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quiet1mi
2010-06-30, 03:44 PM
In the effort of having my newer players not be frustrated with the lack of versatility of the Tier 5 classes, I want them to play classes out of the Tome of Battle.

I have read through the Tome of battle several times but I have a little bit of trouble building something out of it, given that I usually always play a caster or an Ubercharger.

I was wondering what you guys suggest to new players about building a strong TOB character.

In addition, I was wondering if there any handbooks regarding the TOB classes for I would like to play one in the future but would like to be able to optimize it without going through the Trial and Error approach.

May I inspire competence in your Stealthy Endeavors.

Many Thanks,
The Ninja Bard in the Playground.

Abaddon87
2010-06-30, 03:50 PM
Well for me it took a few times reading through the whole ToB to finally get a full grasp of everything. I would start out with a Warblade or Swordsage as they are the easiest to manage. The Crusader's damage pool and the whole thing with starting with random maneuvers is almost as bad as a necromancer having to keep track of and use all his undead each round...

Panigg
2010-06-30, 03:56 PM
Just create a character and try a fight with it.

That is the only real way to get a feel for them. They are really complex, compared to core classes and especially melee.

Start out with a Warblade, they have a not so broad array of schools to choose from and play really close to a traditional fighter.

Play a bit with it and you'll get the feel for the other classes as well.

Don't start with a crusader, the RNG will break you. ;)

Gnaeus
2010-06-30, 03:58 PM
ToB is easy.

Swordsage should take Adaptive Style. Crusader should take Extra Granted Maneuver. Make sure they have decent numbers in their prime stats and everything should be fine.

Maybe give them a little more flexibility in changing maneuvers when they level, until they get a good grip on it.

Merk
2010-06-30, 04:02 PM
Print out the maneuver cards (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a) and give them to your players to use.

Abaddon87
2010-06-30, 04:06 PM
I second the maneuvers cards as well! My first Warblade was 100x easier to play with my hand of cards with the moves he could use. User the move, discard the card. Makes it a lot easier to keep track!

Noodles2375
2010-06-30, 04:08 PM
I would suggest starting with the Warblade as it is more direct and easier to play than the other two. For new players, have them tell you what/how they envision their character fighting and see if you can't help them choose weapons, schools, and specific maneuvers to fit that end.

Ex. Player wants to play a samurai, suggest a bastard sword (katana) with Iron Heart and Diamond Mind maneuvers. The nightmare blade line from Diamond Mind is typically very strong, as are the maneuvers that let you swap a save with a concentration check! From Iron Heart the area affect powers are a little weak but can be fun and flavorful. I've had some friends try ToB stuff for the first time and they liked making a character like this, it had a good mix of strikes, counters, and boosts so they got a good feel for the system.

Maneuver cards are a VERY good idea too!

Snake-Aes
2010-06-30, 04:11 PM
The maneuver system is primarily vancian magic. You know a set of tricks and prepare a subset of it. You can prepare and use each once.
Differences start here:
You can recharge your tricks quickly: 5 minutes by default. ToB classes have their own ways of doing it too.
Your tricks are mostly physical: About half of the Shadow Hand tricks are supernatural, the rest is Extraordinary
You can only prepare one "copy" of each trick, so to use the same trick twice you have to recharge.
Stances are buffs that remain active for as long as you can act. Most of them give you bonuses or let you act differently (like doing a 5-foot step for every successful hit, or a blindsense)


That said, all maneuvers have a key skill, used on most of their kin, and the tob classes all benefit from a mental stat that is secondary to the main physical stat.

Rothen
2010-06-30, 04:13 PM
I feel that it's obligatory to reference the CharOp boards:

Tome of Battle for Dummies (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871270/Tome_of_Battle_for_Dummies)

It's a pretty solid handbook, although I have to note that the author wrote it with rather heavy optimisation in mind, so unless the ToB classes are dealing with heavily optimised high-level casters in the party, you don't have to take his advice too seriously.
There's not nearly as many traps in ToB as there are in the PHB.

