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halfdragon62
2011-01-31, 05:21 AM
I've just begun running what I hope will be a very engaging horror campaign, but there are some metagame snags that I'm worried will mess things up later on. Now, my group is evenly divided on the game balance between spellcasters and front-liners, and one of my players stated that he wanted to play something from Tome of Battle. I was opposed to this for two reasons:
First, I am almost utterly unfamiliar with the rules concerning manuevers and stances, and as a result of my player having taken such a class, I would have to rethink the classing of NPC villains I am concocting, and so my preparation would get bogged down with my having to familiarize myself with a set of rules that I am unfamiliar with. The second reason is that the flavour of Tome of Battle is heavily inspired by Eastern culture, in a setting I have designed to be based more along the lines of pre-medieval britain meets Norse culture. I got my player to play something called a "Factotum", which I am also unfamiliar with but sounds less confusing and less difficult to fit sensibly into the setting. But I can't shake the feeling that my player is now disengaged from the game, and that can kill any kind of campaign, let alone horror. What should I do here? Force myself to include TOB? Discuss it in more depth with the player? Or simply carry on? (I'm not asking for an argument about game balance, just advice on how to proceed with my campaign and prevent as many future problems from occurring as I possibly can)

Aemoh87
2011-01-31, 05:32 AM
Factotum is a do all character made to be the ultimate Dungeoneer. As for the Tome of Battle it is the savior of melee in DnD. Read it, you will love it. It's really great stuff. At low level it will come across as broken but as casters and ToB'rs advance the casters won't have such a huge lead on the melee players. The ToB doesn't need you to add mechanics to the game like the ToM, it's much more simple.

Jair Barik
2011-01-31, 05:34 AM
I don't see anything wrong with your decision. You opted to disallow something because you felt it didn't fit the setting and because you were unfamiliar with the rules. Those are perfectly legitimate reasons. I may suggest though that you use enemies with spell immunity/resistance from time to time or make the spellcasting material components hard to come by/make scrolls a rarity. Depending on the level any elements of horror can be easily removed by the party casters.
Undead? Turn undead or control undead.
Need to find somewhere safe to sleep for the night? Rope trick.
Hordes of zombies banging on your door? Fireball.
What sort of level are you playing this at?

halfdragon62
2011-01-31, 05:38 AM
Starting from level one.
The party as it is:
One half elf barbarian
One halfling warlock
One human factotum

kamikasei
2011-01-31, 05:40 AM
Do you trust the player? If so you can simply talk to him about exactly what his character can do and familiarize yourself with the rules for that - much less hassle than getting to grips with the entire ToB subsystem. You don't really need to incorporate maneuver-using enemies, and martial adepts (ToB classes) only have a small number of abilities apiece, and can't swap them out like, say, wizards or clerics, so there's not that much you'd need to keep track of.

(If you don't trust the player, that's its own whole issue...)

As to flavour, it's pretty easy to rework most material from ToB. It depends on just what the player has in mind, but many of the maneuvers are quite generic and trivial to explain on any skilled warrior. If his character idea doesn't inherently clash with the setting, the mechanics are unlikely to.

So, my suggestion would be: talk to the player, pin down just what he wants, and make sure you have and understand the rules for that specific character without worrying about the book as a whole. You can use this thread to make sure your understanding is correct.

If he's okay with using a Factotum instead, the advice is similar. Just read the class description, and make notes. This will actually be easier from a rules standpoint, as it's entirely self-contained (at least for new abilities), though in play the character will probably be more complicated.

TakeABow
2011-01-31, 06:19 AM
Even if you end up dissalowing those books for this game, I would consider reading up on them so you could allow them in future games. All 3 of the classes in ToB are quite well balanced and allow non-casters to actually participate at higher levels, basically replacing the Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian/Monk from core. Factotum is basically a Rogue that can contribute decently as well.

I run Pathfinder games now, but if I were to run a game of 3.5, I would only allow these classes:
Beguilder
Crusader
Bard
Swordsage
Binder
Duskblade
Factotum
Warblade
Psionic Warrior
Favored Soul
Incarnate
Totemist

The fact that all 3 ToB classes and Factotum are on my list are testament to how balanced and fun I think they are.

