldn't a little more often than they have any right too. And while a lot of examples have been pointed out, Theseus wasn't, and is a near perfect example. Not supernatural, beats things up with his bare hands, on the smaller side, and somehow breaks the horn of a giant monster from a position which implies crap leverage, simply by martial skill.

Exaggeration. Epic. That kind of stuff. Yes, it's over the top. No, it's not supernatural or doesn't outright break the law of physics. If you get to high levels in D&D, sure, go ahead, do all that stuff. But no need to justify them with magic, you already are teh awesome.

As for anime, it is a medium, not a genre, and does a lot more than just eastern fantasy. Furthermore, eastern fantasy has plenty of cases where the martial types are just martial types. Look at Seirei no Moribito, which actually featured the supernatural. Martial types never get more ridiculous than landing a moderate length fall, in mud, or surviving wounds without help for a bit long. Sure, some are extremely talented, but it never crosses into the supernatural. Furthermore, there are plenty of genres that feature either no or next to no combat anyways. The romance genre is a good example, particularly those set in historical settings, but it is far from the only one.

I am familiar with anime as a whole (though I'm not an avid fan), and of course coining them anime is not the best of terms. Maybe I should just rename it into Normal/Epic/Supernatural maneuvers, and not have to be constantly sniped at by hateful anime fans.

It does incite the same feeling though, but even then it's not anime but the whole eastern mindset that's been transplanted to the west, and well, their bastard offspring is not to my liking.

Latronis

2010-01-23, 04:27 AM

Cataphract

2010-01-23, 04:36 AM

Eastern fantasy doesn't differ that much in content. There's a still a plethora of epic exaggeration to the downright supernatural. 'flying' along the canopy of a bamboo forest, exploding mountains by throwing axes, using unliftable bows, control the weather to obliterate opposing armies.

Yes, the difference is however that in western fantasy, all those effects that transcend epic and enter supernatural either happen from a)a divine source, whether that be direct intervention or being a demigod yourself, b)an arcane source, usually rituals. None of it is made possible through training, no matter how hard. It's the why behind it that bugs me, because I seek consistency.

Much of the tob content is inspired by eastern fantasy.

Which is why a lot of people (like me) do not want to use it despite its potential to enhance your game and give a leg up to martial classes.

Attilargh

2010-01-23, 05:01 AM

I'm still not getting the whole "6th level" issue, honestly. Is it some theory proven a long time ago that I'm not familiar with, or some clause somewhere in the source material?
It's usually based on a simple calculation of "how many ranks do I need to break the world record in [sport X]". For example, the current world record of long jump is 8.95 metres, which is roughly 29 feet, which is a DC 29 Jump check. A character would need a Jump modifier of +9 to have any chance of achieving that. This means that by the rules, a fifth-level character with max ranks in Jump can get very close to the world record when the stars align. Professional athletes with actual Strength modifiers would jump around that mark regularly.

Of course, D&D skills are notoriously bad at representing reality, but I think that's usually how the reasoning goes.

Cataphract

2010-01-23, 05:05 AM

It's usually based on a simple calculation of "how many ranks do I need to break the world record in [sport X]". For example, the current world record of long jump is 8.95 metres, which is roughly 29 feet, which is a DC 29 Jump check. A character would need a Jump modifier of +9 to have any chance of achieving that. This means that by the rules, a fifth-level character with max ranks in Jump can get very close to the world record when the stars align. Professional athletes with actual Strength modifiers would jump around that mark regularly.

Of course, D&D skills are notoriously bad at representing reality, but I think that's usually how the reasoning goes.

Ouch.

Well, D&D is kinda epic in the first place, it's the first assumption you have to make (and the biggest hurdle in my acceptance of the game). If you try to remove that flavor, you are indeed better off with a better game. But that doesn't mean you can't tailor it to your needs, still. And mine (as well as several other people's) need is to not have to ascribe everything to magic.

Attilargh

2010-01-23, 05:10 AM

Ninja'd while editing. Boo.

I missed your question about E6 in the previous post. It's basically a simple D&D variant E6 (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=352719), where leveling up ends at level six to prevent the characters from becoming literally superhuman as a result of the above problem with skills. As a side-effect, you really need to start using your noggin' when fighting dragons, since they can waltz up next to you and say "I have the better numbers, please die", and no matter how many orcs you've killed you really don't have a counterargument. :smallamused:

Cataphract

2010-01-23, 05:17 AM

hiryuu

2010-01-23, 07:47 AM

No, in my campaign, all magic is out. They are both horribly overpowered compared to psionics, and I always wanted to try D&D psionics.

Exaggeration. Epic. That kind of stuff. Yes, it's over the top. No, it's not supernatural or doesn't outright break the law of physics. If you get to high levels in D&D, sure, go ahead, do all that stuff. But no need to justify them with magic, you already are teh awesome.

And mine (as well as several other people's) need is to not have to ascribe everything to magic.

Alright, I think I see the problem.

The problem, I think is that you can't let go of a lot of presuppositions about magic. Really "because you are teh awesome" is exactly the same as saying that you are magical. In a world where magical stuff exists, it is not supernatural. I grew up in a place where everything was considered magical. Everything. Even when you know how it works, it doesn't stop just being "magic." When I was introduced to D&D, the first time I read "dispel magic" I was confused for a while, and then I laughed. To my way of thinking, it was like saying "dispel air and water." It took a few months before I even understood what was going on, that there was a mythic division between "magic" and "not magic," that drinking something like water was somehow fundamentally different from drinking something like dragon's blood because "dragon's blood doesn't exist in the real world," even though to someone in a fantasy world, it would be a perfectly acceptable part of their reality.

Let's try it this way.

Just because you can explain something does not stop it from being magical. For example, I know a man who knows the magic of making lasers, and when he tells people this or explains how it's done, they look at him like he's just summoned a damn dragon. Same with my roommate and how particles can travel through time. We have magic devices that ferry us from place to place, we call them cars. We have people who refuse to use most forms of magic nowadays, we call them Amish and think they're quaint.

Also, this:

But that's because all the things you mentioned before either don't exist in my world (when I'm playing D&D as an RPG and not as a board game) or when they do, they make sense.

Everyone here is playing D&D as an RPG. This sentence implies that if magic is included, that they don't, or that peope don't create theories of magic for their settings in order for it to make sense. It's pretty damn rude, and makes the sentence seem like an insult. Most people here approach D&D as a toolbox and a pile of wood. A random, chaotic mess if you just try to nail it together as-is, but you can dig out the pieces you want and build an awesome coffee table, shelf, or what have you, but if you try to build something that isn't normally made of wood out of it, you have problems and people get confused as to your intent.

Latronis

2010-01-23, 07:56 AM

D&D *HAS* a division between magic and not magic.

hiryuu

2010-01-23, 08:52 AM

D&D *HAS* a division between magic and not magic.

I didn't say that it didn't. I'm trying to say that "I don't like to ascribe something to magic" is a poor statement to use as the crux of your argument of wanting to discard everything magic altogether, and is equivalent to "I don't like to ascribe something to physics," and wanting to discard physics-based explanations of things, because from the perspective of a person in a magical world, magic is a perfectly natural, if amazing, thing.

How about this: imagine a grain of sand. Now add another. And another. Keep adding them. At what point does it start being a pile of sand? It's the same here; at what point do we stop using "awesomeness" and start using "magic." You can't reliably say without determining what is meant by "magic" in the first place, which I'm trying to get across is a completely nebulous idea unless we start defining it, which makes arguing about it pointless, because it is a semantics argument.

Cataphract

2010-01-23, 08:59 AM

Alright, I think I see the problem.

The problem, I think is that you can't let go of a lot of presuppositions about magic. Really "because you are teh awesome" is exactly the same as saying that you are magical. In a world where magical stuff exists, it is not supernatural. I grew up in a place where everything was considered magical. Everything. Even when you know how it works, it doesn't stop just being "magic." When I was introduced to D&D, the first time I read "dispel magic" I was confused for a while, and then I laughed. To my way of thinking, it was like saying "dispel air and water." It took a few months before I even understood what was going on, that there was a mythic division between "magic" and "not magic," that drinking something like water was somehow fundamentally different from drinking something like dragon's blood because "dragon's blood doesn't exist in the real world," even though to someone in a fantasy world, it would be a perfectly acceptable part of their reality.

Let's try it this way.

Just because you can explain something does not stop it from being magical. For example, I know a man who knows the magic of making lasers, and when he tells people this or explains how it's done, they look at him like he's just summoned a damn dragon. Same with my roommate and how particles can travel through time. We have magic devices that ferry us from place to place, we call them cars. We have people who refuse to use most forms of magic nowadays, we call them Amish and think they're quaint.