Thiyr
2010-06-30, 04:26 PM
You can only prepare one "copy" of each trick, so to use the same trick twice you have to recharge.

I've seen this before, but haven't been able to find the relevant rule anywhere in the book. Would I be able to get a page reference?

Bakkan
2010-06-30, 04:38 PM
Of the three base classes, Warblade is probably the easiest for beginners. High HD, few maneuvers known/readied, but still plenty powerful. If you're starting at a low level, grabbing a two-handed weapon and staying in Punishing Stance most of the time will allow the character to deal very respectable amounts of damage, often one-shotting 1 HD monsters.

Swordsages are next easiest, probably. I definitely recommend that a player pick up the Adaptive Style feat by at least level 3, otherwise they may feel useless after a few rounds. Another things to consider with Swordsages is that since they have such a wide variety of maneuvers available to them, it really is kind of important to choose a focus or theme. Does your player want to slink around in the shadows and attack form the darkness? Shadow Hand works well for that. A judo master who uses his opponent's momentum against him? Setting Sun does exactly this. And so forth.

I may be alone in this, but if your player wants to make an unarmed fighter, don't use the Unarmed Swordsage variant unless he's really sure that he doesn't want to wear armor. I think a better option is to simply take the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, which still allows him to wear light armor. Essentially, you get +4 AC for a feat and the cost of sacrificing the unarmed strike damage die progression, which can be made up for with Improved Natural Attack, Improved Unarmed Strike, and a Monk's Belt. Also note that Snap Kick is a very nice feat for this type of Swordsage to take at level 9.

Crusaders are, as has been said before, a little more confusing. If your player wants to play one, however, there is a simple trick that can make the whole "maneuvers granted/maneuvers withheld" mechanic easier: Make or print out cards with the individual maneuvers on them (WotC has official ones here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a)) and put all the ones the player has readied in a pile. At the beginning of combat, shuffle them (face down), and turn over however many the Crusader is granted at the beginning of combat (2 for early levels, etc.) every round on the Crusader's turn, turn over the next maneuver. At the beginning of his turn, if there are no more face down maneuvers, shuffle them all up again and turn over his granted maneuvers. Repeat until the battle is done. This allows the face up cards to represent the maneuvers the Crusader currently has available to him, while the face down ones are the maneuvers he has readied but are currently withheld.

The Crusader's delayed damage pool can also be made easier by the use of tokens. If you have some piece of paper or area of the game mat that represents the delayed pool, have the Crusader put tokens in there when he puts points into the pool. When he takes the damage from the pool, remove the tokens. I don't have as much experience with Crusaders myself, so I'm sure others can give more detailed descriptions.

The disciplines each have a different feel, and letting your players see the different disciplines and picking one or two that they like can help them to decide what class they wish to play.

Desert Wind: Swordsage only. Very flashy, uses a lot of fire-based supernatural abilities. Very magical-feeling. Uses Tumble occasionally. The boosts that add xd6+IL fire damage to every attack can be devastating in the hands of a TWF'er.

Devoted Spirit: Crusader only. One of the best reasons to go with a Crusader, this discipline is one of the strongest. It has some good damage-dealing maneuvers, but its bread and butter is its healing abilities, such as Martial Spirit, a 1st-level stance that allows you to heal yourself or an ally for 2 points every time you make a successful melee attack.

Diamond Mind: Swordsage and Warblade. Has some very cool "focused mind" style maneuvers, mostly based off of the Concentration skill. If a player wants to use this discipline, recommend that he maxxes out Concentration.

Iron Heart: Warblade only. Includes the excellent Punishing Stance, as well as Steel Wind, which can be a very useful maneuver at low levels, especially with a two handed weapon.

Setting Sun: Swordsage only. Protect yourself from charges, attacks, you name it. It has a signature line of maneuvers that involve tripping and throwing someone, and there's nothing in the maneuver descriptions to say that you can't throw them off a cliff if there happens to be one nearby.

