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gallagher
2010-04-11, 09:51 AM
is there any way to gain stances and/or maneuvers through items, instead of feats or through classes? i have been looking into stone dragon maneuvers and am sold on them, but i dont have a whole lot of room to take the feats and am very absolute in my psychic warrior character build

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-11, 09:53 AM
There are items which grant maneuvers in ToB. Read the equipment section.

gallagher
2010-04-11, 09:56 AM
Thanks!

no further posts needed

Loren
2010-04-11, 10:13 AM
Sort answer is not really. The long answer is yes, but they are very limited, and the best method is geared towards a character who has levels in a martial adept class. Furthermore, you can only get maneuvers, and no stances.

you can get Martial Scripts which allow you to used a manuever once in the next hour after reading. They are sort of like scrolls, but more cumbersome, IMHO. they are valued at initiator level X maneuver level X 50gp.

The Stone Dragon Belt (a wonderous item) would gant you one manuever stone dragon that you qualify for, which can be used as often as desired. The value of this item increases for you as you improve your martial adept level as it will grant you access to higher level maneuvers, but that basically means that you'd need to take some levels in a martial adept class.

Given these items you could try and work out a price scale to buy maneuver enchantment with you DM, but they are basically all that is availible by RAW. Unfortunately, the ideas in the Tome of Battle was never well intigrated into the rest of 3.x, so you are limited to what is in the book itself or what you can reason out with your DM.

edit: ninja'd

Heliomance
2010-04-11, 10:15 AM
The Stone Dragon Belt (a wonderous item) would gant you one manuever stone dragon that you qualify for, which can be used as often as desired. The value of this item increases for you as you improve your martial adept level as it will grant you access to higher level maneuvers, but that basically means that you'd need to take some levels in a martial adept class.


Pretty sure you wouldn't. Even if you don't have any martial adept levels, you still have an Initiator Level of half your character level.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-11, 10:15 AM
Sort answer is not really. The long answer is yes, but they are very limited, and the best method is geared towards a character who has levels in a martial adept class. Furthermore, you can only get maneuvers, and no stances.

you can get Martial Scripts which allow you to used a manuever once in the next hour after reading. They are sort of like scrolls, but more cumbersome, IMHO. they are valued at initiator level X maneuver level X 50gp.

The Stone Dragon Belt (a wonderous item) would gant you one manuever stone dragon that you qualify for, which can be used as often as desired. The value of this item increases for you as you improve your martial adept level as it will grant you access to higher level maneuvers, but that basically means that you'd need to take some levels in a martial adept class.

Given these items you could try and work out a price scale to buy maneuver enchantment with you DM, but they are basically all that is availible by RAW. Unfortunately, the ideas in the Tome of Battle was never well intigrated into the rest of 3.x, so you are limited to what is in the book itself or what you can reason out with your DM.

edit: ninja'd

How are only useful to martial adepts? All others classes give you 1/2 IL, so they still work just fine for low-level maneuvers.

marjan
2010-04-11, 10:19 AM
Pretty sure you wouldn't. Even if you don't have any martial adept levels, you still have an Initiator Level of half your character level.

Higher level maneuvers usually require knowledge of other maneuvers. Though it would work fine for maneuvers with no requirements.

Escheton
2010-04-11, 10:28 AM
right, consider the heroism spell (in itemform)or something else that gives you a free fighterfeat for a short while. theres your stance right there.
which is also a maneuver that adds to prereq for others

Greenish
2010-04-11, 10:40 AM
Higher level maneuvers usually require knowledge of other maneuvers. Though it would work fine for maneuvers with no requirements.Like many of the Stone Dragon ones. Funny coincidence, that.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-11, 10:44 AM
Like many of the Stone Dragon ones. Funny coincidence, that.

I always found it strange how the stone dragon 9th had 0 requirements. All the others have like 4 or 5 required maneuvers.

Starbuck_II
2010-04-11, 10:49 AM
Because Stone Dragon is just brute force incarnate. Learning how is the easy part.

Loren
2010-04-11, 10:50 AM
As Marjan said moves maneuvers require knowlwdge of low level maneuvers. Basically most maneuvers above 3rd (and many 2nd) would be barred unless you at least sink a feat or a level into learning a maneuver.
That siad, you probably would be able to get most second level manuevers. For 3K getting unlimited uses of Mountain Hammer would be very nice. But your DM might find that just a wee bit over powered.

Draz74
2010-04-11, 10:52 AM
Yeah, and learning maneuvers via item actually doesn't require any particular initiator level, so you don't have to wait until Level 34 as a non-Initiator before you can use Mountain Tombstone Strike via item. All you have to do is afford the belt.

At the least, there are few melee characters, IMHO, that shouldn't buy the cheapest Stone Dragon Belt for Mountain Hammer. Its out-of-combat utility alone is easily worth 3k gp.

A correction to what someone said earlier, though: You can't use item-learned maneuvers "as often as you want." They're limited to once per encounter. Out of combat, that may still be plenty, of course.

EDIT: Also, the subject line asks about Stances. You can't learn Stances via items. You'll have to spend feats on them, or use the Heroics spell.

Loren
2010-04-11, 11:31 AM
I stand slightly corrected on the wonderous item, but reviewing the description I'm left with some confusion.
The entry says the wear gain the knowledge of a maneuver, but in never stipulates the number of uses. I'd almost be inclined to read it as only granting an additional know maneuver, which wouldn't be very useful unless you had the ability to ready a maneuver. To be kind, I may allow the player to ready the maneuver as if they had the martial studyfeat, depending on the balance of the party.

Endarire
2010-04-12, 12:49 AM
Heroics (Spell Compendium 113) grants you a Fighter feat for 10 minutes per level which may be Martial Stance or Martial Study.

Draz74
2010-04-12, 12:55 AM
I stand slightly corrected on the wonderous item, but reviewing the description I'm left with some confusion.
The entry says the wear gain the knowledge of a maneuver, but in never stipulates the number of uses. I'd almost be inclined to read it as only granting an additional know maneuver, which wouldn't be very useful unless you had the ability to ready a maneuver. To be kind, I may allow the player to ready the maneuver as if they had the martial studyfeat, depending on the balance of the party.

Ah, yes. Good point ... but I'm pretty sure what you propose here is pretty much the universal interpretation of how to play with these items. To the point that I'd forgotten the rules for readying these maneuvers weren't spelled out in the item descriptions.

Actually, come to think of it, if only martial initiator characters could use these items, that would make their 3k gp price a lot less overpowered. But it would be boring, too.

Runestar
2010-04-12, 01:05 AM
The entry says the wear gain the knowledge of a maneuver, but in never stipulates the number of uses. I'd almost be inclined to read it as only granting an additional know maneuver, which wouldn't be very useful unless you had the ability to ready a maneuver. To be kind, I may allow the player to ready the maneuver as if they had the martial studyfeat, depending on the balance of the party.

That's how I see it, meaning for non-martial adepts, you can use them only 1/encounter.