No, that's science. Science is not about things being explained- it's about using the natural laws to perform certain effects. Magic is about bending or ignoring said natural laws. That, is assuming our non-magical world. In a magical world, there is no real distinction. But *we* need this distinction, so we don't get confused.

Also, this:

Everyone here is playing D&D as an RPG. This sentence implies that if magic is included, that they don't, or that peope don't create theories of magic for their settings in order for it to make sense. It's pretty damn rude, and makes the sentence seem like an insult. Most people here approach D&D as a toolbox and a pile of wood. A random, chaotic mess if you just try to nail it together as-is, but you can dig out the pieces you want and build an awesome coffee table, shelf, or what have you, but if you try to build something that isn't normally made of wood out of it, you have problems and people get confused as to your intent.

No, what I meant is that plenty of people (including some I know) approach D&D as a tactical simulation, and RP is an afterthought. And it's even suggested as one of the ways to play D&D after all, is it not? There's nothing inherently wrong with it, and I do enjoy it from time to time. For these people, rules are important, not fluff.

Drolyt

2010-01-23, 09:41 AM

lesser_minion

2010-01-23, 10:18 AM

Djinn_in_Tonic

2010-01-23, 10:46 AM

No, that's science. Science is not about things being explained- it's about using the natural laws to perform certain effects. Magic is about bending or ignoring said natural laws. That, is assuming our non-magical world. In a magical world, there is no real distinction. But *we* need this distinction, so we don't get confused.

But, in the world of D&D, magic is a natural law. Magic exists, much like gravity exists. Using it would qualify as "using natural laws to perform certain effects."

No, what I meant is that plenty of people (including some I know) approach D&D as a tactical simulation, and RP is an afterthought. And it's even suggested as one of the ways to play D&D after all, is it not? There's nothing inherently wrong with it, and I do enjoy it from time to time. For these people, rules are important, not fluff.

Then why worry about magical vs. non-magical? Honestly, that's all fluff...what it comes down to is that you can hit someone in a special way. One of 4e pure Martial classes (the Rogue), can throw a single dagger and hit everyone in a Burst 3 area. Is that magic, or is he "just that good?" By the rules, he's just that good. In World of Darkness it's possible to soak up all the damage dealt by a two-by-four with a rusty nail in it. Is that magic, or are you "just that good?" I can't think of anyone who'd just shrug that off...

In fact, the two-by-four to the face makes LESS sense to me than the Crusader's healing strikes. In WoD, damage is physical: if I'm hit by a two-by-four w/nail, I should take some damage. Hit Points in D&D are ambiguous: regaining them can mean that, through his resolve and dedication, the presence of a Crusader inspires his allies to ignore injuries that would otherwise fell them. He doesn't have to be magically healing them...the Supernatural text in that maneuver is, quite frankly, fluff. Removing it doesn't really alter the balance much, and suddenly it all makes sense for a martial class.

Remember...Hide in Plain Sight and Evasion make no logical sense either. A rogue in an empty 10x10 foot room can dodge all the damage from a Meteor Swarm that entirely fills the area, and a Ranger can blend into a featureless landscape while under close scrutiny of a dozen guards. Ordinary people just can't do that.

That said, I do understand the angle you're getting it. However, you undermined your own argument by doing several things:

You titled the thread "Tome of Battle Revised," which isn't really what you're doing. You're altering the fundamental concepts, not revising the result.
You included the sentence "several insights about Tome of Battle and how it can be used to make your campaign better as opposed to making it a woefully wonky wuxia world." We're telling you that that's not the case, and your work doesn't really make our campaigns better, just vastly different for a reason that most of use can't see the need for.
You included the following: "The rules, in my eyes, exist to support the fluff. If the rules contradict the fluff, the rules get changed or ignored. I don't care what's been published, I don't care if so-and-so book says it's this and that, if I think it's stupid (and about 80% of published D&D is), it's not going to exist. I cut and paste as I see fit. This extends to my grasp of the rules- no I don't know them half as well as most of you do, there's no doubt to that. But it's not relevant, because this is only partially a discussion concerning the rules of ToB." This causes problems because the rules don't contradict the fluff. They contradict your fluff, and you seem to be unwilling to do what many people are suggesting: alter the rules to fit the fluff. Most of the maneuvers can easily be explained as non-supernatural, but you seem unwilling to do that. I understand you don't seem to think this is the case, but nobody on either side is actually presenting a decent argument.

That said, I'll address your rules.

The only rule portion that I think is viable under critique is the Endurance/Stamina system instead of maneuvers readied and expended. I'm welcome to any suggestion to it, why it works, why it doesn't, and even why it makes any, little, or no sense at all, fluff-wise.

It's not a very strong solution. When I'm in a fight, I don't get tired until AFTER the fight, especially given how quickly most D&D battles are over. And further, as I said earlier, I can't make the same move work every time. If I set it up perfectly, I can get about a 50% success rate on a certain move...which fits with the current system of taking a round to focus, find the weak spot, or test my opponent's guards and responses. The only time I've run close to running out of Endurance is if a fight stretches on for 10+ minutes...that's 100 rounds for reference...and no D&D fight that doesn't involve an army lasts that long.

Additionally, your system ruins the careful balance. Swordsages can now fight forever, while Warblades, the old "rapid refresh" class, take forever to recharge their maneuvers. You've also really weakened the classes by drastically reducing the number of level-appropriate maneuver they can use before becoming a sub-par fighter. If I use 2-3 9th level maneuvers and there are still foes standing, I'm suddenly worthless. That's not good balance, especially if the Swordsage is still swinging for another 3-4 rounds.

Fail

2010-01-23, 11:04 AM

The problem, I think is that you can't let go of a lot of presuppositions about magic. Really "because you are teh awesome" is exactly the same as saying that you are magical. In a world where magical stuff exists, it is not supernatural. I grew up in a place where everything was considered magical. Everything. Even when you know how it works, it doesn't stop just being "magic." When I was introduced to D&D, the first time I read "dispel magic" I was confused for a while, and then I laughed. To my way of thinking, it was like saying "dispel air and water." It took a few months before I even understood what was going on, that there was a mythic division between "magic" and "not magic," that drinking something like water was somehow fundamentally different from drinking something like dragon's blood because "dragon's blood doesn't exist in the real world," even though to someone in a fantasy world, it would be a perfectly acceptable part of their reality.

Let's try it this way.

Just because you can explain something does not stop it from being magical. For example, I know a man who knows the magic of making lasers, and when he tells people this or explains how it's done, they look at him like he's just summoned a damn dragon. Same with my roommate and how particles can travel through time. We have magic devices that ferry us from place to place, we call them cars. We have people who refuse to use most forms of magic nowadays, we call them Amish and think they're quaint.Awesome. And it seems your birthplace fellows have better thinking than most modern European-descended people. While I know there's lots of places such as where you grew up, may I ask which specifically?

---

As for the OP:

1) the fluff fails to grasp that no one in D&D is remotely realistic. No, not even vaguely, everyone tells nearly everything about "humans" and "physics" to screw off. Among other things it fails to grasp, as shown by other posters.

2) the crunch betrays a very weak grasp of D&D balance, such that I'd advise against messing with any rules before learning more.

3) I actually sympathize with the difficulty to find non-D&D players in some areas, but it doesn't make one not trying to square the circle. Go read GURPS (it seriously has detailed sourcebooks about realistic European fighting, to start) and teach people that. Done, you have the exact game you want. And, I repeat, I play it. When it fits.

---

Also:

D&D *HAS* a division between sucking and not sucking.I know. It's not even consistent, for starters, and it creates a category of subhumans who can't even do anything when 3 illithids, 2 gelugons, 1 hamatula and 1 cornugon show up. For the record, this is an encounter equal in power to a level 14 4-person party. I'd like to see "people without supernatural stuff" deal with it.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2010-01-23, 11:12 AM

I know. It's not even consistent, for starters, and it creates a category of subhumans who can't even do anything when 3 illithids, 2 gelugons, 1 hamatula and 1 cornugon show up. For the record, this is an encounter equal in power to a level 14 4-person party. I'd like to see "people without supernatural stuff" deal with it.

I'll be on hand with a mop to clean the Fighter off the walls...

Roderick_BR

2010-01-23, 12:44 PM

The distinction in D&D is between "like spells" (Sp), "like psionics" (Ps), "sort-of like spells" (Su), and "very unlike spells" (Ex). None of those abilities necessarily obeys real-world physics, they obey D&D physics.
I guess that "very unlike spells"(Ex) is what non-casters should gain at higher level. They don't work like magic, with sudden and powerful effects, but at least should be able to do things that "normal" people can't. The Rogue's Ex abilities are a good example. None of what he does is magical in nature, but he gets some "super cool" abilities, due to sheer awesomeness.