Shadow Hand: Swordsage Only. Another supernatural discipline, Shadow Hand has two very good 1st-level stances, namely Child of Shadow, which grants you 20% concealment any time you move at least 10 feet, and Island of Blades, which makes your opponent flanked if you and at least one ally are adjacent to the enemy. You rogue will love you for that one. At higher levels, this discipline gets strength-draining attacks, invisibility powers, and teleportation maneuvers.

Stone Dragon: Crusdaer, Swordsage, and Warblade. Focusing on defense and earth-based maneuvers, this is not the strongest discipline, but it still has some good maneuvers. The best thing about it is that it's open to all martial adepts, so everyone can get some Stone Dragon goodness. At low levels, Stone Bones (which grants DR 5/adamantine) and Mountain Hammer (which deals +2d6 damagew and bypasses all DR and hardness) are some of the better maneuvers.

Tiger Claw: Swordsage and Warblade. This discipline focuses on making devastating attacks. It is probably the best discipline for a TWF build, as it has a few maneuvers designed to take advantage of natural weapons. For instance, the 1st-level maneuver Tiger Claw Strike (I think?) lets you attack with two weapons as a standard action, and later maneuvers allow you to make more attacks with each weapon wielded in a full attack. It also has a number of Jump-based maneuvers for when you really want that "Death From Above!!" feel.

Write Raven: Crusader and Warblade. Possibly one of the more difficult disciplines to use, because it focuses on teamwork and tactics. This discipline includes maneuvers to deny you opponents Attacks of Opportunity, the give your allies a major bonus to hit an enemy you just hit, and a 1st-level stance that lets all you allies deal extra damage on any charge. This probably work best for someone who's either played a ToB class before or is very skilled at tactics.

EDIT: Quite appropriately Swordage'd on some of this

Kylarra
2010-06-30, 04:38 PM
It's worth pointing out that unlike the majority of classes, ToB doesn't need to optimized to not suck. They're pretty powerful just out of the box, so "trial and error" may be a perfectly feasible strategy to learn what your new players like from it, assuming that the other players aren't playing heavily optimized builds.

Ranos
2010-06-30, 04:45 PM
I've seen this before, but haven't been able to find the relevant rule anywhere in the book. Would I be able to get a page reference?
It's actually a CustServ ruling. The book itself doesn't adress the issue.

KillianHawkeye
2010-06-30, 04:48 PM
I've seen this before, but haven't been able to find the relevant rule anywhere in the book. Would I be able to get a page reference?

I don't think it's explicitly mentioned in the book, but it was clarified by WotC Customer Service. Reading certain sections of the book, you can kinda see how the language implies that you only know a maneuver once, but they just forgot to put it in print.

Draz74
2010-06-30, 04:48 PM
I've seen this before, but haven't been able to find the relevant rule anywhere in the book. Would I be able to get a page reference?

It was made explicit in Sage Advice on WotC's website. But a strict interpretation of the actual book's text leads to the same conclusion. You do not have a pool of "readied maneuver slots" that you fill with whatever maneuvers you wish (and therefore, by implication, allowing duplicates). Rather, each maneuver you know is either "readied" or "not readied," and there is a limit to how many of them can be "readied." There is no such thing as "double-readied."

EDIT: Swordsage'd, but I think my explanation is better.

Ranos
2010-06-30, 04:50 PM
It was made explicit in Sage Advice on WotC's website. But a strict interpretation of the actual book's text leads to the same conclusion. You do not have a pool of "readied maneuver slots" that you fill with whatever maneuvers you wish (and therefore, by implication, allowing duplicates). Rather, each maneuver you know is either "readied" or "not readied," and there is a limit to how many of them can be "readied." There is no such thing as "double-readied."

EDIT: Swordsage'd, but I think my explanation is better.

Ah, I didn't know that. Is there something stopping you from learning the same maneuver twice then ?

Draz74
2010-06-30, 05:06 PM
Ah, I didn't know that. Is there something stopping you from learning the same maneuver twice then ?

Hmmm, that was in a Sage Advice or FAQ or something too; although even there, they only covered the question of whether you can learn the same maneuver in different classes as a multiclass ToB character (answer: no). But no, I don't think the book itself covers this question. Just have to chalk it up to common sense.

