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View Full Version : Can you use a maneuver to qualify for itself? [3.5]



Fortuna
2010-05-31, 11:45 PM
What the title says. For instance, if I have Iron Heart Surge, Iron Heart Endurance, Disarming Strike, Finishing Move and Strike of Perfect Clarity and get an opportunity to swap out a maneuver, can I swap out Disarming Strike?

ninjaneer003
2010-05-31, 11:52 PM
i don't think so but i'm also pretty new to the ToB, but if i was the DM i wouldn't allow it

DragoonWraith
2010-05-31, 11:55 PM
That is specifically a pre-requisite. Once you know a maneuver, you know it, and you don't lose knowledge of it unless you retrain it via the even levels thing, even if you no longer meet that pre-req. In other words, it's irrelevant to its own pre-req.

Forgetting maneuvers may make it impossible for you to learn maneuvers you might have otherwise, but it can't make a whole house of cards fall down.

Os1ris09
2010-06-01, 12:39 AM
so in otherwords if he looses the pre-req that doesn't affect what he already has that needed that pre-req.

Say I loose dodge the feat and I have mobility do I loose mobility or do I maintain that feat even though I lost dodge

Draz74
2010-06-01, 01:01 AM
so in otherwords if he looses the pre-req that doesn't affect what he already has that needed that pre-req.

Say I loose dodge the feat and I have mobility do I loose mobility or do I maintain that feat even though I lost dodge

IIRC, you lose most things (including feats) if you lose their prerequisites. Maneuvers are, for some reason (I don't remember where this is stated) a specific exception to the general rule.

Mastikator
2010-06-01, 01:22 AM
I would say it depends on the fluff. Is it built off its pre-reqs, or do you simply need to have the pre-reqs.
Like mobility, I'd say it's built off dodge, if you lose dodge you lose mobility, but if you get dodge back you get mobility back. However, if you lose power attack you don't lose cleave, but if you lose cleave you lose greater cleave.

My 2 cp.

Zaq
2010-06-01, 01:28 AM
I would say it depends on the fluff. Is it built off its pre-reqs, or do you simply need to have the pre-reqs.
Like mobility, I'd say it's built off dodge, if you lose dodge you lose mobility, but if you get dodge back you get mobility back. However, if you lose power attack you don't lose cleave, but if you lose cleave you lose greater cleave.

My 2 cp.

Feats and prestige classes are explicitly stated to go away when you lose the prereqs. (I believe that the relevant text is in Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, or both... and probably the Rules Compendium.) ToB maneuvers are a specific exception, and only have prereqs for the purposes of being learned, not for keeping them or using them.

lsfreak
2010-06-01, 02:03 AM
Feats and prestige classes are explicitly stated to go away when you lose the prereqs. (I believe that the relevant text is in Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, or both... and probably the Rules Compendium.) ToB maneuvers are a specific exception, and only have prereqs for the purposes of being learned, not for keeping them or using them.

Yup, feats have "Requirements" to learn and then to use, same with prestige classes (CW and CArc turn it also into permanently losing all class features but HD, BAB, and saves, but everyone I know views this as too extreme - once you re qualify, you get it back).

ToB maneuvers specifically have prereqs to learn. This is in keeping with maneuvers being essentially level-scaled feats, so that you can trade out the crappy ones for better ones at higher levels.

Runestar
2010-06-01, 05:21 AM
What the title says. For instance, if I have Iron Heart Surge, Iron Heart Endurance, Disarming Strike, Finishing Move and Strike of Perfect Clarity and get an opportunity to swap out a maneuver, can I swap out Disarming Strike?

I would say yes, because strike of perfect clarity is itself an iron heart maneuver. Even after swapping out disarming strike, you still know the prerequisite 5 iron heart maneuvers (including strike of clarity itself), and thus would not lose the use of said maneuver.

Iceforge
2010-06-01, 05:24 AM
I am pretty sure that there are rules stating that you do not loose a feat just because you lost the pre-req, but you cannot use it until you regain that pre-req.

So if you had dodge and mobility, and lost dodge somehow, then your mobility feat would be useless (not lost, through) until you regained dodge somehow.

At least that is how I would rule it, unless you had a special class feature or something else that allowed you to ignore the pre-req, like the ranger for certain feats. (or was that 3.0?)

Curmudgeon
2010-06-01, 05:49 AM
I am pretty sure that there are rules stating that you do not loose a feat just because you lost the pre-req, but you cannot use it until you regain that pre-req.

So if you had dodge and mobility, and lost dodge somehow, then your mobility feat would be useless (not lost, through) until you regained dodge somehow.
That's correct.
A character can’t use a feat if he or she has lost a prerequisite.
Feats and prestige classes are explicitly stated to go away when you lose the prereqs. Feats and prestige classes never "go away" without loss of levels. And only some of what you gain with a prestige class will disappear under the Complete Warrior and Complete Arcane "maintaining class requirements" rules. You've still got those class levels, absent special features and whatnot.

(I believe that the relevant text is in Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, or both... Both, yes, but those are two different rules; the biggest mismatch being the Complete Arcane rule preserves PrC spellcasting boosts if you fail to maintain requirements. Also, WotC's Primary Sources rule establishes that those two rules only apply to the PrCs in those two books. It's not a general rule in 3.5 D&D, so most prestige classes have no restriction on continued use if you lose their entry requirements.

and probably the Rules Compendium.) Definitely not there. RC has no rules regarding prestige classes.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-01, 01:06 PM
Regardless, under Prerequisites in Tome of Battle, it says that you need a certain number of maneuvers in the same discipline to select it. It says nothing about using them. Under each class's Manuevers section, it says you may lose an old maneuver to lose a new one, and you may learn any maneuver so long as you meet the prerequisite for it.

So if you have Wolf Fang Strike, Claw at the Moon, Fountain of Blood, and Raging Mongoose, and you hit 16th level, you could swap Wolf Fang Strike for something not-Tiger Claw, and still use Raging Mongoose. In fact, you could still take Girallon Windmill Fleshrip. And at 18th, you could swap Claw at the Moon, and assuming you didn't take Girallon Windmill Fleshrip, you could swap it for any maneuver other then Girallon Windmill Fleshrip or Death from Above, and still use Raging Mongoose. You couldn't take Girallon or Death from Above because once you lose Claw at the Moon, you only have 2 Tiger Claw maneuvers, not the 3 or 4 necessary for those Maneuvers.

And, this is only a RAI argument (which seems necessary, because RAW is silent on the issue), but consider Weapon Aptitude - it specifically says you cannot swap any feat to a different weapon if that feat is serving as a prerequisite for something. The Maneuvers section of the same class says nothing similar about losing Maneuvers.

Saph
2010-06-01, 01:14 PM
It's worth mentioning that in practice, this is rarely an issue, because the better maneuvers of each discipline generally require more and more same-discipline maneuvers to learn.

So if you want Insightful Strike, then Greater Insightful Strike, then Time Stands Still, you're going to have to keep building up your number of Diamond Mind maneuvers. If you train up as far as, say, Ruby Nightmare Blade and then swap out all your Diamond Mind maneuvers except for that one, you can keep using Ruby Nightmare, but at the price of cutting off your ability to learn the better Diamond Mind maneuvers later on.