If I use 2-3 9th level maneuvers and there are still foes standing, I'm suddenly worthless. That's not good balance, especially if the Swordsage is still swinging for another 3-4 rounds.
This is why I suggest a point and high cost system. When a battle start with few and powerful foes, you'll want to spend your most powerful moves as soon as the battle starts. If there's several mooks around, you may want to first deal with them, using weaker and less costly moves, in hopes that you may wipe them, and still have some points left, or at least enough that you don't need to take too long to replenish points enough to use a stronger move.

Jane_Smith

2010-01-23, 01:55 PM

Now now children, cant we all agree to disagree?

People like thinking extrordinary feats of skill are magical. While I am not one of those people, and while I may think people who beleive that are a bit slow in the head, meh, its their opinion. Considering the contraversy this thread has spawned over the subject - wouldnt it just be easier to focus on what this thread was originally about and help the maker of this thread make his homebrew based on -his- opinions? all I have seen for the last 3 pages is fighting over "WHY SHOULDNT FIGHTERS HAVE MAGIC" , "CAUSE THEIR FIGHTERS!" and "NO EXCUSE!" It gets a bit boring after the last 50 posts. :smallamused:

Serenity

2010-01-23, 03:21 PM

Drolyt

2010-01-23, 04:42 PM

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding my point in the small vs. large argument. It doesn't matter that it's physically impossible; I never argued that it was. My arhument is that Western fantasy, just as much as Eastern fantasy, contains people beating up/wrestling much larger foes, and that in both cases, it is not intended to be seen as the result of magic, but because they are Just That Good. It is purely martial, merely taken to nigh-inhuman extremes--just like the requirements for joining the Fianna Fail provided.

I understand your aversion to Swordsages creating fireballs or walking on air; that's fine, even if I disagree. But putting the Setting Sun throws in that same category strikes me as inconsistent.

What I don't get is how that is different from magic. Why does a Wizard have to have some nonsensical mystical explanation for his powers, when Goku can blow up planets because "he is just that good". Why do Clerics need divine intervention to heal people when Batman can breath in space just because? Seriously, there is no difference. Would it be any different if Goku shot fireballs instead of energy blasts? Psionics does a slightly better job of this, in that it doesn't try to hand wave your abilities by talking about the arcane and divine like they are somehow separate from nature, your mind is simply powerful enough to affect reality.

Tavar

2010-01-23, 04:45 PM

Umm... the ToB maneuvers that do that are magic, though. And Goku isn't a martial character so much as a twinked out Cleric or something.

What's your argument?

Yuki Akuma

2010-01-23, 04:46 PM

Psionics does a slightly better job of this, in that it doesn't try to hand wave your abilities by talking about the arcane and divine like they are somehow separate from nature, your mind is simply powerful enough to affect reality.

Except when your psionic powers come from a god, a belief in a concept, or another plane of existence.

Just like magic!

Drolyt

2010-01-23, 04:51 PM

Umm... the ToB maneuvers that do that are magic, though. And Goku isn't a martial character so much as a twinked out Cleric or something.

What's your argument?

Goku's powers aren't treated as somehow abnormal, but the normal way the setting works. The same goes for almost all Anime that involves what seems to us supernatural abilities. I don't understand why D&D treats it differently. I have no problem with people who want to play D&D their own way, I just don't see how unrealistic actions that are just because, like a Fighter being able to survive a huge fall or shoot 50 arrows a minute, are somehow different from unrealistic actions that are handwaved as coming from a deity or involving some kind of magical weave.

Boci

2010-01-23, 04:56 PM

I just don't see how unrealistic actions that are just because, like a Fighter being able to survive a huge fall or shoot 50 arrows a minute, are somehow different from unrealistic actions that are handwaved as coming from a deity or involving some kind of magical weave.

Because the two fighter abilities you listed are exspanding on what is possible. I can fire 10 arrows per minute, but I cannot do anything remotly resembling a first level spell.

There are conutless examples of people in real life who can do things that fit a 1st level fighter, but hardly any that fit a 1st level wizard.

Thrice Dead Cat

2010-01-23, 04:58 PM

Boci

2010-01-23, 05:04 PM

That's a lie. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/jump.htm)

I'll believe you once you show me someone who can jump well, but only after obliterating a pair of grasshoper legs. I've certainly never heard of such a thing.

Drolyt

2010-01-23, 05:21 PM

Because the two fighter abilities you listed are exspanding on what is possible. I can fire 10 arrows per minute, but I cannot do anything remotly resembling a first level spell.

There are conutless examples of people in real life who can do things that fit a 1st level fighter, but hardly any that fit a 1st level wizard.

You can fire ten arrows per minute? As in accurately and with full force, and using a period bow rather than a modern one? That is actually pretty darn impressive. As for doing something that resembles a spell, a large number of spells are analogous to modern technology. Just think of magic as D&D's version of science (after all, Wizards are supposed to be bookish types).

Thrice Dead Cat

2010-01-23, 05:22 PM

I'll believe you once you show me someone who can jump well, but only after obliterating a pair of grasshoper legs. I've certainly never heard of such a thing.

Less grasshopper legs and more a sudden burst of energy. The human body generally has safe guards in place to prevent the full use of its muscles. Get enough adrenaline pumping and people can overcome those safe guards, preforming otherwise impossible feats.

Arbitrarious

2010-01-23, 07:11 PM

I'm going to have to agree to disagree. There are magical disciplines and I love them. Diamond Mind seems mystical, but not magic. I could see someone doing any maneuver from the discipline without having to resort to magic. Insightful strike? The attackers gathers all his focus to perform an act he physically couldn't do. Like breaking a board. Once you learn to to focus on the follow through and not worry about the actual hit you can do it.

http://www.wikihow.com/Break-Boards-with-Your-Bare-Hands

It's not magic, it's simply applying your focus to do something that you phyically couldn't do as easily.

That being said...

What is too magical for you? Start at the top and think about the most impressive things you think a class should be able to do and work your way down. Give us an idea of scope.

strawberryman

2010-01-23, 07:35 PM

Drolyt

2010-01-23, 07:45 PM

Wait.

There was something wrong with ToB to begin with? That's news to me. I know it was contested, but that's life. Some people like it, some people don't. But I've seen plenty workarounds to people not wanting their campaigns "anime-esque" or "too magical" in this thread alone. Just don't use those maneuvers. Or reflavor them. I see no need for a whole new rule, honestly, but that's me.

Hey, not all scientists are bookish types. That's profiling. And profiling is wrong. :smalltongue:

((Seriously, though, I think that is a fairly good metaphor.))

The way I see it, Wizards are the Scientists of the D&D universe. What they do is no different from what the engineers do in Sci-Fi shows. Think of casting spells as reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. Sorcerers are people who got Touched by Vorlons or something. Dragons aren't so much scientists as forces of nature compiled into living beings. This analogy doesn't work with Bards. But you get the idea. Scientists and engineers use their knowledge of the universe to create spectacular effects with modern technology; Arcane Spellcasters do the same thing and call it magic. Edit: By the way, I'm a Math Major. I think stereotyping scientists is fair game for someone of my chosen profession.

Shpadoinkle

2010-01-23, 07:47 PM

This analogy doesn't work with Bards.

Bards are Dilbert.

Fail

2010-01-23, 08:39 PM

People like thinking extraordinary feats of skill are magical. While I am not one of those people, and while I may think people who believe that are a bit slow in the head, meh, its their opinion. Yeah, sure. "Magic"/"not magic" is, you know, a myth, historically used by Eurocentric retards to feel good about genocide. :D

Because the two fighter abilities you listed are expanding on what is possible. I can fire 10 arrows per minute, but I cannot do anything remotely resembling a first level spell.

There are countless examples of people in real life who can do things that fit a 1st level fighter, but hardly any that fit a 1st level wizard.If you can't block a door, comprehend languages, find hidden doors, befriend people, disguise yourself, "throw" your voice, cause fear, break a fall, or jump, well, there's plenty of people that can, quite possible even some people that can do all of them.

There was something wrong with ToB to begin with?Yes. Various balance and game design problems. None of which was ever tackled in this thread. :(

Drolyt

2010-01-23, 08:54 PM

Yes. Various balance and game design problems. None of which was ever tackled in this thread. :(

For starters the strange way new maneuvers are gained. Specifically, the fact that a Warblade 8/Crusader 1 is actually different than Warblade 4/Crusader 1/Warblade 4. That should never happen. Max maneuver level known should be a product of class level, not your freaking character level.

DragoonWraith

2010-01-23, 09:08 PM

For starters the strange way new maneuvers are gained. Specifically, the fact that a Warblade 8/Crusader 1 is actually different than Warblade 4/Crusader 1/Warblade 4. That should never happen. Max maneuver level known should be a product of class level, not your freaking character level.
Absolutely, positively, completely disagree. That is exactly what Tome of Battle did that was so right. The IL rules are easily the best part of the entire book, and should have been how all such things were done from the get-go.