Gnaeus
2010-06-30, 05:14 PM
Hmmm, that was in a Sage Advice or FAQ or something too; although even there, they only covered the question of whether you can learn the same maneuver in different classes as a multiclass ToB character (answer: no).

Oops. I didn't know that. Good thing I retrained my Crusader level before my DM learned I couldn't use WRT from both classes at the same time.

Thiyr
2010-06-30, 05:16 PM
It was made explicit in Sage Advice on WotC's website. But a strict interpretation of the actual book's text leads to the same conclusion. You do not have a pool of "readied maneuver slots" that you fill with whatever maneuvers you wish (and therefore, by implication, allowing duplicates). Rather, each maneuver you know is either "readied" or "not readied," and there is a limit to how many of them can be "readied." There is no such thing as "double-readied."

EDIT: Swordsage'd, but I think my explanation is better.

Looking at it again, I can kinda see that in the descriptions for the warblade/crusader (You can have all of your maneuvers prepared). That said, I would like to note that while never described as a pool of slots, they are refered to as slots, meaning it's vague until said custserv/sage stuff. I'll have to look that up, then (even though I doubt my playgroup will go with that ruling regardless, as most of us seem to prefer being able to use things multiple times).

The Glyphstone
2010-06-30, 05:16 PM
It should be noted that Stone Dragon's biggest theoretical weakness is needing to be touching the ground. It's a vulnerability, but I've found that flying combat doesn't happen in games as often as optimization theory assumes it does.

Reynard
2010-06-30, 05:43 PM
Oops. I didn't know that. Good thing I retrained my Crusader level before my DM learned I couldn't use WRT from both classes at the same time.

Oh but you can. They wouldn't stack, but you could prepare one for each ToB class you had that you had taken the maneuver for.

Akal Saris
2010-06-30, 09:11 PM
It should be noted that Stone Dragon's biggest theoretical weakness is needing to be touching the ground. It's a vulnerability, but I've found that flying combat doesn't happen in games as often as optimization theory assumes it does.

Then somebody needs to bring my PCs back down to earth! :smalltongue:

By the way, excellent post Bakkan. Very good summary of what each class does and what the different schools are supposed to do.

The Glyphstone
2010-06-30, 09:13 PM
Then somebody needs to bring my PCs back down to earth! :smalltongue:

By the way, excellent post Bakkan. Very good summary of what each class does and what the different schools are supposed to do.

Hey, I didn't say flight never happens.:smallbiggrin: It's just that most Op-guides tend to assume that past 15th level or so, 100% of players and monsters are flying 24/7, no matter the terrain or surroundings.

Greenish
2010-06-30, 09:30 PM
I may be alone in this, but if your player wants to make an unarmed fighter, don't use the Unarmed Swordsage variant unless he's really sure that he doesn't want to wear armor. I think a better option is to simply take the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, which still allows him to wear light armor.I'd rather take Armor Proficiency: Light Armor for my Unarmed Swordsage. Better unarmed damage, same effect.

deuxhero
2010-06-30, 09:32 PM
As far as I know there are no "You can only spend as many power points to manifest a power as your manifester level" rules that are key to remember.

gdiddy
2010-06-30, 09:40 PM
I was going to link my maneuver guide I made a while back, but Bakkan beat me in quality and extensiveness of questions addressed.

I am posting only to commend Bakkan on an excellent post and to suggest you show that to your players.

Bakkan
2010-06-30, 09:47 PM
Thanks for the praise, ToB happens to be my favorite 3.5 supplement.

Greenish
2010-06-30, 09:51 PM
Also note that Snap Kick is a very nice feat for this type of Swordsage to take at level 6.Since I'm on a nitpicky mood (because I can't move silently :smallfurious:), I'll point out that Snap Kick requires +6 BAB, and is thus outside the reach of a 6th level swordsage.

lsfreak
2010-06-30, 10:24 PM
Remember that maneuver levels are like spell levels - a 9th level character gets 5th level maneuvers, not 9th level. That's a big newbie mistake that can really throw things off (like the power points/manifester level for psioncs).