LansXero
2011-01-31, 09:55 AM
I particularly believe that Shadow Hand maneuvers and boosts lend themselves very well to a horror setting. Dissapearing as a mote of shadow when hit, hanging people with a noozle made of darkness, climbing upside-down across walls, etc.

shadow_archmagi
2011-01-31, 10:09 AM
Eastern Flavored class

They're not really inherently eastern if you ignore the lines that say "focus your ki" (and the absolutely silly titles).

Most of the ones that aren't Desert Wind or Shadow Blade are not magical and don't even have any visual effects that would distinguish them from an ordinary attack.

A lot of them are things that ultimately boil down to
"Foehammer: Hit your enemy really hard because he's wearing armor."
"Iron Guard's Glare: Direct the enemy's attention at you by looking like a threat."
"Ruby Nightmare Blade: Stab your enemy where it'll hurt"


Didn't want to learn the rules, because ToB is a lot of work, so I asked him to play something else

This is legit. Personally, I love factotums anyway. Nothing wrong with your choice.

LansXero
2011-01-31, 10:20 AM
This is legit. Personally, I love factotums anyway. Nothing wrong with your choice.

How is it a lot of work? You get maneuvers like you get spells; learn a few every couple levels and get a reload mechanic (three different ways. Not a lot). For ease of use, print out the maneuver cards from WotC. Done.

CycloneJoker
2011-01-31, 10:36 AM
They're not really inherently eastern if you ignore the lines that say "focus your ki" (and the absolutely silly titles).

Most of the ones that aren't Desert Wind or Shadow Blade are not magical and don't even have any visual effects that would distinguish them from an ordinary attack.

A lot of them are things that ultimately boil down to
"Foehammer: Hit your enemy really hard because he's wearing armor."
"Iron Guard's Glare: Direct the enemy's attention at you by looking like a threat."
"Ruby Nightmare Blade: Stab your enemy where it'll hurt"



This is legit. Personally, I love factotums anyway. Nothing wrong with your choice.

FIVE SHADOW CREEPING ICE EVERVATION STRIKE!

Factotums are AMAZING! If you don't want to include it, it's fine, but if that's the entire party, then ToB would probably blow everyone else away, unless you have Magic Mart access, or the Factotum use Iaijutsu awesomeness. I recommend you limit Magic Marts, or the Factotum will replace the Warlock.

Jair Barik
2011-01-31, 10:39 AM
How is it a lot of work? You get maneuvers like you get spells; learn a few every couple levels and get a reload mechanic (three different ways. Not a lot). For ease of use, print out the maneuver cards from WotC. Done.

And yet some people disallow Psionics for because they find it confusing. If anything psionics are simpler than ToB due to their similarity to spellcasting and the availability to them on the srd. Not saying ToB is difficult to learn just pointing out that some people simply prefer to stick with what is familiar and comfortable.

bokodasu
2011-01-31, 11:29 AM
Yeah, I had that problem with psionics and ToB, and now I'm building a swordsage/psychic warrior for one of my players. I do highly recommend learning them - it takes about two readthroughs (so you get past the "what? What's that?" that's explained two chapters later) and you're good. Especially starting at level one, because really you only have to learn a couple of maneuvers and a stance and the rest won't come up for a long time.

As to the fluff... ok, I am entirely on the side of banning things due to non-fitting fluff. But if your player wants to play a fitting character who just has those powers, it's really, really easy for the names not to come up. And most of them are just hitting stuff to different effects. I think maybe D&D has trained us to believe that there is just one way to hit things, so the idea that you might go for this kind of strike that leaves you open vs that kind that sets you up to be better defended just doesn't enter our "heroic fantasy" mindsets.

So my vote is read through and see if it turns out to fit (especially read the different disciplines and see if you prefer the more/less magical ones) and if it does, let the player have it and don't change any of your NPC stuff. And if not, well, if you don't want it, you don't, and you're the DM, so that's ok.

halfdragon62
2011-01-31, 04:14 PM
Thank you all very much for the advice so far, it has given me much to think about.

Aemoh87
2011-01-31, 05:41 PM
If your disallowing a book because you don't wanna learn the rules your cheating your players. Especially of one of the best and most balancing books in 3.5!