In general - what balance and game design problems? IHS is poorly worded and White Raven Tactics is broken, and no one should attempt to run an Arcane Swordsage without actually designing a spell list (rather than just giving them any spells from those schools), but beyond that the book is exceedingly well balanced and designed.

Fail

2010-01-23, 09:25 PM

Absolutely, positively, completely disagree. That is exactly what Tome of Battle did that was so right. The IL rules are easily the best part of the entire book, and should have been how all such things were done from the get-go.

In general - what balance and game design problems? IHS is poorly worded and White Raven Tactics is broken, and no one should attempt to run an Arcane Swordsage without actually designing a spell list (rather than just giving them any spells from those schools), but beyond that the book is exceedingly well balanced and designed.1) the exact order in which you take your levels matters. That's crap.

2) maneuvers don't scale. At all.

3) as a consequence of 2), a lot of space is wasted with duplicate maneuvers.

4) actually good multiclass rules would entail the base classes having class features every level, and then just base maneuver learning on character level.

5) interstyle imbalance is rampant. Seriously, compare Desert Wind to White Raven.

I likely forgot a couple.

JoshuaZ

2010-01-23, 09:35 PM

1) the exact order in which you take your levels matters. That's crap.

Really? If I tried to multiclass normally this will matter. The feats I can have access to from Wiz 5/Fighter 5 aren't going to look very similar to those I can get from Fighter 5 /Wiz 5 or from Wiz 1/Fighter 5 /Wiz 4.

2) maneuvers don't scale. At all.

I don't see how this is a balance issue. You get more maneuvers and for many disciplines maneuvers of higher levels effectively replace the lower level versions. Stances also scale pretty well.

3) as a consequence of 2), a lot of space is wasted with duplicate maneuvers.

If one of the primary complaints is wasted space this doesn't seem like a serious set of objections. Now, if you want to see an example of real wasted space go take a look at the feat section of Complete Psionic.

4) actually good multiclass rules would entail the base classes having class features every level, and then just base maneuver learning on character level.

Why? I can see how that would have some advantages but I don't see any reason that any "actually good" rule would require that.

5) interstyle imbalance is rampant. Seriously, compare Desert Wind to White Raven.

Eh. There are balance issues here but they are comparatively small. No matter what disciplines you use, you are still going to outshine a fighter and still likely not manage well compared to a straight cleric or archivist with minimal optimization. In contrast, in a party emphasizing ToB classes, no matter what disciplines you emphasize, the overall shining level isn't going to be that different.

Fail

2010-01-23, 09:37 PM

Various balance and game design problems."And" often implies the 2 things it connects being distinct from each other.

Boci

2010-01-23, 09:39 PM

If you can't block a door, comprehend languages, find hidden doors, befriend people, disguise yourself, "throw" your voice, cause fear, break a fall, or jump, well, there's plenty of people that can, quite possible even some people that can do all of them.

In 3.5 second by speaking some arcaic words and making some hand gestures?

Less grasshopper legs and more a sudden burst of energy. The human body generally has safe guards in place to prevent the full use of its muscles. Get enough adrenaline pumping and people can overcome those safe guards, preforming otherwise impossible feats.

Thats a maneuver, not spell, because adrenaline works whether you've cut your tongue out or not, but in D&D you need the silent spell feat or a strong voice to cast a spell.

"And" often implies the 2 things it connects being distinct from each other.

So your saying the game of 3.5 D&D is flawed? Most people know that. Why did you mention it on a ToB thread?

Fail

2010-01-23, 09:59 PM

In 3.5 second by speaking some archaic words and making some hand gestures?Well, I forgot to say: magic in D&D actually (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireball.htm) is (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/lightningBolt.htm) science (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm).

So your saying the game of 3.5 D&D is flawed? Most people know that. Why did you mention it on a ToB thread?I dispute the part I bolded. Moreover, because this thread pointed non-flaws while ignoring flaws.

Tavar

2010-01-23, 10:18 PM

1) the exact order in which you take your levels matters. That's crap.
Umm..why shouldn't they matter? And this is hardly new. I haven't seen a class based leveling system yet where this wasn't the case.

2) maneuvers don't scale. At all.
Many actually do, and many don't need to. Yeah, Emerald Strike never gets better, but that's because it's pretty damn good no matter what level you are. Haste doesn't scale either, and it's one of the best buff in 3.5.

Plus, I'm not sure that they should scale.

3) as a consequence of 2), a lot of space is wasted with duplicate maneuvers.
Not too sure about that. Yeah, there are some duplicate maneuvers, but it's hardly alot of space.

4) actually good multiclass rules would entail the base classes having class features every level, and then just base maneuver learning on character level.
Huh? What do you mean here? Why is this necessary, or even good?

5) interstyle imbalance is rampant. Seriously, compare Desert Wind to White Raven.
Yeah, desert wind is the weakest school, but it's still decent. Not anything like the disparity of balance between the monk and the barbarian, much less the caster classes.

Fail

2010-01-23, 10:53 PM

Umm..why shouldn't they matter? And this is hardly new. I haven't seen a class based leveling system yet where this wasn't the case.Essentially, because rogue 1/fighter 1 >>>>> fighter 1/rogue 1. And especially in more convoluted cases like ToB, people can fail to notice.

Many actually do, and many don't need to. Yeah, Emerald Strike never gets better, but that's because it's pretty damn good no matter what level you are. Haste doesn't scale either, and it's one of the best buff in 3.5.Haste is "one extra unit of kinda-level-appropriate damage per stationary round" at any level. Lots of maneuvers go from "kinda-level-appropriate damage/DC" to "Who cares?".

Plus, I'm not sure that they should scale.Lemme tell you: psionics is awesome. And no, ToB didn't need PPs to be good - it just needed whatever you picked at level 1 still be useful at 20.

Not too sure about that. Yeah, there are some duplicate maneuvers, but it's hardly a lot of space."A lot" is subjective, yes. That said, it was late enough in 3.5 that D&D design knowledge has evolved (even if by non-official sources) where any wasted space can be blamed on gross incompetence or gross profiteering (per-word payment, book prices).

Huh? What do you mean here? Why is this necessary, or even good?That'd have you picking balanced maneuvers with any class combination at all, and still give you perfectly legitimate reasons to go single-classed initiator.

Yeah, desert wind is the weakest school, but it's still decent. Not anything like the disparity of balance between the monk and the barbarian, much less the caster classes.Again, D&D design moved beyond the monk - it's not even a parameter. Being mostly composed of Desert Wind-like stuff leaves one largely useless while being composed of White Raven-like stuff (if ToB had much of it outside of White Raven itself ...), barring some obvious brokeness, would leave one actually comparable to spellcasters and CR guidelines without optimization effort, which's how things ought to be.

Tavar

2010-01-23, 11:13 PM

Essentially, because rogue 1/fighter 1 >>>>> fighter 1/rogue 1. And especially in more convoluted cases like ToB, people can fail to notice.
Again, why shouldn't they matter? And again, I haven't seen a class based leveling system yet where this wasn't the case. Can you provide an example? Otherwise, it sounds like your real issue is with a class based system that allows multiclassing.

Haste is "one extra unit of kinda-level-appropriate damage per stationary round" at any level. Lots of maneuvers go from "kinda-level-appropriate damage/DC" to "Who cares?".

Lemme tell you: psionics is awesome. And no, ToB didn't need PPs to be good - it just needed whatever you picked at level 1 still be useful at 20.
Yeah, I know psionics is awesome. Still doesn't give a reason why non-scaling is an issue; ToB characters get more maneuvers than they can have readied, and can exchange old maneuvers for new ones. And for most maneuvers, it's not the damage by the extra abilities; ignoring dr/hardness, concentration in place of saves, etc. Why is this a flaw in the system?

I mean, I can easily see a character using 1st level maneuvers in higher levels. Hell, I've played some myself. Yeah, not that many, but that's true for psionics as well.

That'd have you picking balanced maneuvers with any class combination at all, and still give you perfectly legitimate reasons to go single-classed initiator.
How would this work? Seriously, it sounds like what you really want is a system which simply doesn't allow multiclassing at all, in which case 3.5 is probably a bad idea.

Again, D&D design moved beyond the monk - it's not even a parameter. Being mostly composed of Desert Wind-like stuff leaves one largely useless while being composed of White Raven-like stuff (if ToB had much of it outside of White Raven itself ...), barring some obvious brokeness, would leave one actually comparable to spellcasters and CR guidelines without optimization effort, which's how things ought to be.
Umm...White Rave is actually very party dependent. If it's not a melee heavy group, it rapidly loses power. Plus, the split between every school except Desert Wind is small enough that you can be effective if you focus on any one of them. Desert Wind is weaker, due in a large part to resistances, but even it can be effective in situations where it isn't simply negated.