Have a mix of strikes, counters, and boosts. Going straight strikes isn't quite so bad, but having all counters/boosts wears you out of actions fast, and doesn't get you the benefit of the entire premise of strikes (ability to move + attack decently). Exception would be someone with TWF+pounce and bonus damage from sneak/skirmish/Robilar's+Strormguard, but that's unlikely to happen with new players.

Keep in mind prereqs for learning. Be careful you don't get spread too thin, or you'll end up unable to take higher-level stuff. I'd pick 2-3 disciplines as foci, and get very little outside of those, at least at the start.

Keep in mind prereqs for learning are just that. Once you have a maneuver, you can trade out its prereqs without issue later on. This is very important at higher levels, since you can trade now-worthless low-level stuff (mostly strikes) out for better stuff. Boosts and counters tend to last a bit better and won't necessarily be traded as fast as strikes.

White Raven gets much better the more melee you have. Just something to keep in mind. White Raven, Setting Sun, and Devoted Spirit tend to play exceptionally well with others, while Tiger Claw, Diamond Mind, and Iron Heart are a bit more selfish.

Crusaders, especially, need maneuver cards. Their recovery method is made much, much easier by being able to simply shuffle and draw.

The following feats are very good:
Adaptive Style
Extra Granted Maneuver
Extra Readied Maneuver
Martial Stance
Shadow Blade (note that the table is different from the text)
Snap Kick
Superior Unarmed Strike
Clarion Commander
Faith Unswerving
Stormguard Warrior
The 'multiclass' feats (Song of the White Raven, Falling Sun Attack, Instant Clarity)

The following feats tend to be pretty poor:
Avenging Strike
Desert Fire
Martial Stance (except maybe at very high levels)
Rapid Assault
Sudden Recovery
Reaping Talons
Scorching Sirocco

Multiclassing between ToB can get messy for first-timers. Especially when you throw in prestige classes as well. Might want to try and avoid that as much as possible at first.

As always with 3.5, having a good concept in mind helps out in the long run. Feats should support maneuvers and vice versa, and both should further the concept. There's a lot of 'wow that's awesome!' stuff, that can leave new players cherrypicking things that don't work well together. That said, ToB is very good about not having many traps and pitfalls

House rule territory:
Stance progression is a bit messy. You might consider switching around stance progression a bit, so that people can get new stances at the level. I.e. warblades get their second stance at 4th level, but don't get new stances until 5th level. The typical work-around involves strategic dips or feats, but that's complicated for first-timers. Iirc there's a mention in the Age of Warriors thread in Homebrew that reworks stance progression.

If someone wants to go Spring Attack style, let them use standard-action strikes with it. It's the easiest way to make the style worthwhile.

Let maneuver trading continue during prestige classes. I prefer to let someone choose from the disciplines granted by one of their base classes (if they have multiple, in which case it's bound by the recovery type and the initiator level of whichever one they choose to pull from) + the prestige class, rather than only those offered by the prestige class.

Runestar
2010-06-30, 11:01 PM
It should be noted that Stone Dragon's biggest theoretical weakness is needing to be touching the ground. It's a vulnerability, but I've found that flying combat doesn't happen in games as often as optimization theory assumes it does.

Bah, just store a lump of dirt in the soles of your boots.:smalltongue:

Bakkan
2010-07-01, 01:41 AM
Since I'm on a nitpicky mood (because I can't move silently :smallfurious:), I'll point out that Snap Kick requires +6 BAB, and is thus outside the reach of a 6th level swordsage.

So it does, I was remembering the feat incorrectly. I will edit my previous post.

Cute_Riolu
2010-07-01, 03:36 AM
Bah, just store a lump of dirt in the soles of your boots.:smalltongue:

I've got a jar of dirt, I've got a jar of dirt, I've got a jar of dirt; and guess what's inside it? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRcj6CAhe7s)

Totally reminded me of that. :D