Knaight

2010-01-24, 12:21 AM

Desert Wind does have some good stuff, but it should be weaker than White Raven. After all, it is a Swordsage school, not a Warblade school, and the Swordsage gets a lot more manuevers, meaning situationally useful stuff is better. And some of the stances are amazing in the right context, not to mention how good it gets if you are suddenly fighting crowds.

Really, once you consider the classes involved, the maneuvers are fairly well balanced. Desert wind is a bit behind, but everything else has its place. Tiger Claw and Diamond Mind are much better than White Raven when you are in a duel situation and need to drop someone now, Devoted Spirit and Stone Dragon are better than most others at holding off crowds, and White Raven turns amazing if you ever have troops to lead, Shadow Hand is by far the best at assassination(followed by Diamond Mind), and Setting Sun is very useful at maintaining distance.

Roderick_BR

2010-01-24, 01:52 AM

For starters the strange way new maneuvers are gained. Specifically, the fact that a Warblade 8/Crusader 1 is actually different than Warblade 4/Crusader 1/Warblade 4. That should never happen. Max maneuver level known should be a product of class level, not your freaking character level.
I kinda agree. It would avoid making the class be "dippable", and encourage a player going full class.

However, their intention was to make multiclass more playable, and also to avoid the issue casters have, that only them can do their thing, while martial maneuvers are accessible to all.

Also, you only gain full initiation level progression to the maneuvers that you gain in your martial classes. So, a warblade 2/crusader 2, have the maneuvers known/ready of a warblade 2, and a crusader 2. Yes, you are effectivelly a 3th level initiator for each class, and can even learn 2nd level maneuvers, but the number of maneuvers you have in each class, plus the slower progression (as a pure warblade 4 or a pure crusader 4 is only 1 level shy from gaining 3rd level maneuvers, while you are 2 levels from it, and initiating as 4th level instead of 3rd) is used to balance it.

Knaight

2010-01-24, 02:34 AM

I kinda agree. It would avoid making the class be "dippable", and encourage a player going full class.

The thing is, the higher level abilities require lower level abilities, so even if you get a high initiator level, you either have to take a significant dip, or waste a lot of feats on martial study to get good real maneuvers, or get the crappy martial study version of maneuvers. What it allows elegantly is multiclassing between the martial adepts, or dipping into other classes, ie hitting fighter 2 for feats, or monk 2 for evasion and saves.

Golden-Esque

2010-01-24, 02:38 AM

1) the exact order in which you take your levels matters. That's crap.

Meh, its all Min/Maxing to me.

2) maneuvers don't scale. At all.

Some maneuvers were never designed to scale. Just like with Sorcerers and Bards dropping a spell for a new one every 4 levels, Martial Adepts have the same concept. You can take the new version of a strike, drop the old one, and replace it with a new maneuver with a level up to your Max Maneuver level.

3) as a consequence of 2), a lot of space is wasted with duplicate maneuvers.

See my Response to #2 as why you're misguided :).

4) actually good multiclass rules would entail the base classes having class features every level, and then just base maneuver learning on character level.

I'm afraid I don't understand your argument. Can you reiterate it for me?

5) interstyle imbalance is rampant. Seriously, compare Desert Wind to White Raven.

They're two disciplines designed to do two heavily different things. Its like comparing Lesser Acid Orb to Ray of Enfeeblement or whatever. White Raven provides MASSIVE buffs to other Martial Characters, while Desert Wind is most focused on massive damage.

Umm... the ToB maneuvers that do that are magic, though. And Goku isn't a martial character so much as a twinked out Cleric or something.

The book actually goes out of its way to confirm that no ability in the book is magical. There's actually several lines referring to Spell Resistance and stuff. Its like saying a krenshar's ability to pull back its facial skin and scare the jeebus out of you is magical; its not, its supernatural.

And I was a pretty big fan of Dragonball Z back in the day, and I can conform for you that Goku was never a Cleric. I mean, come on. He NEVER prayed for any of his powers or abilities; he trained his ass off for them. If anything, he's a tricked out Monk. Think of it this way; it takes a total of 2 and a half hours worth of episodes for a planet to explode, when all the characters in the series CLEARLY say it all happens in 5 minutes in the show. Can you IMAGINE how long an hour of prayer would take in Dragonball Z would take?

"Coming up next time, on Dragonball Z! Goku continues his one hour preparation to read his spells while Krillian and Gohan stare at a foe whose very WINK can severe every artery in their body. The exciting praying continues for the seventh episode in a row on DRAGON BALL Z!!!!!!!"

... I'll pass on that show, thanks :P.

Latronis

2010-01-24, 02:50 AM

I'm afraid I don't understand your argument. Can you reiterate it for me?

You gain a level and get your class ability that scales based on your character level\HD.

Then you gain a new level and pick the class to level up in gaining that class ability which scales on character level\HD. Be it 2nd level of the previous class or the first of another.

The book actually goes out of its way to confirm that no ability in the book is magical. There's actually several lines referring to Spell Resistance and stuff. Its like saying a krenshar's ability to pull back its facial skin and scare the jeebus out of you is magical; its not, its supernatural.

it's not like casting a spell.

They even go and call it blade magic.

Supernatural = magic. (hence not working in anti-magic fields and the like)

Supernatural =\= casting a spell.

And I was a pretty big fan of Dragonball Z back in the day, and I can conform for you that Goku was never a Cleric. I mean, come on. He NEVER prayed for any of his powers or abilities; he trained his ass off for them. If anything, he's a tricked out Monk. Think of it this way; it takes a total of 2 and a half hours worth of episodes for a planet to explode, when all the characters in the series CLEARLY say it all happens in 5 minutes in the show. Can you IMAGINE how long an hour of prayer would take in Dragonball Z would take?

"Coming up next time, on Dragonball Z! Goku continues his one hour preparation to read his spells while Krillian and Gohan stare at a foe whose very WINK can severe every artery in their body. The exciting praying continues for the seventh episode in a row on DRAGON BALL Z!!!!!!!"

... I'll pass on that show, thanks :P.

So in other words, you spend a week watching him chant instead of drawing in energy. There's no difference you still only get the see the bang once a week

Cataphract

2010-01-24, 08:19 AM

First, something I want to take off my chest:

Could you people stop telling me what to go and do :smallsigh: I've been playing RPGs well over a decade, played around half a dozen different systems regularly, gave a shot at twice as much, and read the core books of at least thirty different RPGs (not even counting wargames). If I'm still here it's not because I don't know about other games.

Thank you for staying with me. Now, let's please continue the discussion.

How is magic about bending or ignoring natural laws? In a D&D setting magic is natural, and it follows all the natural laws, they are just different from the real world. If a dragon showed up in London and started breathing fire and casting spells nobody (at least not scientists) would call it "magic", they would try to figure out what the freak is going on. They would find rules. Cause that's all science is, describing the rules that the universe seems to operate on, no matter how arbitrary. Those rules are different in D&D. But it isn't supernatural, because in the D&D world dragons breathing fire is perfectly normal. Yes I know D&D makes a distinction between extraordinary and supernatural. This is stupid, and its just a convention to help us understand the setting a little better by saying "this stuff is just like the real world, but this stuff is different!". It doesn't work because half of the Extraordinary abilities might as well be supernatural. The distinction is arbitrary. At any rate that's just my rant, you are free to play your game however you want and I have no problem with it. Though if you want a tactical simulation maybe you should play a Wargame? Actually there are some pretty neat boardgames that are essentially D&D minus the roleplaying, you could check those out too.

I realized also something else- magic might be "natural", but it is governed by a different set of rules (hence AMF). It's based on certain principles and rules that can be cancelled, unlike normal rules. So it's not exactly normal per se, it's somewhat different. Hence, even in D&D it's different, and it makes sense.

Err.... what? Science has nothing to do with "using the natural laws to perform certain effects". It has everything to do with figuring out what those laws are, and working out why they exist.

The distinction in D&D is between "like spells" (Sp), "like psionics" (Ps), "sort-of like spells" (Su), and "very unlike spells" (Ex). None of those abilities necessarily obeys real-world physics, they obey D&D physics.

Fluff is important either way. It might be less important in a "tactical simulation" but it isn't irrelevant.

You're quite right, that's technology. Science is what you said. But in D&D, magic is both science and technology.

In my book at least, Sp is spells differently cast, PS is psionics differently cast, Su has a magical or psionic background, and Ex has nothing to do about magic and is supposedly normal (even if, usually, exaggerated because D&D =/= real world.

Truth be told, to those people that see it as a tactical simulation, fluff is almost irrelevant. But we're both generalising here, and only to arrive in a useless result.

But, in the world of D&D, magic is a natural law. Magic exists, much like gravity exists. Using it would qualify as "using natural laws to perform certain effects."

Yes, but it's a slightly different set of rules. It's actually an additional set of natural laws, instead of being integrated to "reality", and thus this is why access to them can be cut off.

Then why worry about magical vs. non-magical? Honestly, that's all fluff...what it comes down to is that you can hit someone in a special way. One of 4e pure Martial classes (the Rogue), can throw a single dagger and hit everyone in a Burst 3 area. Is that magic, or is he "just that good?" By the rules, he's just that good. In World of Darkness it's possible to soak up all the damage dealt by a two-by-four with a rusty nail in it. Is that magic, or are you "just that good?" I can't think of anyone who'd just shrug that off...

It seems you're one of the people who don't think fluff is that important. Like I said, different mindset.

(WoD: I assume you mean that bludgeoning damage can be soaked by normal humans (not slashing/piercing damage), picture Arnold. Then picture hitting him with a two by four, right in the arm, between elbow and shoulder. Tell me if he'll be meaningfully damaged in any way.)

In fact, the two-by-four to the face makes LESS sense to me than the Crusader's healing strikes. In WoD, damage is physical: if I'm hit by a two-by-four w/nail, I should take some damage. Hit Points in D&D are ambiguous: regaining them can mean that, through his resolve and dedication, the presence of a Crusader inspires his allies to ignore injuries that would otherwise fell them. He doesn't have to be magically healing them...the Supernatural text in that maneuver is, quite frankly, fluff. Removing it doesn't really alter the balance much, and suddenly it all makes sense for a martial class.

Remember...Hide in Plain Sight and Evasion make no logical sense either. A rogue in an empty 10x10 foot room can dodge all the damage from a Meteor Swarm that entirely fills the area, and a Ranger can blend into a featureless landscape while under close scrutiny of a dozen guards. Ordinary people just can't do that.

Which is pretty similar to what Ajax is doing etc, from the previous examples. Not normally done, but it can be done in epics, and nothing to do with magic.

That said, I do understand the angle you're getting it. However, you undermined your own argument by doing several things:

Yes, I found that out much to my great dismay.

You titled the thread "Tome of Battle Revised," which isn't really what you're doing. You're altering the fundamental concepts, not revising the result.
You included the sentence "several insights about Tome of Battle and how it can be used to make your campaign better as opposed to making it a woefully wonky wuxia world." We're telling you that that's not the case, and your work doesn't really make our campaigns better, just vastly different for a reason that most of use can't see the need for.
You included the following: "The rules, in my eyes, exist to support the fluff. If the rules contradict the fluff, the rules get changed or ignored. I don't care what's been published, I don't care if so-and-so book says it's this and that, if I think it's stupid (and about 80% of published D&D is), it's not going to exist. I cut and paste as I see fit. This extends to my grasp of the rules- no I don't know them half as well as most of you do, there's no doubt to that. But it's not relevant, because this is only partially a discussion concerning the rules of ToB." This causes problems because the rules don't contradict the fluff. They contradict your fluff, and you seem to be unwilling to do what many people are suggesting: alter the rules to fit the fluff. Most of the maneuvers can easily be explained as non-supernatural, but you seem unwilling to do that. I understand you don't seem to think this is the case, but nobody on either side is actually presenting a decent argument.

Yes, title was a very, VERY poor choice. I should've thought this one better.
For you, it's different. For me, it's better. The thing is, it's a matter of perspective. However, to my defense, I did address this to people who disliked the original feel of the supplement, so to them (and you aren't one of them, which is why I understand what you're saying), it will make their campaigns better.
That's slightly compound. Many maneuvers cannot be altered are supernatural/magical both in fluff and rules-wise. Those that are rules-wise but not fluff-wise (like many Setting Sun ones), well, I do need to work on them. And in many cases, even the epic feel that D&D offers is a little bit TOO much for my tastes still, which is again, personal preference.

That said, I'll address your rules.

It's not a very strong solution. When I'm in a fight, I don't get tired until AFTER the fight, especially given how quickly most D&D battles are over. And further, as I said earlier, I can't make the same move work every time. If I set it up perfectly, I can get about a 50% success rate on a certain move...which fits with the current system of taking a round to focus, find the weak spot, or test my opponent's guards and responses. The only time I've run close to running out of Endurance is if a fight stretches on for 10+ minutes...that's 100 rounds for reference...and no D&D fight that doesn't involve an army lasts that long.[/quote]

50% is too simplistic. I like to keep the chances normal, and find a way to limit people from spamming powerful maneuvers. By making the level of the maneuver be the exact cost in Stamina (I like it more than endurance), and giving a usual stamina total of around 5-15, 20 at most, you can't just run around doing the same thing over and over, you have to take care of your resources. I'll elaborate further after I think a little better on it.

[/quote]Additionally, your system ruins the careful balance. Swordsages can now fight forever, while Warblades, the old "rapid refresh" class, take forever to recharge their maneuvers. You've also really weakened the classes by drastically reducing the number of level-appropriate maneuver they can use before becoming a sub-par fighter. If I use 2-3 9th level maneuvers and there are still foes standing, I'm suddenly worthless. That's not good balance, especially if the Swordsage is still swinging for another 3-4 rounds.[/QUOTE]

That is indeed true. Swordsages have about 25% more endurance than most. So, I thought of this simple rule: Aside from CON modifier adding to endurance, at the early levels (4-5), enough for people who bother to get levels but to prevent incessant dipping, Crusaders get to add CHA bonus on top of CON, and Warblades INT bonus on top of Con. That balances the difference out, no?

Two notes I'll elaborate on further: I'll rework/add more appropriate maneuvers, eventually, and I'll also add variants of various classes (fighter included) with access to one or two disciplines (at most, usually one), to make them on par with the three martial classes.

I'll reply to the others soon, I'm just pressed for time :smallsmile:

Cataphract

2010-01-24, 10:15 AM

As for the OP:

1) the fluff fails to grasp that no one in D&D is remotely realistic. No, not even vaguely, everyone tells nearly everything about "humans" and "physics" to screw off. Among other things it fails to grasp, as shown by other posters.

I won't argue with that- that's obvious. But that doesn't mean that a little tweaking can't do the trick to help define things a bit better.

2) the crunch betrays a very weak grasp of D&D balance, such that I'd advise against messing with any rules before learning more.

The crunch was thought up in a few moments of inspiration, and it was intended as a draft- of course it's flawed and not fully thought-out. That being said, D&D balance is an oxymoron by itself, as so many people aptly prove with their comments about spellcasters.

3) I actually sympathize with the difficulty to find non-D&D players in some areas, but it doesn't make one not trying to square the circle. Go read GURPS (it seriously has detailed sourcebooks about realistic European fighting, to start) and teach people that. Done, you have the exact game you want. And, I repeat, I play it. When it fits.

Please see the rant I posted in the beginning of my previous post. Other than that, Gurps is extremely complicated for no apparent reason, and if I wanted a game about realistic European fighting, I'm already playing one made by my fellow western, euro-centered martial artists.

I know. It's not even consistent, for starters, and it creates a category of subhumans who can't even do anything when 3 illithids, 2 gelugons, 1 hamatula and 1 cornugon show up. For the record, this is an encounter equal in power to a level 14 4-person party. I'd like to see "people without supernatural stuff" deal with it.

To be perfectly honest, only in D&D would such an encounter actually be viable. The thing is, frankly, that you can maintain that epic feel by boosting non-casters in a non-magical way (like in several of the many apt examples of literature that you produced), rather than having to rely on magic. And when you do rely on magic (which will eventually be necessary), there's no reason to have to do so in terms of abilities. Literature is full of examples of perfectly normal people having access to items of power. We are, as it was said before, a tool-using species. The problem with D&D is that it either focuses on one side (inherent abilities) or the other (items), without giving much emphasis to the middle which is much more satisfying (your acquired skill to make use of them).

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding my point in the small vs. large argument. It doesn't matter that it's physically impossible; I never argued that it was. My arhument is that Western fantasy, just as much as Eastern fantasy, contains people beating up/wrestling much larger foes, and that in both cases, it is not intended to be seen as the result of magic, but because they are Just That Good. It is purely martial, merely taken to nigh-inhuman extremes--just like the requirements for joining the Fianna Fail provided.

I understand your aversion to Swordsages creating fireballs or walking on air; that's fine, even if I disagree. But putting the Setting Sun throws in that same category strikes me as inconsistent.

Yes, I agree with you, and Setting Sun is a promising discipline frankly. I'll have to admit most of my aversion comes from the whole throwing issue, but now that I recall, you can only trip creatures (and thus have them subject to such attacks) only within one size category.

--------------------------------------

First of all, I want to thank you all for the different points of view provided, as well as various ideas that you directly gave me. I think this thread has served its purpose, and I found out what my original mistake was: When you want something done good, do it yourself.

Instead of cutting and pasting as I see fit, I'll start working on a different project. A ToB-inspired martial resource. This will probably see various alterations at different points, but I think it'll be for the better. I'll play around with the maneuvers, add some more, join some disciplines etc. etc.

When I have a decent, sizeable draft ready, I'll post again. In the meantime, I'll still be paying attention to this thread, so feel free to say anything you want, as long as it hasn't been said before.

Tavar

2010-01-24, 11:13 AM

Cataphract

2010-01-24, 12:25 PM

You know, you can change the title if you like. Just go to the thread listing and click on the title. You can then change it, as long as it's within 2 weeks or so of the thread's original posting date.

I know, but this thread has little use anymore.

Still, I'll rename it just to avoid confusing people. Thanks for the heads up.

Fail

2010-01-24, 01:39 PM

Again, why shouldn't they matter? And again, I haven't seen a class based leveling system yet where this wasn't the case. Can you provide an example? Otherwise, it sounds like your real issue is with a class based system that allows multiclassing.Hell no. I actually want a system where you can actually multiclass and have the result be balanced. Actual example? Elf ranger 2/rogue 5 with {Track (B), Two-Weapon Fighting (B), Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Quick Draw} is a fairly decent character with the right skills and equipment (not listed because they don't matter for the level order), where the order of levels taken doesn't matter at all, except for the one thing that matters to all multiclassing: the damned skills x4 at character level 1. That can be fixed in at least 2 ways: just cut if off and lower skill DCs across the board by 3, 5 or 0 depending on campaign preferences, or give everyone 24 + (Int x 3) skill points to be spent in any skills (or any skills except UMD, as you prefer) - the latter even helps characters with flavor-chosen skills. Fixing ToB in that front is more involved than that, but also possible, as Latronis explained.

Yeah, I know psionics is awesome. Still doesn't give a reason why non-scaling is an issue; ToB characters get more maneuvers than they can have readied, and can exchange old maneuvers for new ones. And for most maneuvers, it's not the damage by the extra abilities; ignoring dr/hardness, concentration in place of saves, etc. Why is this a flaw in the system?

I mean, I can easily see a character using 1st level maneuvers in higher levels. Hell, I've played some myself. Yeah, not that many, but that's true for psionics as well.Psionics is awesome because you can keep whatever you chose at 1st level and (mostly) trust it to keep being useful. As for the effects you listed: yes, they totally are more important than extra damage - but, indeed, most of them have been duplicated across multiple largely identical maneuvers because they don't scale. As for psionics: I just looked, and saw a lot that keeps functional at all levels - while the same can somewhat be said for ToB stances, it's definitely not the case for maneuvers.

How would this work? Seriously, it sounds like what you really want is a system which simply doesn't allow multiclassing at all, in which case 3.5 is probably a bad idea.You're welcome to ask for further elaboration on how to do it, but I think that me hating multiclassing has been discredited by now. :P

Umm...White Raven is actually very party dependent. If it's not a melee heavy group, it rapidly loses power. Plus, the split between every school except Desert Wind is small enough that you can be effective if you focus on any one of them. Desert Wind is weaker, due in a large part to resistances, but even it can be effective in situations where it isn't simply negated.There's a fair deal of stuff for protecting "squishies", there's some stuff that's actually enough incentive for non-melee specialists to join melee, there's some stuff where the initiator is awesome on their own, and there's ... WRT. :D As for Desert Wind, even the best circumstances still leave its trademark (a.k.a. blasting) underwhelming - sure, there's other maneuvers that can be worth taking, but it doesn't come near to working as advertised.

Desert Wind does have some good stuff, but it should be weaker than White Raven. After all, it is a Swordsage school, not a Warblade school, and the Swordsage gets a lot more manuevers, meaning situationally useful stuff is better. And some of the stances are amazing in the right context, not to mention how good it gets if you are suddenly fighting crowds.A maneuver is a maneuver is a maneuver. Desert Wind's trademark isn't even situational, as even the best situations leave it weak (by which I mean, the blasting part - but there's one of that crap every level). Also, what the swordsage pays for knowing more isn't "weaker maneuvers", it's a completely crappy recovery and BAB in a class with more maneuvers more focused on full attacks than the warblade (though there's indeed more crappy maneuvers on the swordsage disciplines, and that's unfortunate).

Meh, its all Min/Maxing to me.If the game was well-designed, "min-maxing" wouldn't exist, for starters. And also: do you commit Stormwinds a lot?

Some maneuvers were never designed to scale. Just like with Sorcerers and Bards dropping a spell for a new one every 4 levels, Martial Adepts have the same concept. You can take the new version of a strike, drop the old one, and replace it with a new maneuver with a level up to your Max Maneuver level.Spellcasters exchange for same-level spells; i.e. they can reverse misguided choices. Which isn't the same as planned obsolescence - ToB maneuver upgrading's a band-aid on a gut shot; do you think it that unlikely that people can go around replacing the wrong maneuvers because they weren't happy (as in, concept) with their first choices? And yes, I can circumvent the traps - doesn't mean they aren't traps, that'll only be the case once no one could possibly fall in them.

I'm afraid I don't understand your argument. Can you reiterate it for me?All powers a character could have should auto-scale so as to keep usefulness for the character level in question. I'm not saying things gotten at higher level wouldn't get better effects, but the lower ones should scale their own effects such that they don't go obsolete, and don't get "superseded" by stuff you'd have to pick just to not go obsolete - instead, a new ability pick should be ... a new ability pick. :D

They're two disciplines designed to do two heavily different things. Its like comparing Lesser Acid Orb to Ray of Enfeeblement or whatever. White Raven provides MASSIVE buffs to other Martial Characters, while Desert Wind is most focused on massive damage.It's like comparing dimensional lock and polar ray: they're supposed do perform 2 entirely different roles, only one goes ahead and does it and the other doesn't: "massive" damage.

The crunch was thought up in a few moments of inspiration, and it was intended as a draft- of course it's flawed and not fully thought-out. That being said, D&D balance is an oxymoron by itself, as so many people aptly prove with their comments about spellcasters.No need to compound the problem by kneecapping classes that were close to working, in a niche where no others were, which's the most likely result of erasing anything "too unrealistic".

Please see the rant I posted in the beginning of my previous post. Other than that, GURPS is extremely complicated for no apparent reason, and if I wanted a game about realistic European fighting, I'm already playing one made by my fellow western, euro-centered martial artists.Supposed complexity aside, you'll then do better to just pick E6 - where you won't even need to pick ToB, because the PHB classes largely are balanced.

Yes, I agree with you, and Setting Sun is a promising discipline frankly. I'll have to admit most of my aversion comes from the whole throwing issue, but now that I recall, you can only trip creatures (and thus have them subject to such attacks) only within one size category.Which is a problem. You may be out several maneuvers just because a cloud giant squad showed up.

To be perfectly honest, only in D&D would such an encounter actually be viable.You just refused GURPS, and didn't look too interested in E6 at first. So, yes ... it's D&D we're talking about, and including levels higher than 6 (I can produce lots of similar encounters for levels lower than 14 as well).

The thing is, frankly, that you can maintain that epic feel by boosting non-casters in a non-magical way (like in several of the many apt examples of literature that you produced), rather than having to rely on magic.When the enemy employs walls of illusion layered with walls of ice to buy time to put the entire opposition all but unconscious at once, a very elastic definition of "non-magic" is needed, like, say, earthquaking the entire place to hit enemies you can't see. I can use that definition, but you seemed to be specifically arguing against it.

And when you do rely on magic (which will eventually be necessary), there's no reason to have to do so in terms of abilities. Literature is full of examples of perfectly normal people having access to items of power. We are, as it was said before, a tool-using species.Unless you let warriors craft magic, or apply the elastic definition of "not magic" alluded to above, that means they're ultimately at mercy of spellcasters, and not needed by them in any case, by being definitionally unable to matter on their own. And I doubt you were willing to do either, at least at first. Also: "tool-using" applied to spellcasters as well, don't forget.

The problem with D&D is that it either focuses on one side (inherent abilities) or the other (items), without giving much emphasis to the middle which is much more satisfying (your acquired skill to make use of them).There's no skill involved in the mandatory buying of flight items, and of teleport items, and of ghost touch weapons, and of other things. Much less in the fact that D&D wealth often fails to actually provide enough for a non-spellcaster to equip to the large extent needed to cover class-caused structural weaknessses.

Cataphract

2010-01-24, 02:48 PM

No need to compound the problem by kneecapping classes that were close to working, in a niche where no others were, which's the most likely result of erasing anything "too unrealistic".

They are close to working in your D&D world. That's fine. In my case, they have to be equally stupid just to compare with other stupid powers. Here's a simple proposition plenty of other people might've suggested: nerf casters. It's not an arms race.

Supposed complexity aside, you'll then do better to just pick E6 - where you won't even need to pick ToB, because the PHB classes largely are balanced.

Limiting yourself to 1/3rd of the game just because the rest is screwed up, either means you should a) drop it, which if I wanted to do I wouldn't bother with this conversation, b) try to make it work in higher levels.

Which is a problem. You may be out several maneuvers just because a cloud giant squad showed up.

When a cloud giant squad shows up, the last thing you should care about is "several maneuvers". But again, this is a huge discussion.

You just refused GURPS, and didn't look too interested in E6 at first. So, yes ... it's D&D we're talking about, and including levels higher than 6 (I can produce lots of similar encounters for levels lower than 14 as well).

No doubt. But as I said, if you run into these kind of stuff regularly, you're probably playing a very supernatural-based campaign and thus need the appropriate tools to deal with it. Thing is, not everybody wants such a game.

When the enemy employs walls of illusion layered with walls of ice to buy time to put the entire opposition all but unconscious at once, a very elastic definition of "non-magic" is needed, like, say, earthquaking the entire place to hit enemies you can't see. I can use that definition, but you seemed to be specifically arguing against it.

How often should that happen? If it's once or twice in a campaign, just make up a plan. Otherwise, if you're facing such opposition regularly, well, this is not the kind of game I'm aiming at.

Unless you let warriors craft magic, or apply the elastic definition of "not magic" alluded to above, that means they're ultimately at mercy of spellcasters, and not needed by them in any case, by being definitionally unable to matter on their own. And I doubt you were willing to do either, at least at first. Also: "tool-using" applied to spellcasters as well, don't forget.

Nerf spellcasters. It's already been agreed on they're overpowered. I'm sure some people have tried it already.

There's no skill involved in the mandatory buying of flight items, and of teleport items, and of ghost touch weapons, and of other things. Much less in the fact that D&D wealth often fails to actually provide enough for a non-spellcaster to equip to the large extent needed to cover class-caused structural weaknessses.

Ugh, another issue I've always had. How everything has to be measured in gold. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a balancing factor. No, I don't care, really. I don't think I'm going to bother with "standard" D&D anymore than I always did, which was none at all. Balance can come in other ways- nerfing threats, and keeping the threats that are really powerful where they should be.

Fail

2010-01-24, 03:03 PM

In summary.

1) spellcasters also have too much.

2) wealth-by-level is crap.

OK.

---

1) nerf spellcasters to the point where warriors can compete without being blatantly supernatural, and you'll have to write monsters off as well. The cloud giant squad, at the point where it would be nominally equal to a level 14 party, would be composed of 12 soldiers. Challenges for a level 20 party will be even crazier, and any number of cloud giants will pretty much fail to register (seriously: AC 25, Will +10). Write most spells and monsters out, and you will be playing E6 even if you don't call it thusly, because the parts of the game where level 14 characters are different from level 6 characters will have been written out. Only it'll take more work.

2) it is. But in D&D as-is, it's doing a vague attempt at giving warriors things warriors need to have.

Write all of that off, and you may have actually less than 1/3 of the game left. Having done a lot of work.

Cataphract

2010-01-24, 03:22 PM

1) nerf spellcasters to the point where warriors can compete without being blatantly supernatural, and you'll have to write monsters off as well. The cloud giant squad, at the point where it would be nominally equal to a level 14 party, would be composed of 12 soldiers. Challenges for a level 20 party will be even crazier, and any number of cloud giants will pretty much fail to register (seriously: AC 25, Will +10). Write most spells and monsters out, and you will be playing E6 even if you don't call it thusly, because the parts of the game where level 14 characters are different from level 6 characters will have been written out. Only it'll take more work.

2) it is. But in D&D as-is, it's doing a vague attempt at giving warriors things warriors need to have.

Write all of that off, and you may have actually less than 1/3 of the game left. Having done a lot of work.

No doubt. But E6 does not allow you the wealth of fluff that many prestige classes grant. And some of that is crucial for the concepts many people are after.

Fluff-wise, you can rewrite most monsters to be an equal challenge.

But yes, in one thing I'll have to agree. It might actually require so much work, that in the end it won't deserve it. That, perhaps, is the most crucial matter of all in the end. At the moment, since I'm interested solely in my current campaign-in-the-works, and since I'm going to be doing a lot of work anyway, perhaps it's not that much more work overall. It'll show in the end.

Drolyt

2010-01-24, 03:38 PM

No doubt. But E6 does not allow you the wealth of fluff that many prestige classes grant. And some of that is crucial for the concepts many people are after.

Fluff-wise, you can rewrite most monsters to be an equal challenge.

But yes, in one thing I'll have to agree. It might actually require so much work, that in the end it won't deserve it. That, perhaps, is the most crucial matter of all in the end. At the moment, since I'm interested solely in my current campaign-in-the-works, and since I'm going to be doing a lot of work anyway, perhaps it's not that much more work overall. It'll show in the end.

I'm still not sure quite what you are after, but maybe you could try this:

Forget about Tome of Battle as written, but use the Maneuvers you like in the rewrite of the core classes

Axe Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Monk, and Sorcerer. Only monsters and the like have magic, not Humans.

Make Fighter into more of a Martial Artist type, using either Weapons or
Unarmed combat in creative and tactical ways and give him maneuvers

Make the Paladin into the Knight/Crusader Archetype, and give him tactics and maneuvers as for Fighter

Leave Barbarian mostly as-is, though maybe allow more tactical combat and maneuvers

Do whatever you want with Rangers, though making them super-trackers who specialize in ranged combat could work.

Make Rogue more combat oriented

Get rid of magic items but give everyone the benefits (but not the drawbacks) of Vow of Poverty, allowing the bonus feats to be used for any feats.

Adjust CR as appropriate to make up for lack of magic.

Finally, Add more tactical combat rules to your game.

That shouldn't take to much work. By the way, there is a D&D 3.5 alternate PHB called Iron Heroes that seems to be D&D minus the magic but with more tactical combat, and I believe that it is more or less compatible with D&D 3.5 material.

Fail

2010-01-24, 03:40 PM

No doubt. But E6 does not allow you the wealth of fluff that many prestige classes grant. And some of that is crucial for the concepts many people are after.OK. Now I'm actually pissed off. Not at you. Behold (http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-house-rules/200045-e6-game-inside-d-d.html):

My player wants to play a Tattooed Monk, but now that won’t be available. What should I do?
The biggest issue here is what your player wants to do with that character. Ask him what he wants to do in purely non-mechanical terms, and then talk about what kind of feats he could use to do that. For example, if the player is just looking for fantastic saves, get him to get serpent, panther, and bear tattoos corresponding to Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, and Great Fortitude. If he wants one of his tattoos to be “looking out for him” have him take Improved Initiative and Alertness, as his character gets a tattoo of the unseeing eye.That's an epic fail I didn't know/remember about. The thing you (generic, but of course may also include the actual you) actually do is to make the PrC abilities that actually are new abilities and have something to do with the fluff (a.k.a. not retarded crap like "extra damage multiplier") into ... feats! :D For example: cavalier, as written, is seriously 2 feats (burst of speed, full mounted attack); knight protector as well (supreme cleave, retributive attack), and so on.

But yes, in one thing I'll have to agree. It might actually require so much work, that in the end it won't deserve it. That, perhaps, is the most crucial matter of all in the end. At the moment, since I'm interested solely in my current campaign-in-the-works, and since I'm going to be doing a lot of work anyway, perhaps it's not that much more work overall. It'll show in the end.As per the above, I see it as remarkably little work. That said, I may be wrong - haven't checked the, er, what, thousands of PrCs around? But, well, how about you checking whether it meets your goals with regards to PrCs?

Tavar

2010-01-24, 03:51 PM

Also, the vast majority of PrC's give ::gasp:: Magical Abilities. So they aren't going to be appropriate in your game anyways.

Fail

2010-01-24, 03:57 PM

Also, the vast majority of PrC's give ::gasp:: Magical Abilities. So they aren't going to be appropriate in your game anyways.To be fair, he's still having spellcasters either way. Going with E6, he just wouldn't have magic much better than silent image (and not at will) - and honestly, the vast majority of PrC features pales before silent image. :D

Cataphract

2010-01-24, 04:06 PM

For E6:

I read it (instead of skimming over it). It starts to look sweeter the more I look at it, and it'll need less work than the other alternative, d20 modern.

For PrCs/feats:
Absolutely right. I unfortunately have a big problem- I'm one either side of the fence, because my fence is very, very narrow, and thus it's easier to just stay on one side than try to climb it. But yeah, feats could work, a lot better.

Iron Heroes:
Yes, I know of that book, I've read some of it. I'm still ambiguous by it- sounds a lot more complex than it should.

End conclusion:
I suppose I should try E6 first. In any case, it'll be better than spending hours to work on D&D, and eventually be frustrated enough to just start the same campaign in a different system (which, the more I think about it, the more it sounds all the better).

Anyway, thanks for the insights, folks :smallsmile: