Tome of Battle: Why is it Divisive?

[Mr. Zolrane]

I've heard of a book called the Tome of Battle mentioned frequently in this subforum, and inevitably someone always makes a statement about what a base breaker the book was. Can someone explain to me why this would be?

[Greenish]

Some people just can't handle such levels of awesome. :smalltongue:

Joking of course, but even after having read many of the threads about it, I'm afraid I can't quite understand or to do justice to the dissenter's view.

[nyarlathotep]

It introduces a new subsystem that some people dont like the feel of. Just like binders and incarnum some people don't like it. This conflict however is more severe than those because Tome of Battle is also essentially replacing monks, fighters, and paladins with new classes that some people feel makes them just reflavored casters. I personally believe these people are wrong but they are entitled to their opinion.
{{scrubbed}}

tl;dr It's a new subsystem that replaces old classes some people liked.

[Gauntlet]

Tome of Battle introduces combat characters which function in a way vaguely similar to spellcasters, and which scale quadratically as opposed to the linear combat characters presented before. ToB characters tend to outclass non-ToB characters made to fulfil the same role (ie. hit stuff with pointy sticks) without optimization, and as such are often touted as overpowered.

[Kylarra]

It also represents a higher base power level than many groups may be used to. Contrary to popular forum belief, not everyone plays at high or even mid-op levels, and thus pre-optimized ToB classes may indeed be overpowered for some groups, particularly at the 1-6 area where many groups start out.

[Mr. Zolrane]

It introduces a new subsystem that some people dont like the feel of. Just like binders and incarnum some people don't like it. This conflict however is more severe than those because Tome of Battle is also essentially replacing monks, fighters, and paladins with new classes that some people feel makes them just reflavored casters. I personally believe these people are wrong but they are entitled to their opinion.

{{scrubbed}}

tl;dr It's a new subsystem that replaces old classes some people liked.

I see. Interesting. Is that as specific as you can get without the copyright lawyers up your ass then?

[NichG]

It also has a very different feel stylistically from most of the other melee options in D&D - its much more openly wuxia than other, non-explicitly-oriental things.

[Cog]

The Warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) is available online if you're curious about the system, actually. Keep in mind that maneuver levels are accessed at the same rate that Wizards access spell levels.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Tome of battle is awesome. There are three new classes, warblade, swordsage, and crusader.

Crusader is meant to replace knight and paladin, warblade is meant to replace fighter and barbarian, and swordsage is meant to replace ranger and rogue.

The whole goal of ToB is to make melee classes on par with spellcasting classes.

[Mr. Zolrane]

The whole goal of ToB is to make melee classes on par with spellcasting classes.

On the whole, would you say it worked?

[Firechanter]

Putting that a bit more seriously: the ToB classes Crusader, Swordsage and Warblade are in pretty much every respect cleary better and more versatile than their respective core equivalents Paladin, Monk and Fighter. You could say the ToB classes supersede or replace these core classes. Most people welcome this with open arms, because it finally makes melee fun to play.
However, there are some who don't seem to realize that these core classes are vastly underpowered and fail to do the job they were supposed to do. They just see "Warblade >> Fighter" and falsely conclude that therefore ToB must be broken.

There was at least one old thread here a good while ago, where Runestar won the internet with this analysis:

"I blame Wotc for brainwashing us into thinking that +2 damage per attack is acceptable for a fighter, while wizards can get away with stopping time and gating in solars."

[Veyr]

I see. Interesting. Is that as specific as you can get without the copyright lawyers up your ass then?
Yup, easily — the vast majority of the system is available on Wizards' website, if you combine Excerpts from Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, Warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) with the Web Enhancement: Tome of Battle Maneuver Cards (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a).

The only thing those two don't cover is how your Initiator Level works and at what level you can select maneuvers of a given level; it's not exact (and actually leaves out a really cool part of the system), but you could treat Initiator Level as Caster Level a la Cleric, Druid, or Wizard for those purposes and end up with something almost exactly like what's in the actual book.


The rest of the book is still very much worth buying, by the way. There are some excellent Feats, and the other two base classes, Crusader and Swordsage, are excellent.

[Kylarra]

On the whole, would you say it worked?For definitions of "worked". It puts them more or less on par with the limited list casters, Beguiler & Dread Necromancer, and still below all the full-list casters. Ie, they are all Tier 3, up from 4 and 5, but not Tiers 1 or 2.

[Greenish]

On the whole, would you say it worked?They're not as overpowered as some casters, landing nicely into tier 3 which many consider excellent balancing point, and they require significantly less rules wizardy than most other melee classes to work, so I'd say they're a nifty piece of work.

[Hiro Protagonest]

On the whole, would you say it worked?

Yes. The new classes have more class skills and more skill ranks, making them more useful out of combat, except for the swordsage, which is more useful in combat. The maneuvers are very similar to spells, and some are useful out of combat too. The leaping dragon stance, for example, adds 10 ft. to your jump distance, and the diamond mind discipline has maneuvers that make your saving throws better.

[Fiery Diamond]

1) The classes within are much more powerful than their respective core classes.

2) It's a totally new system and some people don't like learning new systems. (This is also why people don't like psionics.)

3) Some people feel that it is too "wuxia" or "anime."

4) If you choose maneuvers geared for damage, they quickly overshadow blaster-casters. This is a problem for people who play blaster-casters, who were already overshadowing core non-magic classes in damage (barring shenanigans, anyway).

Does that explain why some people don't like it well enough?

[Greenish]

The maneuvers are very similar to spells, and some are useful out of combat too.And of course there's the ToB lockpick, Mountain Hammer, that ignores any DR or hardness.

[Hiro Protagonest]

And of course there's the ToB lockpick, Mountain Hammer, that ignores any DR or hardness.

Yeah, that's probably the only stone dragon maneuver you ever want to take.

[Jack_Simth]

{{scrubbed}}
Not exactly.

"Overpowered" and "Balanced" are relative terms. In a party with three Core Bards who dumped Charisma, the Swordsage who followed recommended stat guidelines and randomly selected his maneuvers is going to be overpowered - because he's liable to take the spotlight significantly more often than anyone else in the party.

In a party with an Incantatrix Wizard, a Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) Cleric, and a Planar Shepherd Druid, the Swordsage is going to be underpowered - because it's unlikely he'll be able to do much of use that the others can't do better in another manner, and he'll almost never have any spotlight time.

Are they outlier cases? Yes. But the point is that "overpowered" and "underpowered" are always in reference to some baseline - usually relative to the rest of the party. In the case of the Tome of Battle, many people are comparing it to the Core classes they seem intended to replace (Fighter, Monk, and Paladin for the Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader, respectively). Is an unoptimized Warblade stronger than an unoptimized Fighter? Usually. Is an unoptimized Swordsage stronger than an unoptimized monk? Usually. Is an unoptimized Crusader stronger than an unoptimized Paladin? Usually. The Tome of Battle classes will usually have a bit more variety to them, as well. Thus, "Overpowered". With certain baselines, the statement that the Tome of Battle classes are overpowered is accurate.

What baseline are you using when you give such a blanket statement as "These people are stupid and don't know anything about balance"?

[Cog]

Yeah, that's probably the only stone dragon maneuver you ever want to take.
If you futzed up your prereqs and don't qualify for any of the other 9th level maneuvers, Stone Dragon has you covered again.

[Greenish]

Yeah, that's probably the only stone dragon maneuver you ever want to take.Mountain Tombstone Strike is pretty nifty compared to it's requirements. :smallwink:

And I actually like Charging Minotaur.

[Firechanter]

On the whole, would you say it worked?

In a way. This question leads us to something you will often see referred to on these boards, the "Tier system". I don't want to derail the thread here but surely someone can point you to some good sources.

What's to know is that Clerics, Druids and Wizards can each pretty much win (or break) the game single-handedly, being better than the fighter at fighting, better at the ranger at tracking etc. etc. due to their kewl powerz.

The ToB classes aren't as powerful, but they definitely are very competent at what they do, and are not forced to become one-trick ponies. They can be good at several things, but not gamebreakingly so. The jargon for this power level is "Tier 3" or T3 for short, which many (yours truly included) consider the sweet spot of D&D.

Compare to that the classes they replace, which not only lack the versatility to work well outside their niche, but actually aren't very good at what they are supposed to do. In short, they are T5.

So all in all, maybe it doesn't quite hit it if you say ToB classes are supposed to be on par with spellcasters. (They are about on par with the Bard, though.) They are supposed to be at the power level that is the most fun to play, and they succeed at this very gloriously.

[Greenish]

So all in all, maybe it doesn't quite hit it if you say ToB classes are supposed to be on par with spellcasters. (They are about on par with the Bard, though.)A clarification here, since the misconception that bards are weak occasionally raises it's head: bards are actually a very strong and versatile class, far better than fighter, barbarian, ranger or a whole heap of others you could mention. They just happen to be an expert level class to fully utilize, and gain much of their power from various splats (though a core-only bard is still better than any of the other classes named earlier).

[Mr. Zolrane]

There was at least one old thread here a good while ago, where Runestar won the internet with this analysis:

"I blame Wotc for brainwashing us into thinking that +2 damage per attack is acceptable for a fighter, while wizards can get away with stopping time and gating in solars."

That quote amuses me. Thank you for that. :smalltongue:


Yup, easily — the vast majority of the system is available on Wizards' website, if you combine Excerpts from Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, Warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) with the Web Enhancement: Tome of Battle Maneuver Cards (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a).

The only thing those two don't cover is how your Initiator Level works and at what level you can select maneuvers of a given level; it's not exact (and actually leaves out a really cool part of the system), but you could treat Initiator Level as Caster Level a la Cleric, Druid, or Wizard for those purposes and end up with something almost exactly like what's in the actual book.


The rest of the book is still very much worth buying, by the way. There are some excellent Feats, and the other two base classes, Crusader and Swordsage, are excellent.

That sounds awesome. I'm probably going to buy a bunch of books for next semester's campaign, and this just made my list. It won't affect me, naturally as I'm going to be playing a Sorcerer/Blood Magus, but it should be a helpful tool for talking down the guy who wants to play monk. :smalleek:


They're not as overpowered as some casters, landing nicely into tier 3 which many consider excellent balancing point, and they require significantly less rules wizardy than most other melee classes to work, so I'd say they're a nifty piece of work.

Personally I'd say that if every class in the game had a power level in the 3- High 4 range the game would be considerably more balanced.


1) The classes within are much more powerful than their respective core classes.

2) It's a totally new system and some people don't like learning new systems. (This is also why people don't like psionics.)

3) Some people feel that it is too "wuxia" or "anime."

4) If you choose maneuvers geared for damage, they quickly overshadow blaster-casters. This is a problem for people who play blaster-casters, who were already overshadowing core non-magic classes in damage (barring shenanigans, anyway).

Does that explain why some people don't like it well enough?

Yes, I'd say that's a good explanation. Point 3 vexes me though. I'm not sure when it happened but it seems like I'm finding more and more people who refuse to let the various sectors of geekdom intersect. As if I'm a bad person for doing my best impression of Lelouch vi Britannia when casting Geas/Quest.

[Mr. Zolrane]

A clarification here, since the misconception that bards are weak occasionally raises it's head: bards are actually a very strong and versatile class, far better than fighter, barbarian, ranger or a whole heap of others you could mention. They just happen to be an expert level class to fully utilize, and gain much of their power from various splats (though a core-only bard is still better than any of the other classes named earlier).

I like barbarians. Bards can actually benefit from a little barbarian dip in my (very limited) experience.

[TheGeckoKing]

I'm not quite sure why some people hate ToB with such fervor. I could tell you why i'm not thrilled about using ToB, but then again i'm the odd person that loathes Bards with a passion and thinks Strongheart Vests are an acceptable way for Warlocks to circumnavigate Hellfire penalties. You don't really want to hear my opinion.

I would hazard a guess and say the maneuver system could feel like spellcasting to some people, but only two schools are REEEEEALLY magical (I always get told off for saying maneuvers are akin to spellcasting), and maybe people LIKED playing low-powered campaigns (T4-T5) and hate ToB's quirk of generally refusing to budge from T3. And.....er.......bandwagon?

Oh, and the origin fluff in ToB is horrible for when your trying to port it into a campaign. Not for something like Eberron, but some place like Dark Sun or Ravenloft is just going to go "lulwut?"

[Hiro Protagonest]

Mountain Tombstone Strike is pretty nifty compared to it's requirements. :smallwink:
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

And I actually like Charging Minotaur.

It's fine.

[RaginChangeling]

I like barbarians. Bards can actually benefit from a little barbarian dip in my (very limited) experience.

Yeah, Barbarians are probably the best purely martial class outside of the Warblade and the Crusader and Bardbarians can be extremely strong and synergistic characters to play.

[PollyOliver]

WRT bards, bard is a perfectly capable class, and I'd say it's well-balanced--but then, I like tier 3 as a balance point, and if I'm playing above it because of a character concept I don't put much or any effort into optimization and sometimes gimp myself.

ToB is balanced against bard, beguiler, factotum, binder, psychic warrior, etc., assuming the players have some basic knowledge of what they're doing. ToB is more powerful out of the box than some higher tier classes, if you have a really, really, really low-op party, but in a background of some- to mid-level optimization (which I define as "the cleric is not a healbot, the bard knows inspire courage is good, and the wizard knows to take at least some non-blasty spells") they're very centrally balanced at tier 3. It's only when the wizard prepares every spell slot with magic missile and the cleric with cure light wounds, or when the rest of the party is running fighters with greater weapon specialization, that you run into problems with ToB being too powerful. Which probably describes a lot of casual gamers, in truth, which is probably why ToB can be divisive.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah, Barbarians are probably the best purely martial class outside of the Warblade and the Crusader and Bardbarians can be extremely strong and synergistic characters to play.

Yeah, barbarian's tier 4, while the other non-ToB pure melee classes are tier 5.

Pollyoliver: factotum is totally tier 1.

[Firechanter]

FWIW:



2) It's a totally new system and some people don't like learning new systems. (This is also why people don't like psionics.)

3) Some people feel that it is too "wuxia" or "anime."


ad 2: have to admit I am one of those people. I don't like having a bunch of different systems in a single game. And for the same reason, I was very skeptical of ToB at first. But I gave it a chance and lo, after reading it just once it won me over hook, line and sinker.
Well, I am not particularly fond of _some_ elements, such as the very magicky Desert Wind discipline, but that can easily be avoided and most of the other disciplines are pure gold; the maneuver system simple enough even for an old dog like me to grasp it.

ad 3: I don't like Anime or Wuxia. But the ToB did not set my Manga alarm off. There are a few elements like "walking on the air" but I can ignore these or cope with them easily enough. In short, if even _I_ don't find it too Anime, I can't see too much substance in these accusations.

[Greenish]

ToB also has rapid fanboys who do such horrible things as bring it up every time someone is talking about a melee character concept they would like to realize, or when someone is looking into improving monks, or the like.

Because mentioning ToB where it would fit beautifully is bullying people into using it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

One thing I like about ToB is it allows me to make prince Zuko, Sokka, and other avatar characters. I love avatar: the last airbender.

[Knaight]

It also has a very different feel stylistically from most of the other melee options in D&D - its much more openly wuxia than other, non-explicitly-oriental things.

Which is funny, since it seems to work just as well for more europesque combat styles. Specific forms are somewhat common as it happens.

[Endarire]

The "anime" insult goes from greatly breaking players' expectations. In most fantasy games, non-casters do things reasonable for people in real life to do, but sometimes with bigger numbers. Thus, they can hit people (very hard), run very fast (and sometimes slightly faster than the world record holders), and be heroic.

And their abilities are Extraordinary.

[TheGeckoKing]

ToB also has rapid fanboys who do such horrible things as bring it up every time someone is talking about a melee character concept they would like to realize, or when someone is looking into improving monks, or the like.

Because mentioning ToB where it would fit beautifully is bullying people into using it.

Oh, that has to be a pet peeve of mine, no doubt about it. It's up there with "Just play a Wizard". As soon as you hear "What do you think Person X's stats would be?" or "I want to play a Barbarian" all you get is "He would totally be a SS/Warblade/Crusader" without any more thought into the answer or "Oh, just play a Warblade".

What's that? "Conan the Barbarian wouldn't have any levels in Barbarian"?

TASTE CHAINSAW FLESHGRINDING HEAVY MERCURIAL FULLBLADE, HEATHEN!

[Firechanter]

Conan the Barbarian has plenty of Barb levels, however not D&D Barb but the class from the Conan RPG, which really kicks ass. =)

[Lateral]

Yeah, Conan's not the best example here, since he doesn't really fit the D&D barbarian class too well (they're really more like berserkers and not barbarians, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.)

That said, what you said does apply to a lot of other situations. If someone asks, "What feats should my Rogue take?" and someone responds with, "lol play a swordsage n00b," they're not exactly being helpful.

By the way, it's good to see you back, Zolrane. How's life?

[tyckspoon]

What's that? "Conan the Barbarian wouldn't have any levels in Barbarian"?

TASTE CHAINSAW FLESHGRINDING HEAVY MERCURIAL FULLBLADE, HEATHEN!

Well of course he would. 1. For Pounce. You know. Like everybody else (and.. well, while Conan should have Rage, he doesn't really need more than that 1 level anyway. Something like Barb 1/Rogue (small number)/Warblade X is a perfectly good Conan representation... blame it on the insane number of concepts you can draw out of a Warblade.)

[The Glyphstone]

I've said it before, and at least one person has quoted it - the entire flavor text of Iron Heart Surge can basically be replaced by the words "BY CROM!".

[Firechanter]

Granted, if you read the Howard stories, Conan very well Iron Heart Surges at least once per adventure. ^^

[Greenish]

I've said it before, and at least one person has quoted it - the entire flavor text of Iron Heart Surge can basically be replaced by the words "BY CROM!".And if the entire rules text was replaced with that, too, the maneuver would be much clearer on how it works.

[Wings of Peace]

It also represents a higher base power level than many groups may be used to. Contrary to popular forum belief, not everyone plays at high or even mid-op levels, and thus pre-optimized ToB classes may indeed be overpowered for some groups, particularly at the 1-6 area where many groups start out.

While I love ToB I have found this to be true. The group I am in right now is fairly new to the game. The average player on a good hit at level one dealt ten to twelve damage on a good hit. My Warblade at level 1 can deal 6+3d6 with his greatsword on a regular attack (using Punishing stance) and for hard enemies he can crank that to 7+4d6 since I used by human feat to learn Burning Blade. That's a full 2d6 + 1 above what he would normally be able to do as another melee class like the fighter and well above what his fellow party mates do for damage.

In higher optimization groups this matters less but in groups new to the game it can make classes like the Warblade outshine the other melee characters.

Edit: As an aside this is why I worked out with the DM that I was fine lagging a few levels behind the other players to keep the power levels relatively even.

[TheGeckoKing]

I've said it before, and at least one person has quoted it - the entire flavor text of Iron Heart Surge can basically be replaced by the words "BY CROM!".

Yes, you did say that. It's still amusing :smalltongue:.

No, but what I said was spawned from a conversation I had with a friend;

"I wonder what Conan's stats would be......"
"Conan the Barbarian?"
"Yeah"
"Warblade 20"
":smallconfused: No Barbarian?"
"Well duh. Of course Conan the Barbarian wouldn't have any levels in Barbarian. He'd take more Warblade levels."
"What? That defies all logic!"
"No it doesn't."
He's Conan the BARBARIAN. Of course he's take a few levels of Barb, even if just for the pounce.
"No he wouldn't. God, for all the God Wizards you play, you suck at melee optimization."
".........TASTE STEEL, FOUL FIEND!"

For the record, I lightly attacked him with a spoon. Calm down.

It's not that I feel ToB poorly represents certain characters, but it's just the blind ignorance that people spam "Play with ToB! Every other melee option sucks!" gets on my nerves. Along with Bards, but that's just bad experiences.

[Lateral]

That's certainly true. Warblade might fit Conan pretty well, but he's also going to be taking levels of a roguish class and a level or two of Barbarian. Guy's a master thief.

[Cadian 9th]

Yeah, Barbarians are probably the best purely martial class outside of the Warblade and the Crusader and Bardbarians can be extremely strong and synergistic characters to play.

Not to sound picky, but I think Fighter's a lot better. I mean, the Barbarian's main class feature is +4 on strength modifier and HP, a few times per day, uncanny dodge, a pitying amount of DR (really?), 2 extra skill points and fast movement. Of course, Whirling Frenzy and Ferocity step it up, but findamentaly, Fighter can do more, thanks to his feats. Yeah, I know, bonus feats a class feature do not make, but if you do the numbers, go for Weapon and Greater Specialization and focus, you end up doing more or less the same as the barbarian during rage, except not as many hit points, all the time, AND you've got other bonus feats.

Not to mention Zhenatrim Soldier, Hit and Run tactics and Dungeoncrasher lend their weight to the fighter's prowess.

On ToB being awesome, yes, it is - although, the prestige classes are sometimes a bit underwhelming, or just incredibly awesome. The pre-requisites, however, make them really hard to get into fluff wise. It can lend to the feel of being wuxia/anime/pidgeonholed.

In terms of outdamaging casters, well, yeah, as the common caster in my group, there's one thing people with pointy sticks are good at, and that's dealing damage. I'll stick to reaarranging the universe to help, thank you very much. The thing ToB gave to us is Melee classes who can do so much more, and still do the damage. It means the casters don't have to worry nearly as much about those debuffs, that Battlecontrol, that buffing, and can concentrate on doing other things. ToB characters can even help casters, by bonus actions, buffs, healing, and more.

In short, ToB classes are solid members of a party that can contribute in a good variety of situations.

[Greenish]

Yes, you did say that. It's still amusing :smalltongue:.

No, but what I said was spawned from a conversation I had with a friend;

"I wonder what Conan's stats would be......"
"Conan the Barbarian?"
"Yeah"
"Warblade 20"
":smallconfused: No Barbarian?"
"Well duh. Of course Conan the Barbarian wouldn't have any levels in Barbarian. He'd take more Warblade levels."
"What? That defies all logic!"
"No it doesn't."
He's Conan the BARBARIAN. Of course he's take a few levels of Barb, even if just for the pounce.
"No he wouldn't. God, for all the God Wizards you play, you suck at melee optimization."
".........TASTE STEEL, FOUL FIEND!"

For the record, I lightly attacked him with a spoon. Calm down.

It's not that I feel ToB poorly represents certain characters, but it's just the blind ignorance that people spam "Play with ToB! Every other melee option sucks!" gets on my nerves. Along with Bards, but that's just bad experiences.You don't need levels in samurai to play samurai. And every other melee option doesn't suck, but the odds are ToB does what you want perfectly fine, and it's not ignorance to point that out.

[Edit]:
Not to mention Zhenatrim Soldier, Hit and Run tactics and Dungeoncrasher lend their weight to the fighter's prowess. …Not to mention Trap Killer, Wolf Totem, Lion Spiritual Totem, Whirling Frenzy or Street Fighter. For example. Or Intimidating Rage that does pretty much what Zhentarim 9.

[Dsurion]

This has been touched upon earlier, but one of the big things people dislike about the book is the flavor of the classes and the history of the disciplines. This is usually countered with the "fluff is mutable" argument, which is a flame war and a half in itself.

Honestly, if a thread mentions Tome of Battle at all, I tend to shy away from reading anything beyond the first page to preempt having to read said flame wars.

On the book personally... "I don't know and have no opinion."

[TheGeckoKing]

You don't need levels in samurai to play samurai. And every other melee option doesn't suck, but the odds are ToB does what you want perfectly fine, and it's not ignorance to point that out.

Oh no, I wouldn't wish Samurai on anyone, bar my enemies with a specific Wish spell cast on them. And it's not ignorance if ToB does do the better job. What I'm talking about is people that refuse to believe even once that MAYBE, something non-ToB would be better for this melee build. And I seem to know at least two of these people, sadly.

[Greenish]

Oh no, I wouldn't wish Samurai on anyone, bar my enemies with a specific Wish spell cast on them.It was a reference to this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html).

And you're Elan. :smalltongue:

[Mr. Zolrane]

By the way, it's good to see you back, Zolrane. How's life?

Hey, Lateral, good to see you too. I've been back(ish) for a while but I've primarily been lurking. I'm doing okay. It looks like Crisis is taking good care of the game, and that makes me happy.

What's this business about Barbarians getting pounce? That's not on the SRD; what book is that from?

[Zaq]

Not to sound picky, but I think Fighter's a lot better. I mean, the Barbarian's main class feature is +4 on strength modifier and HP, a few times per day, uncanny dodge, a pitying amount of DR (really?), 2 extra skill points and fast movement. Of course, Whirling Frenzy and Ferocity step it up, but findamentaly, Fighter can do more, thanks to his feats. Yeah, I know, bonus feats a class feature do not make, but if you do the numbers, go for Weapon and Greater Specialization and focus, you end up doing more or less the same as the barbarian during rage, except not as many hit points, all the time, AND you've got other bonus feats.

Not to mention Zhenatrim Soldier, Hit and Run tactics and Dungeoncrasher lend their weight to the fighter's prowess.



If the Fighter gets the Zhentarim sub levels, the Barbarian gets Pounce. Pounce alone is enough to set it firmly head and shoulders above the "crap, you're more than a 5' step away?!" Fighter.

On-topic, one thing to keep in mind is that it's very hard to actually play a truly weak ToB class. I have seen one person screw up a Warblade, and they were, well, really, really dumb. This is a good thing in a group that's beyond Weapon Focus, but a bad thing in a group where people think that Toughness is a useful feat. It's basically impossible to play a useless Warblade or Crusader. You can literally pick maneuvers that sound cool without looking at what they do, and while you obviously won't be as good as someone who isn't effectively button-mashing, you still won't be nearly as bad as a Fighter who picks feats totally at random or a Wizard who picks spells totally at random.

For the record, I love ToB and always suggest it to new players in my group.

[Greenish]

What's this business about Barbarians getting pounce? That's not on the SRD; what book is that from?Complete Champion. It's an ACF that trades Fast Movement for Pounce, called Spirit Lion Totem.

[Mr. Zolrane]

Complete Champion. It's an ACF that trades Fast Movement for Pounce, called Spirit Lion Totem.

Oh. One of those totemic barbarians. Those actually ARE in the SRD. I just kinda forgot...

EDIT: I take that back, I was confused. Again. Gosh, I could use some caffeine.

But yeah, I would have really liked that for the Barbarian/Holy Maelstrom (homebrew, evil-smiting Barbariany PrC) I played this semester. A little late for that now; the last session is Saturday, but useful to know for the future.

[Cadian 9th]

[Edit]: …Not to mention Trap Killer, Wolf Totem, Lion Spiritual Totem, Whirling Frenzy or Street Fighter. For example. Or Intimidating Rage that does pretty much what Zhentarim 9.

True. :smalltongue:

@Zaq, hustle, ranged attacks, travel devotion, Lion's Charge, Stances through Martial Stance, but I see your point.


I've really noticed that, a new player of mine picked up crusader, didn't even read the full maneuver description, and is rockin' right now. It's great for that reason, I think.

[Greenish]

Oh. One of those totemic barbarians. Those actually ARE in the SRD. I just kinda forgot...No, it's not one of those totemic barbarians, it's from another set of totemic barbarians. :smallamused:

[Mr. Zolrane]

No, it's not one of those totemic barbarians, it's from another set of totemic barbarians. :smallamused:

Hahah, yeah I got that once I went back and looked again.

[Cog]

Of the different totems, some stack.

If somebody complains about the flavor of a having both a Wolf totem and a Spirit Lion totem, you then smack them with your totem pole.

[Lateral]

They both replace fast movement, though, so you can't without taking levels in other classes with fast movement and having a DM who lets you do that. Wolf Totem's pretty nice, though, and having them both would be cool.

[Cog]

Neither Wolf nor Horse lose fast movement.

[RaginChangeling]

They both replace fast movement, though, so you can't without taking levels in other classes with fast movement and having a DM who lets you do that. Wolf Totem's pretty nice, though, and having them both would be cool.


A barbarian dedicated to the wolf totem does not gain the standard uncanny dodge, trap sense, and improved uncanny dodge barbarian class features, and instead gains the following abilities.



Nope, Wolf's one of the few that keeps fast movement.

[Lateral]

Oh, you meant the Wolf Totem from UA, not the Spirit Wolf Totem. :smallredface:

[Eldariel]

Of the different totems, some stack.

If somebody complains about the flavor of a having both a Wolf totem and a Spirit Lion totem, you then smack them with your totem pole.

Well, standard Barbarian is "Jaguar Totem" already so having both, Jaguar Totem and Spirit Lion Totem is no more weird than having Wolf Totem and Spirit Lion Totem; easiest to just treat the Spiritual Totem as something completely different from the worldly totem.

EDIT: Swordsage'd.

[The Glyphstone]

Yup - there'a small number of Totems and Spirit Totems tht function together - Wolf and Spirit Lion are one...though personally, I'd have it refluffed into a single totem creature (though I don't know any official monsters with Trip and Pounce as abilities).

[Eldariel]

Yup - there'a small number of Totems and Spirit Totems tht function together - Wolf and Spirit Lion are one...though personally, I'd have it refluffed into a single totem creature (though I don't know any official monsters with Trip and Pounce as abilities).

You should. It's one of the most famous creatures in the game, especially as Druid's animal companion and wildshape form for high-powered games. The name is Fleshraker.

[TheGeckoKing]

It was a reference to this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html).

And you're Elan. :smalltongue:

Oh. And i'm not an Elan, i'm an Anthropomorphic Lizard, ya'know, the one from SS........oh. HOW DARE YOU INSINUATE I WOULD BE A BARD!

Honestly though, that went RIGHT over my head :smalltongue:.


You should. It's one of the most famous creatures in the game, especially as Druid's animal companion and wildshape form for high-powered games. The name is Fleshraker.

Now I want to play a Fleshraker Totem Barbarian. :smallamused:

[Chronos]

Personally, the problem that I have with Tome of Battle is that it takes the problem it's supposed to fix, and makes it worse. Yes, the warrior-type classes are outshone by other classes, and yes, that's a problem. But ToB doesn't make the warrior-types better, but instead introduces yet more classes that outshine warrior-types. Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader aren't warrior-types, but something completely different that just happens to superficially resemble warrior-types.

Now, that's not a problem in and of itself: There are bound to be many different fighting styles in the world, especially in a fantasy world. And I don't actually mind replacing monks with unarmed swordsages, since the monk is supposed to operate fundamentally differently from a guy with a big piece of metal (plus, base-rule monks suck enough that it's probably best to just scrap them and start over). But you should fix the old fighting styles first, before adding the new ones, too.

[Cog]

How is a Warblade not a warrior type?

[Greenish]

But ToB doesn't make the warrior-types better, but instead introduces yet more classes that outshine warrior-types. Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader aren't warrior-types, but something completely different that just happens to superficially resemble warrior-types.Wait, what is your definition of "warrior type", if warblade of all things doesn't fit into it?

[RaginChangeling]

Personally, the problem that I have with Tome of Battle is that it takes the problem it's supposed to fix, and makes it worse. Yes, the warrior-type classes are outshone by other classes, and yes, that's a problem. But ToB doesn't make the warrior-types better, but instead introduces yet more classes that outshine warrior-types. Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader aren't warrior-types, but something completely different that just happens to superficially resemble warrior-types.

Now, that's not a problem in and of itself: There are bound to be many different fighting styles in the world, especially in a fantasy world. And I don't actually mind replacing monks with unarmed swordsages, since the monk is supposed to operate fundamentally differently from a guy with a big piece of metal (plus, base-rule monks suck enough that it's probably best to just scrap them and start over). But you should fix the old fighting styles first, before adding the new ones, too.

You can't fix something that doesn't exist. There is no 'generic fighting style', everyone gets BaB and the ability to make Full Attacks. The Fighter can hit harder... sometimes, but a Fighter 10 and Wizard 20 or Rogue 14 have the same attack bonus and fight with the same effectiveness. You can't fix that without giving them actual class features, like TOB does.

[The Glyphstone]

You should. It's one of the most famous creatures in the game, especially as Druid's animal companion and wildshape form for high-powered games. The name is Fleshraker.

Huh - I only knew the Fleshraker for Pounce and Poison, I didn't realize it also had trip.

But yeah, Fleshraker Totem Barbarian is badass.

[Firechanter]

Old fighting style: "My turn? Uh, I guess I attack it again."

[Eldariel]

Huh - I only knew the Fleshraker for Pounce and Poison, I didn't realize it also had trip.

But yeah, Fleshraker Totem Barbarian is badass.

They come with the most awesome form of attack ever: Leaping Pounce. They jump on the target, Pounce (with Rake) and try to knock them Prone (Trip) and if successful, initiate a free Grapple.

[Greenish]

They come with the most awesome form of attack ever: Leaping Pounce. They jump on the target, Pounce (with Rake) and try to knock them Prone (Trip) and if successful, initiate a free Grapple.I wouldn't mind getting that for my barbarian. Needs spirit lion/wolf totem with Scorpion's Grasp.

And I can definitely see barbarians selecting fleshraker as their totem animal, it's brutal.

[Lateral]

They come with the most awesome form of attack ever: Leaping Pounce. They jump on the target, Pounce (with Rake) and try to knock them Prone (Trip) and if successful, initiate a free Grapple.

...Now I wanna build a Monk/Barbarian(/Swordsage, perhaps) who slathers contact poison on their forehead, and then charges enemies with pounce, knocks them prone, grapples them, and then slams their poison-covered forehead into their target.

[Cog]

...contact poison on their forehead...
There may be a slight difficulty here.

[Eldariel]

There may be a slight difficulty here.

As long as you're immune it's all good :smallwink:

[Cog]

Beyond that, poison is dosed. Even if you aren't hurt by it, you probably absorb the dose. :smalltongue:

[Greenish]

Beyond that, poison is dosed. Even if you aren't hurt by it, you probably absorb the dose. :smalltongue:You'd use Necklace of Natural Weapons of Assassination with triple weapon capsule, of course.

[Eldariel]

Beyond that, poison is dosed. Even if you aren't hurt by it, you probably absorb the dose. :smalltongue:

My veins. They flow with poison. My touch is lethal. I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.

[Lhurgyof]

It introduces a new subsystem that some people dont like the feel of. Just like binders and incarnum some people don't like it. This conflict however is more severe than those because Tome of Battle is also essentially replacing monks, fighters, and paladins with new classes that some people feel makes them just reflavored casters. I personally believe these people are wrong but they are entitled to their opinion.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

tl;dr It's a new subsystem that replaces old classes some people liked.

They're over-powerd in games full of unoptimized people. Especially when most of them are melee characters.

I'd not be so inclined to throw around epithets like stupid that easily. :smallannoyed:

[gomipile]

My DM allows it, but hates it on principle because he feels that WotC never should have published classes that replace the fighter and monk rather than going back and fixing the core classes if they needed it. He sees all the ToB base classes as a missed opportunity to refine the core classes the way Pathfinder did.

I don't agree with him, but that sums up the center of his dislike for ToB.

[Cog]

Where's Assassination? I'm finding references when I search but no sources, and I'm guessing it's not just the Assassin's Dagger swapped.

[Greenish]

My DM allows it, but hates it on principle because he feels that WotC never should have published classes that replace the fighter and monk rather than going back and fixing the core classes if they needed it. He sees all the ToB base classes as a missed opportunity to refine the core classes the way Pathfinder did.He could port over PF's fighter and monks and see how well they'd do. :smallamused:

He should port over PF's paladin, which would be pretty nifty with all 3.5's paladin goodies tagged on.

[Edit]: Assassination is from Cityscape's web enhancement (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070314a).

[tyckspoon]

My DM allows it, but hates it on principle because he feels that WotC never should have published classes that replace the fighter and monk rather than going back and fixing the core classes if they needed it. He sees all the ToB base classes as a missed opportunity to refine the core classes the way Pathfinder did.

I don't agree with him, but that sums up the center of his dislike for ToB.

..but.. that would either require gigantic erratas to the PHB, on a scale that would justify simply reprinting it anyway, or you'd still have a splat that contained a replacement Fighter. How is that 'just fix the core classes' idea supposed to work? A lot of people express that opinion, but I haven't heard a workable plan for it that wouldn't just give you the Tome of Battle anyway.

[TOZ]

Clearly, they should have released 3.75E with all the splat book fixes incorporated into the PHB. Then people could have complained about another blatant cash grab like they did with 3.5E. :smallsmile:

[MeeposFire]

It is better this way anyway. More variety of choice. Let them choose to use maneuvers or the more traditional mechanic. Both can be fun though the caveat is that the ToB stuff tends to better in most people's hands for most things.

[Urpriest]

..but.. that would either require gigantic erratas to the PHB, on a scale that would justify simply reprinting it anyway, or you'd still have a splat that contained a replacement Fighter. How is that 'just fix the core classes' idea supposed to work? A lot of people express that opinion, but I haven't heard a workable plan for it that wouldn't just give you the Tome of Battle anyway.

Reasonably, it should have worked like 4e, where wide-ranging errata is accepted as a standard part of the game. So the Fighter/Monk/Paladin should have had free errata released that made them into the Warblade/Swordsage/Crusader. I agree that this would have been absurdly impractical, but it feels like what that kind of objection is thinking of.

I used to dislike ToB because of it's fluff, and because of how the fluff was integrated into the mechanics (look at Martial Lore some time: yes, those ridiculous maneuver names are in-setting, your character can make a check to learn them). Discretized maneuvers make sense for a setting like Wheel of Time or Dune (or, yes, lots of Anime) where knowing a special move can make you more effective in combat, but in grittier settings this is less likely to be the case. My more developed settings still usually end up giving ToB very specific fluff as the techniques of a specific set of schools or the like, which often sets them apart from the Fighter-types of the rest of the setting. Without that kind of move it's much harder to justify Martial Lore, Martial Scripts, and the like.

[Qwertystop]

I have seen one person screw up a Warblade, and they were, well, really, really dumb.

How did they manage THAT? Seems to me that it would require a lot of effort to do that!
Not only were they dumb (according to you), they also had REALLY bad luck.
(But seriously, what did they do?)

[faceroll]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

So people with different preferences than you are stupid? Excellent argument.

[Cog]

So people with different preferences than you are stupid? Excellent argument.
There is a difference between preference and demonstrable power level.

[Particle_Man]

I like ToB, but there are some pet peeves I have with it:

1) Wotc messed up the errata (after 5 lines it is the errata for Complete Arcane) so we don't have the corrections/clarifications for fun things like White Raven Tactics, Iron Heart Surge, and possibly Boulder Roll.

2) Some of the prestige classes are . . . not so good as their fluff implies, alas. Shadow Sun Ninja, for example.

3) Because it came late in the series, there is almost no support in any other Wotc book (I think there is an MM entry somewhere with a stated up ToB class for a monster) and little support on their web pages for new material. On the up side, this may mean there is less cheese. But some ACF and racial substitution levels would have been nice.

4) (minor) The Legacy Weapons bit. a) They don't state in ToB when these extra legacy features "unlock". b) For the 9 great weapons of the 9 schools of ToB, they frankly suck. :)

5) Single-classed base classes get their stances at . . . strange levels, so that Crusader, for example, must either multi-class or blow a feat to get their best stances.

6) Some of the prestige classes prerequisites are steep (a few can't be entered until one's 11th character level!).

Again, I do love ToB and love playing my Crusader. The good definitely outweighs the bad.

[Veyr]

I used to dislike ToB because of it's fluff, and because of how the fluff was integrated into the mechanics (look at Martial Lore some time: yes, those ridiculous maneuver names are in-setting, your character can make a check to learn them). Discretized maneuvers make sense for a setting like Wheel of Time or Dune (or, yes, lots of Anime) where knowing a special move can make you more effective in combat, but in grittier settings this is less likely to be the case.
What? No. Every formalized martial art the world has ever known has had a series of names for different maneuvers. How else would you talk about it if you didn't have names for things? And plenty of European martial arts used names just as "flowery" as Asian martial arts. Or as "flowery" as Tome of Battle's.

I mean, yes, street brawlers don't have names for things. But any actual trained warrior? Yes, yes they would.

Hell, just look at professional wrestling. Yes, obviously it's fake, but they have names for their moves, and for a reason — they need names if you're going to talk about them. Pro wrestlers talk about them as part of brand promotion, but martial artists talk about them in terms of what moves to use when and how to string them together.


Martial Scripts, however, I'll agree with. Those are pretty dumb.

[Lateral]

...Do you see the divisiveness now, my old friend? This point is argued so much, I think it's one of those threads that have a day of the week attached to them. You know, like Monkday or Caster Tuesday. (It is Tuesday, right?)

[Particle_Man]

How did they manage THAT? Seems to me that it would require a lot of effort to do that!
Not only were they dumb (according to you), they also had REALLY bad luck.
(But seriously, what did they do?)

Let's see, a winged character that takes mostly Stone Dragon maneuvers?

[faceroll]

There is a difference between preference and demonstrable power level.

ToB is demonstrably more powerful than the power level some people prefer to play their games at. What's your point?


What? No. Every formalized martial art the world has ever known has had a series of names for different maneuvers. How else would you talk about it if you didn't have names for things? And plenty of European martial arts used names just as "flowery" as Asian martial arts. Or as "flowery" as Tome of Battle's.

I think it's the difference between "Rear Naked Choke" and screaming "REAR NAKED CHOKE!!" as you throttle your opponent. Not that ToB requires you to scream "FIVE FINGER CREEPING SHADOW DEATH STRIKE!" But some people think to seem it does.

[Thurbane]

I've heard of a book called the Tome of Battle mentioned frequently in this subforum, and inevitably someone always makes a statement about what a base breaker the book was. Can someone explain to me why this would be?
Mostly already covered, but IMHO, the main reasons for the devisiveness are:

People who overenthusiatically spruik to the book to anyone who will listen (and even those that won't). Note: these people are in a minority thesedays.
The flipside: people who overenthusiastically denounce the book as OP or silly, often without even having read it. Again, these people are in the minority thesedays.
People who argue ad-infinitum about whether the tone and influence of the book is suitable for certain campaigns, and/or argue whether such tones and influences are even present in the book or not. i.e. "It's too anime!" "Is not!" "Is too!" etc etc. Also in this category "It's magic without being magic!" "But that's only a couple of maneuvres!" "Is not!" "Is too!" etc etc.
Some people being perfectly happy hitting things with a stick until it's dead, and other people totally not understanding how anyone could possibly enjoy this.

...I think that just about covers it. Really, it's only a problem when someone is either too fanatically pro ToB, or too fanatically anti- ToB.

[Particle_Man]

Off-topic, but my favourite version of that is when I played a Warlock and in the middle of combat, in my most dramatic voice, said "Now I activate my Supernatural Fiendish Resilience and heal one hit point." :smallsmile:

[dspeyer]

What? No. Every formalized martial art the world has ever known has had a series of names for different maneuvers. How else would you talk about it if you didn't have names for things? And plenty of European martial arts used names just as "flowery" as Asian martial arts. Or as "flowery" as Tome of Battle's.

Really? What I've seen of renaissance fencing manuals is that techniques don't get names -- just diagrams and explanations. Even styles were mostly referred to as "the style of teacher's name".

In modern fighting, I don't think the US Marine Corp has a name for its martial art form. Even Krav Maga uses simple names like "straight punch" and "elbow strike".

Specific techniques are in the nature of fighting, but flowery names aren't universal.

[tyckspoon]

ToB is demonstrably more powerful than the power level some people prefer to play their games at. What's your point?



I think it's the difference between "Rear Naked Choke" and screaming "REAR NAKED CHOKE!!" as you throttle your opponent. Not that ToB requires you to scream "FIVE FINGER CREEPING SHADOW DEATH STRIKE!" But some people think to seem it does.

You mis-spelled FIVE-SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENEVERATION STRIKE! Which is pretty much the one maneuver you do have to scream out, because it's so deliberately cheesy.

[faceroll]

You mis-spelled FIVE-SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENEVERATION STRIKE! Which is pretty much the one maneuver you do have to scream out, because it's so deliberately cheesy.

Oh man, I was close. I've always wanted to play a wizard that thinks he's a monk and shouts **** whenever he casts spells.

[RndmNumGen]

I could go either way with ToB, but most of the people I play with are solidly against it, for one of two reasons(sometimes both):

1) My groups are relatively low-op. 80% of the time we stick to core, and even then the broken things in core rarely ever come up.ToB classes who come half-optimized out of the box end up being much stronger than everyone else, especially since we play at levels 1-6.

2) ToB has a very "final fantasy" feel to us(how we describe it, as opposed to wuxia or anime). While cool, we feel it doesn't really have a place in D&D.

Occasionally I will give a few maneuvers to elite enemies when I'm DMing to make them seem strange, mysterious and more powerful than normal, but other than that it never really comes up in our game.

[Popertop]

The flipside: people who overenthusiastically denounce the book as OP or silly, often without even having read it. Again, these people are in the minority thesedays.

Some people being perfectly happy hitting things with a stick until it's dead, and other people totally not understanding how anyone could possibly enjoy this.

...I think that just about covers it. Really, it's only a problem when someone is either too fanatically pro ToB, or too fanatically anti- ToB.

The group that introduced me to D&D calls it "The Book of Weaboo Fightan Magic" and claims that it's too OP, but they haven't even played anything from it yet.


In my opinion, you should at least give it a shot before you denounce it like that. They really don't even get the concept of differing levels of contribution in an encounter.

[Terazul]

ToB is demonstrably more powerful than the power level some people prefer to play their games at. What's your point?


Well to be fair, as far as straight damage goes, which most people complain about for some reason, ToB doesn't even win out on. Straight charging Barbarians and Full-Attacking Fighters still outdamage Warblades and Crusaders. It's not a matter of power, more that the latter two have more ways to go about doing it than standing in one spot. But yeah, they're a bit more user-friendly.

More often than not the biggest debate I see is when people get caught up on both realism and verisimilitude: "Why can that guy throw a weapon and have it return to him? A real warrior couldn't do that!", usually devolving into a discussion as to what's reasonable for a "warrior archetype" and what isn't, who's playing heroic fantasy and who's not, blah blah it's ok if it's magic blah blah. Also the name thing. Cmon, a DnD supplement without flowery names for everything from feats to vestiges to spells to class names? Really now.

But I honestly can never understand how it somehow seems to clash so hard with many people's "feel" of a game, considering how many classes with multiple sources of power are running around. That guy? Binding ancient forgotten gods. Over there? Power of his soul bound to the totems of his body. Dude right there? Sentient robot golem from an ancient war that FIRES MIND BULLETS. But the guy who's just really good at hitting someone with a hammer? Out of the question. It boggles the mind. :smallconfused:

[TOZ]

2) ToB has a very "final fantasy" feel to us(how we describe it, as opposed to wuxia or anime). While cool, we feel it doesn't really have a place in D&D.


Yeah, it's not like we have oversized swords and giant robots in the game or anythi....:smalleek:

Nevermind.

[faceroll]

Yeah, it's not like we have oversized swords and giant robots in the game or anythi....:smalleek:

Nevermind.

Monkey grip routinely gets a lot of flak for being too "final fantasy 7".

[AslanCross]

ToB user and lover here. Perhaps by now the OP does get a good demonstration of exactly why it's divisive. Even just the answers to that question are divisive. :smallbiggrin:

[Greenish]

Monkey grip routinely gets a lot of flak for being too "final fantasy 7".Well, also for being a rather underwhelming feat.

[Veyr]

Specific techniques are in the nature of fighting, but flowery names aren't universal.
I didn't say they were, actually. I said every martial art has a name for each maneuver. Even if it's purely mechanical like "elbow jab" or whatever, there is a name. And I'd imagine you very quickly run out of names like that, or resort to absurdly descriptive names — after all, the whole point is to avoid having to say "that one punch where you come from the inside and go from low to high" or whatever.

I also said that "plenty of European martial arts" used flower names. Which is true, since I've seen them mentioned in threads much like this one in the past.

Though, I suppose I should mention: I'm no martial artist, nor any scholar of medieval martial arts, European, Asian, or otherwise. So this information is coming second-hand. Again, heh, mostly from threads such as this one.

[TOZ]

Well, also for being a rather underwhelming feat.

Having beaten the original Final Fantasy on the NES as a child, I find the mechanical deficiencies of the feat more a sin than being 'too final fantasy'.

[Zaq]

How did they manage THAT? Seems to me that it would require a lot of effort to do that!
Not only were they dumb (according to you), they also had REALLY bad luck.
(But seriously, what did they do?)

Let's see. He took TWF (I forget if he actually took levels of Ranger for it or if he just took the feats), but didn't take any Tiger Claw. His two weapons were a longsword and a spiked shield, on which his source of bonus damage was Weapon Specialization (on the longsword). He said that he wanted to have a high AC by stomping around in mountain plate, and so I helped him with the Deflective Armor feat chain (so that it would actually apply against everything) . . . which he promptly dropped in favor of Shape Soulmeld: Lucky Dice (which, of course, eats your swift actions, which Warblades kind of desperately need). He was an illumian (awesome!) who kept his sigils permanently turned off (wtf?) because he didn't want to be recognized as an illumian (never mind that the party contained a half-fey hellbred, a spellscale, a warforged, and a friggin' wood woad, but no, the illumian is the one who's going to face racial prejudice), so he had as close to a blank race as you can get without going half-elf. He refused to take any stat-boosting items in a level 14 game . . . so I think his highest stat was a 16. At level 14-15. Once he actually hit the table, he was even worse . . . he would almost never actually use his maneuvers, even when we explicitly told him to. I think he was afraid of running out, despite us explaining many times that Warblades don't have to worry about that crap. It got so bad that our GM confided in me that no, he was not taken into consideration when determining appropriate CRs for the party, because he contributed that little. That's how you screw up a Warblade.

Oh, and in an unrelated game, he once went for a multiclass Ranger/Truenamer. He was dumb.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Let's see. He took TWF (I forget if he actually took levels of Ranger for it or if he just took the feats), but didn't take any Tiger Claw. His two weapons were a longsword and a spiked shield, on which his source of bonus damage was Weapon Specialization (on the longsword). He said that he wanted to have a high AC by stomping around in mountain plate, and so I helped him with the Deflective Armor feat chain (so that it would actually apply against everything) . . . which he promptly dropped in favor of Shape Soulmeld: Lucky Dice (which, of course, eats your swift actions, which Warblades kind of desperately need). He was an illumian (awesome!) who kept his sigils permanently turned off (wtf?) because he didn't want to be recognized as an illumian (never mind that the party contained a half-fey hellbred, a spellscale, a warforged, and a friggin' wood woad, but no, the illumian is the one who's going to face racial prejudice), so he had as close to a blank race as you can get without going half-elf. He refused to take any stat-boosting items in a level 14 game . . . so I think his highest stat was a 16. At level 14-15. Once he actually hit the table, he was even worse . . . he would almost never actually use his maneuvers, even when we explicitly told him to. I think he was afraid of running out, despite us explaining many times that Warblades don't have to worry about that crap. It got so bad that our GM confided in me that no, he was not taken into consideration when determining appropriate CRs for the party, because he contributed that little. That's how you screw up a Warblade.

Oh, and in an unrelated game, he once went for a multiclass Ranger/Truenamer. He was dumb.

What...this... I don't even...

My head Asplode.

[Zaq]

I should mention that I tried to help him make a character that didn't suck (nicely, of course . . . asking him what he wanted and then telling him how best to do that, not simply saying "take this"), and his final character (after he gutted the changes I suggested) was still an improvement over his original design, which was so bad that I can barely remember what it was. It had way too many levels in Ranger and Shadow Sentinel, I think . . .

[Bang!]

Banning it for being overpowered != banning it without having tried it.
(Nobody said it did, but the two events have come up together in a few posts.)

My group ran it, and apparently the Crusader was coming out HP-positive in a fight with a hellbadger or something? That was enough for my group to say "too silly, too strong, not worth it."

I never had strong feelings about the book -- I've never seen fighter impotence in play, so solving that has never been a priority.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Hey don'y diss the ranger; they have the best (official) chassis for a class in the game Full Bab, two good saves, good skill points...yeah.. (that is one of the reason why a SotAO Mystic Ranger is essentially a "diet" Lighting Warrior)

But still; I can't believe someone could build something so... so... horrendous using a Warblade.

[Veyr]

{snip}
I would flat-out tell him that his character is expected to perform better than it is, and work with him to improve it — but force him to actually do so. This definitely goes under the heading of someone being 'selfishly unoptimized' in my mind. Refusing ability-boosting items? That's the one that really got me. Like, what? They're a part of the game. They're an important part of the game, for better or worse. I mean, I'd accept some form of alternative to them (a ritual that gives a permanent Enhancement bonus to an Ability, maybe, that followed item rules for Dispel Magic and the like, costs maybe 25% more than usual?)

[Greenish]

Hey don'y diss the ranger; they have the best (official) chassis for a class in the game Full Bab, two good saves, good skill points...yeah.. (that is one of the reason why a SotAO Mystic Ranger is essentially a "diet" Lighting Warrior)Chassis is a rather minor thing. Toss a TWF ranger (woot full bab and d8 hd) into melee with law incarnate (half bab, d6 hd and 2+int skills) and see who comes up on top.

[Seerow]

Reasonably, it should have worked like 4e, where wide-ranging errata is accepted as a standard part of the game. So the Fighter/Monk/Paladin should have had free errata released that made them into the Warblade/Swordsage/Crusader. I agree that this would have been absurdly impractical, but it feels like what that kind of objection is thinking of.

I used to dislike ToB because of it's fluff, and because of how the fluff was integrated into the mechanics (look at Martial Lore some time: yes, those ridiculous maneuver names are in-setting, your character can make a check to learn them). Discretized maneuvers make sense for a setting like Wheel of Time or Dune (or, yes, lots of Anime) where knowing a special move can make you more effective in combat, but in grittier settings this is less likely to be the case. My more developed settings still usually end up giving ToB very specific fluff as the techniques of a specific set of schools or the like, which often sets them apart from the Fighter-types of the rest of the setting. Without that kind of move it's much harder to justify Martial Lore, Martial Scripts, and the like.

Honestly, I thought Wheel of Time was a great example of named maneuvers that can explicitly be considered mundane, given that the great swordsmasters for the most part have nothing at all to do with the power, and for the most part those named maneuvers are describing the action being taken, as opposed to a more wuxia style action.

[Thurbane]

Some responses to a few points raised earlier:

Most people welcome this with open arms, because it finally makes melee fun to play.
See, this kind of statement is fairly counterproductive. It implies that people who do, in fact, have fun playing the core melee classes (and I am one of them, FWIW) are somehow "doing it wrong" or having "badwrongfun".

A better way of putting the same argument might be "Because it allows for a lot more options and variety in combat than was previously available". It gets across the same sentiment without implying that anyone was "wrong" for enjoying pre-ToB combat.

I'm not sure when it happened but it seems like I'm finding more and more people who refuse to let the various sectors of geekdom intersect.
It's more a case of people who find "wuxia/anime" influenced material doesn't mesh well with their more Eurocentric Arthurian/Tolkienesque campaign settings. That's not to say I necessarily agree with the assessment of the influences inherent in ToB, but that's my understanding of that particular side of the debate.

ToB also has rapid fanboys who do such horrible things as bring it up every time someone is talking about a melee character concept they would like to realize, or when someone is looking into improving monks, or the like.

Because mentioning ToB where it would fit beautifully is bullying people into using it.
That's a very disingenuous way of putting it. I've only ever seen a scant handful of posters ever argue the point to anywhere near this extreme.

The more common complaint is that when someone posts a build request and lists ToB as one of the books not used, there's often either A.) someone who totally ignores it and suggests a ToB build anyhow (which may just be a simple misreading of the OP) or B.) a barrage of questions about why ToB isn't allowed, sometimes even accompanied by an implication that the DM is a "bad DM" for not allowing it.

These are fairly rare cases, thankfully.

My DM allows it, but hates it on principle because he feels that WotC never should have published classes that replace the fighter and monk rather than going back and fixing the core classes if they needed it. He sees all the ToB base classes as a missed opportunity to refine the core classes the way Pathfinder did.

I don't agree with him, but that sums up the center of his dislike for ToB.
FWIW, that was a large part of my initial beef with ToB (which I have now moved past - although I personally don't use it, I didn't really have a problem with it). I had the same issue with classes like Beguiler and Factotum to "out-roguing" the Rogue.

It's a fundamental preference of design philosophy. Like your DM, I'd much rather WotC have added some fixes for core classes that were lacking, instead of coming up with yet more non-core classes that fill the same niche, only better (certainly, though, through feats and such, core classes like Fighter can benefit from material introduced in ToB).

Another part of the same issue is that I feel that 3.X suffered from "core class bloat". To me, there were just far too many base classes that either filled the same niche, or were just reskins of existing classes. I think many of these would have been better expressed as PrCs or ACFs. This is very much a personal preference issue - there is no inherent problem with having a surplus of core classes, it just goes any my personal tastes.

[Pentachoron]

The group that introduced me to D&D calls it "The Book of Weaboo Fightan Magic" and claims that it's too OP, but they haven't even played anything from it yet.


Yeah, they got that from the *chan's. Honestly I find taking anything from the internet's largest single collection of lame more offensive than slamming something one hasn't read.

[darkdragoon]

Desert Fire and Setting Sun are a bit more esoteric than the others, but then again the PHB has Ki Strikes and guisarmes.

Punishing Stance is quite strong early, but it does not keep up. Keep in mind a regular character can dabble easily-- most Rogues are going to be interested in Assassin's Stance and Shadow Blade, for example.

Ruby Knight Vindicator can be very overpowered, but it's the Cleric part that drives it.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Chassis is a rather minor thing. Toss a TWF ranger (woot full bab and d8 hd) into melee with law incarnate (half bab, d6 hd and 2+int skills) and see who comes up on top.

Not really familiar with Incarnates;though I recall hearing Law incarnated are extremely suited to rack up attack bonuses (Evil Incarnates where the ones who racked up damage right?).

[Knaight]

Desert Fire and Setting Sun are a bit more esoteric than the others, but then again the PHB has Ki Strikes and guisarmes.
They are also only available to the class that is explicitly a mystical warrior, so that is to be expected. The only exception to this is spending feats on them, at which point one is just driving a character towards mystical warrior in a different way.

[nyarlathotep]

Not really familiar with Incarnates;though I recall hearing Law incarnated are extremely suited to rack up attack bonuses (Evil Incarnates where the ones who racked up damage right?).


Law and Good are suited for attack bonuses and defensive buff.
.
Evil is damage but not too great at it.

Chaos is good at failing at everything.

[DeltaEmil]

Good ol' Iron Heart is if you dont like 'animoo' and 'kung fu wuxia'-stuff.

The strike maneuvers do say what they do.

Like, letting you make a finishing move that deals more damage the less hit points the enemy has, so that you can deal the finishing blow. Or a perfect strike that perfectly strikes an enemy in two. Or a disarming strike, which disarms the enemy. And there's a dazing strike, which dazes people.

If you want, you can yell those strikes loud and clearly, just as you'd yell your sneak attacks or your power attacks.

Tome of Battle is definitely one of the best books that has options for everyone.

[JaronK]

Really? What I've seen of renaissance fencing manuals is that techniques don't get names -- just diagrams and explanations. Even styles were mostly referred to as "the style of teacher's name".

I've seen manuals that do indeed have flowery names that would rival any kung fu movie. A lot of modern teachers of martial arts don't tend to teach the names (precisely because they sound a little silly) but most of these moves really do have silly names.


In modern fighting, I don't think the US Marine Corp has a name for its martial art form.

MCMAP is the official name, sometimes referred to as "McNinja." It's just a mix of bayonette/rifle attacks with preexisting martial arts (like Jujitsu and Kajikembo). And while they don't tell you the original names for the moves, those names do exist... one set of moves designed to guarantee a bare hands kill of a downed opponents is called "the dance of death."


Even Krav Maga uses simple names like "straight punch" and "elbow strike".

Specific techniques are in the nature of fighting, but flowery names aren't universal.

Consider also from MMA moves like "chicken wing" and "mission control/rubber guard" and "kumura" and "rear naked choke." Yeah, the names are still around, and still get used. Every language uses names that we think sound awesome, but imagine what "Rubber Guard" or "Chicken Wing" must sound like when we translate them to other languages... or "Rear Naked Choke." Even "Arm Bar" or "Flying Triangle" or "Standing Guillotine" sound silly out of context. Is "Mission Control" really so much less silly sounding than "Mountain Hammer" or "Leading the Charge?"

JaronK

[Mr. Zolrane]

...Do you see the divisiveness now, my old friend? This point is argued so much, I think it's one of those threads that have a day of the week attached to them. You know, like Monkday or Caster Tuesday. (It is Tuesday, right?)


ToB user and lover here. Perhaps by now the OP does get a good demonstration of exactly why it's divisive. Even just the answers to that question are divisive. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah... I'm beginning to see it. Overall, I'd say I'm coming down on the pro-ToB side of things. Seems like a fun book, and as much as I've loved melee so far I think I'd enjoy it.


Yeah, they got that from the *chan's. Honestly I find taking anything from the internet's largest single collection of lame more offensive than slamming something one hasn't read.

Penta speaks the truth. /b/ is a wretched hive of scum and villainy if ever there was one.




If you want, you can yell those strikes loud and clearly, just as you'd yell your sneak attacks or your power attacks.

Indeed ^_^ I find that yelling real loud before you hit something is a time-honored tradition.

[Devmaar]

Desert Fire and Setting Sun

Isn't Setting Sun mostly just dodging attacks and throwing people? Shadow Hand is way more 'mystical' imo

[PollyOliver]

Yeah, setting sun is the "monkish" discipline, IMO. Shadow hand and desert wind are the most supernatural.

[navar100]

Some people believe fighters should not be getting nice things. This means while they have no problem with a spellcaster class dealing 10d6 damage to everyone within a 20ft radius from over 400 feet away with bat poo, they have a conniption fit if a warrior class deals weapon + modifiers + 6d6 damage on one hit, let alone had moved more than 5ft with no attack of opportunity provocations for the privilege.

As such, they hate Tome of Battle because of the alphabet. The disciplines are presented in alphabetical order. That means Desert Wind is read first. That means they read of a warrior class dealing extra fire damage with their weapon, fire damage at a range, 100 points of fire damage in a 60ft radius, can be immune to fire, and various supernatural effects. They see "magic", and fighters are not supposed to do magic. They are ignorant of realization that Desert Wind is for the Swordsage, which is equivalent to the Monk, of which they have no problem with Monks using Dimension Door and Spell Resistance. There shall not be "magic" in a book called Tome of "Battle"!

Had Iron Heart been listed first, they would read of maneuvers that pretty much duplicate or are similar to various Feats that warrior classes would take. They then might complain warriors are getting too many "feats" and we can argue the relative balance of power level, but at least they wouldn't be admonishing Silly Fighter magic tricks are for Wizards, which shuts down all thoughts of discussion in their mind.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, setting sun is the "monkish" discipline, IMO. Shadow hand and desert wind are the most supernatural.

Rather, Setting Sun is the "Martial Arts" discipline (more precisely, the Judo). Monks, as per D&D, are supernatural so Shadow Hand and Desert Wind are actually extremely natural for them. Though so is Setting Sun. Coincidentially, Swordsages make great Monks (and Rogues). Whoda thunk.

[Gavinfoxx]

Does anyone familiar with else familiar with Renaissance Martial Arts see Ringeck's and Liechtenauer's Zornhau strike as basically the same thing as Iron Heart's Steely Strike? That's an analogue that I found...

Anyone found any others?

[Firechanter]

As such, they hate Tome of Battle because of the alphabet.

=D
Great way of putting it!

Indeed, as I wrote further up, I too was skeptical of ToB at first, because I don't like my meleers too magicky. I guess I steered clear of that particular cliff because I first looked at the classes, I first read Crusader and thought cool, then I saw Swordsage was only 3/4 BAB and immediately skipped forward to Warblade. Then when I got to the Disciplines, I read the Warblade disciplines first because I liked that class best. Voilà.

[navar100]

My DM allows it, but hates it on principle because he feels that WotC never should have published classes that replace the fighter and monk rather than going back and fixing the core classes if they needed it. He sees all the ToB base classes as a missed opportunity to refine the core classes the way Pathfinder did.

I don't agree with him, but that sums up the center of his dislike for ToB.

Replace the physical word "Crusader" with "Paladin"
Replace the physical word "Warblade" with "Fighter"
Replace the physical word "Swordsage" with "Monk".

Now you can play a Fighter who can deal an extra 1d6 damage to every attack at a cost of -2 AC. You can play a Paladin that gives enemies -4 to all attacks against anyone but him. You can play a Monk that can deal +2d6 Sneak Attack damage.

:smallsmile:

[Hiro Protagonest]

Replace the physical word "Crusader" with "Paladin"
Replace the physical word "Warblade" with "Fighter"
Replace the physical word "Swordsage" with "Monk".

Now you can play a Fighter who can deal an extra 1d6 damage to every attack at a cost of -2 AC. You can play a Paladin that gives enemies -4 to all attacks against anyone but him. You can play a Monk that can deal +2d6 Sneak Attack damage.

:smallsmile:

You can also replace the word "Warblade" with "Barbarian" and "Swordsage" with "Rogue".

[Veyr]

Crusaders are closer to Barbarian than Warblade, I think. Far tankier and they get better the more damage they take (building rage).

[Hiro Protagonest]

Crusaders are closer to Barbarian than Warblade, I think. Far tankier and they get better the more damage they take (building rage).

Warblades get blood in the water, which is as close as ToB gets to rage. Barbarians are more primary melee then tank anyway.

[Provengreil]

More often than not the biggest debate I see is when people get caught up on both realism and verisimilitude: "Why can that guy throw a weapon and have it return to him? A real warrior couldn't do that!", usually devolving into a discussion as to what's reasonable for a "warrior archetype" and what isn't, who's playing heroic fantasy and who's not, blah blah it's ok if it's magic blah blah. Also the name thing. Cmon, a DnD supplement without flowery names for everything from feats to vestiges to spells to class names? Really now.


Wow, took till page four for bloodstorm blade to be explicitly mentioned, I'm surprised. Personally, I like the book in general, assuming it keeps your optimization on par with the group, but that one class just kills me. I know this invites a whole ****storm, but frankly i can't get past the physics of it. how does the weapon, which must transfer energy to deal any damage, have the energy to return to the thrower? what orientation could it hit with to make it bounce where you want it to? at least casters can use the "it's magic" excuse, but when the book is saying you can just bounce this stuff it breaks immersion for me. that's why i don't like the class.

the rest of the book is nice, though, if stretching my willing suspension of disbelief.

[navar100]

Wow, took till page four for bloodstorm blade to be explicitly mentioned, I'm surprised. Personally, I like the book in general, assuming it keeps your optimization on par with the group, but that one class just kills me. I know this invites a whole ****storm, but frankly i can't get past the physics of it. how does the weapon, which must transfer energy to deal any damage, have the energy to return to the thrower? what orientation could it hit with to make it bounce where you want it to? at least casters can use the "it's magic" excuse, but when the book is saying you can just bounce this stuff it breaks immersion for me. that's why i don't like the class.

the rest of the book is nice, though, if stretching my willing suspension of disbelief.

They learn to throw their weapon like a boomerang?

[Hiro Protagonest]

They learn to throw their weapon like a boomerang?

Exactly! If you don't like the fluff logic, just replace throw anything with EWP: boomerang, Talenta boomerang, or Xen'drik boomerang.

[Tvtyrant]

Exactly! If you don't like the fluff logic, just replace throw anything with EWP: boomerang, Talenta boomerang, or Xen'drik boomerang.

.....Boomerangs don't come back once they have hit something. They fall to the ground.

[Veyr]

If a boomerang actually hits something, it isn't going to be returning. Not to mention that the returning property is a function of the design of the object, and while you need to throw a boomerang correctly to make that happen, there is absolutely no way a sword or axe would ever exhibit the same property. Hunting boomerangs fly straight and don't return.

[Hiro Protagonest]

.....Boomerangs don't come back once they have hit something. They fall to the ground.

I know that! But it's still more realistic then with a sword!

[Tvtyrant]

I know that! But it's still more realistic then with a sword!

Also awesome! Especially if you have the giant kangaroo killing boomerangs (throwing combined with Monkey Grip :P)

[Gametime]

Warblades get blood in the water, which is as close as ToB gets to rage. Barbarians are more primary melee then tank anyway.

Crusaders get Furious Counterstrike, though, which works pretty well for "raging warrior" fluff. The healing from punching people in Devoted Spirit also seems fairly barbarian-ish. Really, either class can work well depending on which aspects of Barbarian you want to emphasize.


If a boomerang actually hits something, it isn't going to be returning. Not to mention that the returning property is a function of the design of the object, and while you need to throw a boomerang correctly to make that happen, there is absolutely no way a sword or axe would ever exhibit the same property. Hunting boomerangs fly straight and don't return.

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/seed/lineart/gat-x105-midasmesser.jpg

Problem solved! :smallbiggrin:

[Firechanter]

Yeah, they can throw anything, and it comes back at the end of your turn. At level 4, it comes back immediately so you can actually full attack by throwing your melee weapon over and over. That's pretty cool. Unfortunately, nothing worthwhile comes after that despite being a 10 level PrC. But a 2 or 4 level dip can be pretty awesome.

Anyway. Names. NAMES! They are indeed a thing some people can be pretty hung up on, concerning the ToB. "Warblade" is sometimes jestingly referred to "as opposed to Blades for Peace". But that's actually a minor one.

Some of the maneuver names are silly, particularly from the more esoteric disciplines. One has been mentioned before, the worst offender is definitely the FIVE SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!1!11oneone

My biggest peeve is with some PrC names, however. Again, "Bloodstorm Blade", it's a cool concept but a horrible, horrible name. I guess I'll just rename it to "Stormblade", that's still cheesy but not quite as bad.
Also, "Shadow Sun Ninja" sounds hilariously stupid.

But all those really are minor nitpicks. By and large the ToB is my single most favourite D&D supplement.

[thompur]

Exactly! If you don't like the fluff logic, just replace throw anything with EWP: boomerang, Talenta boomerang, or Xen'drik boomerang.

What you need is this (http://youtu.be/BpufNT8I-SU)

or this! (http://youtu.be/BMCuQ353Lv8)

:smalltongue:

[Greenish]

Anyway. Names. NAMES! They are indeed a thing some people can be pretty hung up on, concerning the ToB. "Warblade" is sometimes jestingly referred to "as opposed to Blades for Peace".Warblade is named such because you can never have enough blades in your build. Hence the classic warblade/revenant blade/eternal blade build (okay, so it needs some ranger too, that's not my fault).

Some of the maneuver names are silly, particularly from the more esoteric disciplines. One has been mentioned before, the worst offender is definitely the FIVE SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!1!11oneoneThat's intentionally cheesy homage. Say it with me: Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strikeeee!!!!! :smallbiggrin:

[Curious]

Okay, I'll have a go at describing how I feel about the Tome of Battle.

I like how it provides both options and power to melee classes, where it is sorely needed. That said, I don't like the maneuver system, but it's more a personal play style issue. I like having my abilities mainly passive, all active, or at least mostly active, at the same time when playing melee. Using abilities one-at-a-time like ToB just isn't the kind of thing I enjoy.

Overall, ToB is pretty good, and I don't begrudge it's use among my players. I just have a different method of preferred playing.

[TOZ]

I really need to try the system out more. I had a Warblade for a one shot character, 1st or 2nd level. Felt like he didn't have any more options besides 'hit it', but that was probably because I was 1st or 2nd level...

[Lateral]

I really need to try the system out more. I had a Warblade for a one shot character, 1st or 2nd level. Felt like he didn't have any more options besides 'hit it', but that was probably because I was 1st or 2nd level...

1st level Warblades do pretty much only just hit it again, but that's 'cause they're first level and everything pretty much just hits it again at that level. They get 3 maneuvers known, enough for one usual strike, one less common strike, and one boost or counter. To their credit, they "hit it again" way better than everyone else.

[TOZ]

I pretty much remember just spamming the charging maneuver over and over again. So it pretty much matches any non-TOB melee characters. :smallamused:

[Lateral]

Huh, I found Steel Wind more useful. I was a tripper, though, so maybe that's it.

[Greenish]

I pretty much remember just spamming the charging maneuver over and over again. So it pretty much matches any non-TOB melee characters. :smallamused:Charging Minotaur? But that's a bull rush, and those are always fun! :smalltongue:

[Veyr]

Okay, I'll have a go at describing how I feel about the Tome of Battle.

I like how it provides both options and power to melee classes, where it is sorely needed. That said, I don't like the maneuver system, but it's more a personal play style issue. I like having my abilities mainly passive, all active, or at least mostly active, at the same time when playing melee. Using abilities one-at-a-time like ToB just isn't the kind of thing I enjoy.

Overall, ToB is pretty good, and I don't begrudge it's use among my players. I just have a different method of preferred playing.
I mean, no disrespect to what you enjoy playing, but having given this some thought as someone interested game design...

I think always-available abilities are inherently bad design. I'm fairly convinced that all* of the problems with the Fighter are a result of this fact. If all your tricks are always available, you can always spam one. If you can always spam one, you can afford to pump that one trick up to ridiculous levels. If you can afford to pump it up to ridiculous levels, you're left with a design that is exceedingly binary: either you pump one trick as much as possible and use it to the exclusion of all others, but be, in fact, too good at that one thing (uberchargers are the obvious example), or you try to diversify but as a result cannot do anything well enough that it is effective.

There are design thoughts that can mitigate this, of course. Diminishing returns help a lot to encourage diversity. In Core-only, you might make an argument that the lack of options forces a bit of diversity (but that's a terrible way to do it). But Tome of Battle achieves diversity by making individual schticks impossible to completely spam, forcing you to have multiple different abilities — preventing you from powering up one too much (or, if you do, making you wait in between uses of it).

And this strikes me as far more realistic, too. I mean, no martial artist uses the same move over, and over, and over. He'd be useless in any fight that lasted more than... one move, really. Tome of Battle's expenditure/recover system is definitely an abstraction, but it's far less unrealistic than people give it credit for. It's really a quite elegant way to encourage diverse, tactical play that in reality looks far more like a real fight than an ubercharger or tripper-lockdown build.


* Not literally all, of course; there's also issues of the limited number of tricks he can choose from in the first place, and very serious scaling issues due to the nature of feat trees. But both of these things have a lot to do with the general concept of a character who relies exclusively on the core combat mechanic. Which is, of course, the real problem: the core combat mechanic provides a solid foundation, but a foundation alone is not a house; in the same way, a pure chassis like the Fighter is not a class.

[Curious]

You may have a point, I don't deny. I'm no expert on game design, so I can't really say what would be better balanced than what ToB does. I will say that I enjoy the Pathfinder Fighter much better than the 3.5 one (since it actually has class features now) but your mileage may vary on how much 'better' it is than before. As I said, I'm no expert, and I haven't played ToB classes much, so I am open to convincing.

[TOZ]

You may have a point, I don't deny. I'm no expert on game design, so I can't really say what would be better balanced than what ToB does. I will say that I enjoy the Pathfinder Fighter much better than the 3.5 one (since it actually has class features now) but your mileage may vary on how much 'better' it is than before. As I said, I'm no expert, and I haven't played ToB classes much, so I am open to convincing.

<threadjack> Now I know why I don't see you on the Paizo forums much. :) How's the game going while I'm away? </threadjack>

[Draz74]

I think always-available abilities are inherently bad design. I'm fairly convinced that all* of the problems with the Fighter are a result of this fact. If all your tricks are always available, you can always spam one. If you can always spam one, you can afford to pump that one trick up to ridiculous levels. If you can afford to pump it up to ridiculous levels, you're left with a design that is exceedingly binary: either you pump one trick as much as possible and use it to the exclusion of all others, but be, in fact, too good at that one thing (uberchargers are the obvious example), or you try to diversify but as a result cannot do anything well enough that it is effective.

This is actually a very interesting argument ... one that, in my own game design, I've come up with several times, but never quite formalized enough to vocalize for other people. Thanks, Veyr.

Except, now I'm worried that, since most maneuver-like Feats in my own system are powered off of the same can't-always-use system, that fighter types won't use a variety of different moves as much as I'd like them too. :smallsigh:

[Firechanter]

Yeah, well, 1st level Warblades can't do a lot, just like any other class can't do a lot at level 1. If you ask me, the game only becomes playable at level 3, because before that point, you don't have a meaningful influence on what happens anyway. You can't make sure you aren't hit, you can't make sure you hit, and a single stupid die-roll can one-shot you (think Crit with an axe).

When we look at level 3 and up, it looks different; Warblades will probably have 2 or 3 attack tricks to choose from, which is typically already more than most non-adept martial classes can boast.
On the whole their bag of tricks is still somewhat limited throughout the game, as the available maneuvers will be split on offensive and defensive ones, but still:
Warblade is the class with the fewest maneuvers. Yet, they get some 14 maneuvers throughout their career, 4 stances, and about a dozen feats (including bonus feats from a limited list).
Compared to that, a Fighter gets about 18 feats; only six more than the Warblade gets. And pretty much all special attacks require at least two, more often three, sometimes more feats investment to work properly. So those six extra feats are only good for maybe 2 extra tricks, where the Warblade gets 14 maneuvers, each of which is sometimes worth considerably _more_ than a feat.

Example:
Whirlwind Attack requires three crappy feats prereq, so all in all _four feats_ investment for something that sounds cooler than it is.
Opposed to that, Mithral Tornado is _better_ than Whirlwind Attack (you can move on the same turn, and get an attack bonus on top), has variable prereqs that won't hurt you (one of them can be Iron Heart Suuuuurge), and later in the game you can just swap it out for an upgraded version (twice as good, really).

That's just one example that I picked because it demonstrates nicely how a maneuver can replace a whole feat chain. Many other maneuvers don't emulate feats at all. Some save you from multiclassing, and others let you do stuff that simply couldn't be done before. Not by a martial class, I mean.

[Greenish]

Example:
Whirlwind Attack requires three crappy feats prereq, so all in all _four feats_ investment for something that sounds cooler than it is.
Opposed to that, Mithral Tornado is _better_ than Whirlwind Attack (you can move on the same turn, and get an attack bonus on top), has variable prereqs that won't hurt you (one of them can be Iron Heart Suuuuurge), and later in the game you can just swap it out for an upgraded version (twice as good, really).Whirlwind Attack does have the advantage of hitting every enemy within reach. Still not worth the feats, and sometimes not worth the full round action, but eh.

[Curious]

<threadjack> Now I know why I don't see you on the Paizo forums much. :) How's the game going while I'm away? </threadjack>

Uh. I don't think I know you, sorry. :smallconfused:

[Veyr]

I will say that I enjoy the Pathfinder Fighter much better than the 3.5 one (since it actually has class features now) but your mileage may vary on how much 'better' it is than before.expert, and I haven't played ToB classes much, so I am open to convincing.
I find this statement exceedingly... surprising? Confusing? Last I checked, the Pathfinder Fighter is just the Fighter with some +numbers added on. I mean, he has higher numbers, so he's mechanically better (ignoring for now how feats have changed), but how is that more enjoyable? They're just numbers. And really, the Fighter was never particularly lacking in numerical magnitude. The numbers he had access to were always high. It was more how many numbers were stuck at 0 because he had no access to them at all — and I don't recall Pathfinder changing that.

[Curious]

Oh, yeah, the base fighter is pretty much the same as always, that's true. It's the archetypes from the APG that I really enjoy. They add quite a bit of diversity to the mix, and in my opinion, make it quite a bit more fun to play a fighter.

EDIT: Here's a link if you want a look. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter

[TOZ]

Uh. I don't think I know you, sorry. :smallconfused:

My mistake, guess Curious is a more common screenname than I thought.

[cfalcon]

It's banned in my games for obsoleting the fighter, barbarian, monk, some parts of the rogue (everything but the part where you disarm a trap), and a bazillion and one prestige classes.

There's abilities that should be (Su) but are (Ex), and generally it's way too strong.

Basically, the book was made by people who warn you like five times that the book won't be for everyone. The authors know it, and they were right. If I have a Fighter 16 and you have one of these guys, I'm going to feel really super stupid- that's the core problem.

It also grants a bunch of powers that don't have the same restrictions as spells. There's no anti-martial-zone that saves you from most of them, and these abilities mysteriously have limitation uses. You end up doing some kind of enhancement shaman rotation, where you use the abilities as they pop up or something. The inclusion of magic-item equivalent scripts that you *read in combat and then do a move* just completes the circle of "wtf is this really now really".

It really makes casters feel less special, as it duplicates *some* of their combat tricks. The core awesome part of being the casters isn't really their power explicitly in a fight, however, and even the best swordsage isn't able to ask extradimensional demons questions every morning.

It is also difficult to make a, say, level 12 Warblade, compared with a level 12 fighter. Unless you actually extrapolate a chart, and even then you have the "I get this at this level, and I replace it by here" problem. This is a DM problem, however.

The bigger question is, why is everyone ok with this book? That answer I think, is in two parts. The first is that the book is put together well, and the classes are cool even though they have offensively silly names, and the abilities are friggin awesome. The mechanics of being an enhancement shaman with ninja powers are, as you would expect, actually enjoyable and cool, and you get to make very interesting tactical decisions given that all you moves go on short cooldown as you use them. You also have a lot you can do with standard actions- 3.5 was the first version to genuinely nerf the ability to actually move and attack several times (3.0 had everyone be hasted by midlevel), an ability that they then sold back to us poorly over the course of 83 hojillion splatbooks. These guys don't need that: they run up and do a precise strike and you save or something moderately lame goes down. Next round, they do something similar. That's refreshing over "ok, I guess I charge cause he just ran away again and tumbled successfully on a 1".

The second part is that a lot of players don't really play their characters as intended, from the start, and put undue weight on high level "balance". They also expect that their man-at-arms should be as powerful as someone whose entire selling point is the ability to manipulate reality. There's plenty of games out there that balance these two things, of course, but dungeons and dragons has never been one of them. So if you continuously start games at 8th level and play until 15th, or 17th level and play until 19th, you aren't really playing the game, and the fact that some characters are really reliable and tough at low levels, and others become almost different beings entirely strikes you as poor design or poor scaling.



Anyway, my big gripe is the obsoleting of the fighter and friends, and that's ultimately why I have the whole book banned (or sharply limited). I actually don't know anyone who *allows* the book in their games, and for the most part it's a forgotten expansion item outside of these boards- even Pathfinder didn't do anything like this, instead working on buffing the fighter and nerfing the more gamebreaking aspects of high level spells as a starting point, and including martial characters with a real world basis, such as the monk, samurai, and ninja, as well as the iconic and mostly mythological paladin, instead of the mysteriously smooshed together nouns of swordsage and warblade, and the paladin replacement crusader. It is a shame that these guys aren't going anywhere, because they really are cool, but I just need a lower power version of them to include them.

Also note you can search for ToB topics throughout this board. The pro-ToB crew is pretty relentless about having the last word, and usually won't rest until they have picked apart your points. Basically, this is just a bad board to bring it up on, because it's the same thread over and over, but that's considered ok here.


Anyway, hope that helped.

[TOZ]

It's banned in my games for obsoleting the fighter, barbarian, monk, some parts of the rogue (everything but the part where you disarm a trap), and a bazillion and one prestige classes.


I find that to be a benefit in that you no longer need all those other books to make a good character. :)

[AslanCross]

I find that ToB actually makes using fighter, monk, paladin, and ranger levels still viable in a high-op build since it multiclasses so well.

[cfalcon]

I find that to be a benefit in that you no longer need all those other books to make a good character. :)

Well, that is something :P

And of course, it's *intended* to overwrite these guys, it's not like they made a mistake or weren't aware of the power level of what they were doing. The warblade, for instance, can be made into quite a few different types of things, depending on what he picks. The swordsage, even more. Monk type guy? Ninja type guy? Goku? Swordsage is your go-to.


I find that ToB actually makes using fighter, monk, paladin, and ranger levels still viable in a high-op build since it multiclasses so well.

I don't really have high-op builds in my games, so it's not a selling point for me. But I'd rather give out a pathfinder paladin, for instance, than let someone cherry-pick the first couple levels of paladin and the wash it down with a ToB class.

The reason it is so popular and also so despised is the aping of the spellcasting ability system. Like, I *ban* it, and I actually *like the book*.

[Lateral]

It really makes casters feel less special, as it duplicates *some* of their combat tricks.

I don't really have any beef with the rest of what you said, but I hate this argument. Like, I wish it would go curl up in the corner and die.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I don't really have any beef with the rest of what you said, but I hate this argument. Like, I wish it would go curl up in the corner and die.

Yeah, this argument is absolutely horrible.

[Urpriest]

What? No. Every formalized martial art the world has ever known has had a series of names for different maneuvers. How else would you talk about it if you didn't have names for things? And plenty of European martial arts used names just as "flowery" as Asian martial arts. Or as "flowery" as Tome of Battle's.

I mean, yes, street brawlers don't have names for things. But any actual trained warrior? Yes, yes they would.

Hell, just look at professional wrestling. Yes, obviously it's fake, but they have names for their moves, and for a reason — they need names if you're going to talk about them. Pro wrestlers talk about them as part of brand promotion, but martial artists talk about them in terms of what moves to use when and how to string them together.


Martial Scripts, however, I'll agree with. Those are pretty dumb.

Look at the bolded part. Many settings have formalized martial arts as appropriate parts of the setting, including many Western settings. Hence my mention of Wheel of Time, for the most part a Western setting. However, many other fantasy settings lack formalized martial arts, or only have them in certain cultures. For example, in the Song of Ice and Fire books, Jaime Lannister and Ygritte might both be Warblades, as both are glory-hounds who put some thought in to how they fight. Only the former would have names for his moves. There are plenty of fantasy settings where just picking up a sword (or a staff) lets you know enough to hit people with it, and even to get creative enough to do, for example, the equivalent of Stone Dragon maneuvers.

[WhiteHarness]

It really makes casters feel less special, as it duplicates *some* of their combat tricks.
I think this right here is the root of at least some of the hatred. Maybe a lot of caster players felt threatened by more effective fighter-types, didn't like giving up a portion of their place in the limelight, and resented having their thunder stolen by those "uppity" meatshields; it upset their concept of the natural order of things. :smallwink:

Personally, I feel that casters have more than enough "special-ness" and needed to give up some of it in order for some of the other classes to feel useful, especially at higher levels.

[Firechanter]

Depends. For me, it is an excellent argument pro ToB.

[Greenish]

The inclusion of magic-item equivalent scripts that you *read in combat and then do a move* just completes the circle of "wtf is this really now really".On this, I agree with you. On the rest, significantly less so.

[Firechanter]

Yeah, Martial Scripts are stupid. I wouldn't use them in my game. Likewise the sucky Legacy weapons.
But there will be _some_ sucky stuff in _every_ D&D book. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Some books are really only good for 1 PrC and 2 Feats or so, and the remaining 154,3 pages are just chaff, junk, scrap paper, trash, and traps.
Compared to that, the ToB ratio of good stuff to bad is excellent.

[Thiyr]

I don't really have high-op builds in my games, so it's not a selling point for me. But I'd rather give out a pathfinder paladin, for instance, than let someone cherry-pick the first couple levels of paladin and the wash it down with a ToB class.

The reason it is so popular and also so despised is the aping of the spellcasting ability system. Like, I *ban* it, and I actually *like the book*.


See, for me, I find in my group things tend to go the other way around. That is to say, I've seen a lot of builds in my RL group that end up being a lot of, say, rogue or scout/PrC with a 2 level swordsage dip. Or a character i'm playing right now, that's about 50/50 dragon shaman fighter, who i'm really considering one level of warblade for. Because it plays so well with multiclassing, I find that in our group at least, we tend to use it as a nice bonus at later levels to get some useful utility powers that just make the character play a lot smoother. My rogue/swordsage wouldn't have worked half as well if it didn't get sudden leap to get into flanking positions easier, or cloak of deception when flanking just plain wasn't a viable option.

Though I do question why you ban it if you like the book, out of curiosity.

[TOZ]

Martial Scripts? What are those? Never heard of them. :smallbiggrin:

[Greenish]

Though I do question why you ban it if you like the book, out of curiosity.I gather from his post that it's a mix of "melee shouldn't have nice things" and the fact that he plays really low OP games where ToB's ease of use would make it's classes more powerful than the int-dumping wizard and the sword&board fighter.

[Firechanter]

Though I do question why you ban it if you like the book, out of curiosity.

He did explain that pretty exhaustively a bit further up on this page. Personally I disagree with him on almost every point, or feel that what he considers Cons are actually Pros, but he is certainly entitled to his opinion, and if his players feel the same way, it's fine for him.

[Lateral]

I gather from his post that it's a mix of "melee shouldn't have nice things" and the fact that he plays really low OP games where ToB's ease of use would make it's classes more powerful than the int-dumping wizard and the sword&board fighter.

Yeah. While I agree with the second point (it may not be appropriate for his games), I still wish the first would go crawl into a ditch, poop on itself, and then die.

No offence intended, of course, cfalcon. :smallsmile:

[Tvtyrant]

One idea that i have been thinking about is making BaB "tricks" like skill tricks that copy low level maneuvers by trading in BaB temporarily. Like trading one of your attacks during a full round attack to get +6 bonus to your primary BaB (for to hit) or two attacks to make your primary a touch attack (ala emerald razor). Chargin minotaur by giving up some of your BaB (both for an extra attack and the to hit) the next turn, etc.

Basically gives anyone with a full BaB combat options.

[Veyr]

Look at the bolded part. Many settings have formalized martial arts as appropriate parts of the setting, including many Western settings. Hence my mention of Wheel of Time, for the most part a Western setting. However, many other fantasy settings lack formalized martial arts, or only have them in certain cultures. For example, in the Song of Ice and Fire books, Jaime Lannister and Ygritte might both be Warblades, as both are glory-hounds who put some thought in to how they fight. Only the former would have names for his moves. There are plenty of fantasy settings where just picking up a sword (or a staff) lets you know enough to hit people with it, and even to get creative enough to do, for example, the equivalent of Stone Dragon maneuvers.
1. Fluff is mutable and of course if you're not using the setting presented in Tome of Battle you can, should, and ultimately have to change some of it. The Temple of the Nine, Reshar stuff is far less intrusive than, say, the organizations of Complete Champion.

2. The nobility who know how to fight in A Song of Ice and Fire definitely have names for their moves.
And I'm actually using the spoiler tag for spoilers, here.
That swordsman who teaches Arya, does he not have names for his moves? The Faceless Men might have too.Does that mean that a talented, lower-born swordsman couldn't use those moves? Obviously not. Just means he doesn't have ranks in Martial Lore and couldn't put a name to what he just did — but Jaime could watch Ygritte fight, and be able to say thing like, "Hmm, that's practically a textbook example of Claw at the Moon he just did there."

A setting without formalized martial arts might not have anyone with ranks in Martial Lore, and the DCs for it would have circumstance modifiers that make them much higher (since a character would basically have to be cataloguing the moves themselves rather than having studied them), but it still works.

[Knaight]

I think always-available abilities are inherently bad design. I'm fairly convinced that all* of the problems with the Fighter are a result of this fact. If all your tricks are always available, you can always spam one. If you can always spam one, you can afford to pump that one trick up to ridiculous levels. If you can afford to pump it up to ridiculous levels, you're left with a design that is exceedingly binary: either you pump one trick as much as possible and use it to the exclusion of all others, but be, in fact, too good at that one thing (uberchargers are the obvious example), or you try to diversify but as a result cannot do anything well enough that it is effective.

This is only valid if there are certain assumptions.
1) Using the same trick over and over retains effectiveness.
2) Individual tricks can be dragged to absurd levels of effectiveness.

Neither of these are true in certain games. Take Burning Wheel, every action you can do whatever you want, and there are easily 20 options. If you have a good idea of what your opponent is going to do, you can screw them over hard, and vice versa. That means that 1) is entirely wrong, and 2) is rendered null. It doesn't matter how effective 2) is, if its always directed against the perfect counter. Besides, the kind of power needed for 2 doesn't exist.

There are also cases where 1) is true, but it doesn't matter due to 2). If everything is only situationally effective, and there are ways to change the situation, then there are inherent tactics. Does D&D do that? No, but that doesn't mean the concept is valid.

[Urpriest]

2. The nobility who know how to fight in A Song of Ice and Fire definitely have names for their moves. Does that mean that a talented, lower-born swordsman couldn't use those moves? Obviously not. Just means he doesn't have ranks in Martial Lore and couldn't put a name to what he just did — but Jaime could watch Ygritte fight, and be able to say thing like, "Hmm, that's practically a textbook example of Claw at the Moon he just did there."

See, first of all, Ygritte is female.

More relevantly, very rarely do I see fantasy settings that work like that. Song of Ice and Fire certainly doesn't seem to. Typically you've got a class of people with names for their moves, and when they look at somebody without that training they think of the barbarian as just thrusting and hacking, or as doing dirty tricks, or the like. Maybe they recognize a repeated trick by a general description, but they will very rarely have a name from their own tradition for the trick. And it's not as if Martial Lore is school-specific: an islander trained in Setting Sun will be just as likely to know the names for his own moves as for those of a viking trained in Stone Dragon. That kind of thing isn't all that common in fantasy settings. It happens, sure, but ideally you'd like classes like Warblade to make sense even in settings that lack those kinds of cultures, since the maneuvers are otherwise so good at approximating generic fantasy combat.

[Qwertystop]

Martial Scripts? What are those? Never heard of them. :smallbiggrin:

They are exactly like scrolls, but for Maneuvers instead of spells.

[Cadian 9th]

See, first of all, Ygritte is female.

More relevantly, very rarely do I see fantasy settings that work like that.

Nice on the first point.

I get your point on the second, but I disagree in that I notice it a lot, for example the elf armies in Lord of the Rings (For example, in the first movie, at the start) use a characteristic sweeping strike on their first attack, then switch to a more fluid, free flurry of strikes. Technically, this could be some kind of maneuver and stance for the first attack that everyone learned, and because circumstances changed that maneuver was no longer performable. In essence, that's how I see ToB's maneuver system working. You're ready to execute a move learnt from your teacher, you do it, and now the the situation changes and you can't use it just yet.

I did rudimentry martial arts, and everything we learned had a name. Some moves weren't available because the situation prohibited it. For example, you can't roundhouse kick when they're right in your face, but you can do another move. In essence, martial maneuvers.

EDIT: A trained swordsman, for example, would drill using certain maneuvers until they're intergrated and second nature. For example, in one of the earlier Dragonlance novels, Raistlin and Caramon go to a military training camp, and caramon learns how to fight in a certain way by drilling. Then, in battle, sure it looks chaotic, but if you slow it down, you'll start to notice they're using slight variations of several maneuvers that've been intergrated in their training.

[Lateral]

They are exactly like scrolls, but for Maneuvers instead of spells.
I think he was making a joke by denying their existence.

[Veyr]

See, first of all, Ygritte is female.
D'oh; that was a dumb mistake. Ygritte's a female name, after all.


More relevantly, very rarely do I see fantasy settings that work like that. Song of Ice and Fire certainly doesn't seem to. Typically you've got a class of people with names for their moves, and when they look at somebody without that training they think of the barbarian as just thrusting and hacking, or as doing dirty tricks, or the like.
OK, I'll buy that Jaime may never admit that Ygritte's got real moves, but that doesn't really change the idea.


Maybe they recognize a repeated trick by a general description, but they will very rarely have a name from their own tradition for the trick.
Sure, there may be cases where Ygritte has a trick that Jaime's never seen, since Jaime obviously never studied what Ygritte is making up. Which brings us to...

And it's not as if Martial Lore is school-specific: an islander trained in Setting Sun will be just as likely to know the names for his own moves as for those of a viking trained in Stone Dragon.
Again, this is a departure from Tome of Battle's default setting, and therefore should require setting adaptation; this is hardly a condemnation of the book. Martial Lore is part abstraction (the same way most settings do not have separate Knowledge (Locals)), and partially it's due to certain assumptions made by the setting presented by the book. Again, Circumstance penalties are well within the DM's purview for this kind of thing. That's what they're for.


That kind of thing isn't all that common in fantasy settings. It happens, sure, but ideally you'd like classes like Warblade to make sense even in settings that lack those kinds of cultures, since the maneuvers are otherwise so good at approximating generic fantasy combat.
It does; this has been a discussion of Martial Lore only. A Warblade with no ranks in Martial Lore still has moves, they just don't have names for them. Every successful fighter has moves; practice is the only way to get good enough to survive.

[AslanCross]

Just a note on the technique names in Western fencing:

The fancier names seem to be from the Italian schools of fencing: they have names like "Guard of the Arrow," "Upper Snake," "Iron Door," "Bastard Cross," "True Cross," and "Lady's Guard."

The German schools, as I recall, have more straightforward and technical names, but still awesome ones, such as "Zornhau" (Wrath-hew--a basic vertical downward cut) and "Mordschlag" (Murder-blow--which was basically grasping your sword's blade and whacking the guy with the pommel, as if it were a mace). The German school also had stances called "From the Roof," "The Ox," "The Plow," and "The Fool."

Eastern schools--the only one I've really read was Musashi's Niten Ichi Ryu--do have fancy-sounding names as well---the "Flowing Water Cut" and "Fire-and-Stones/Sparks Off the Fire Cut", for example--but these are simply poetic names used to describe regulating one's pace to pinpoint weaknesses (as eroding water does) in the first, and quickly following through from a parry to a follow-up attack.

While the authors of ToB really did admit to taking cues from video games and anime, what they came up with really wasn't far from what both Western and Eastern sources came up with.

[TOZ]

I think he was making a joke by denying their existence.

You generally can't go wrong assuming every post I make is meant to be humorous.

[dspeyer]

Okay, I'll have a go at describing how I feel about the Tome of Battle.

I like how it provides both options and power to melee classes, where it is sorely needed. That said, I don't like the maneuver system, but it's more a personal play style issue. I like having my abilities mainly passive, all active, or at least mostly active, at the same time when playing melee. Using abilities one-at-a-time like ToB just isn't the kind of thing I enjoy.

Overall, ToB is pretty good, and I don't begrudge it's use among my players. I just have a different method of preferred playing.

I may have some homebrew for you. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10120992#post10120992)

As for Martial Scripts, I've never seen them used. I've never seen a gm ban them (except when banning ToB altogether) but even cheesy martial characters don't use those. I'd almost forgotten they existed. The collective subconscious just rebels.

[navar100]

I find this statement exceedingly... surprising? Confusing? Last I checked, the Pathfinder Fighter is just the Fighter with some +numbers added on. I mean, he has higher numbers, so he's mechanically better (ignoring for now how feats have changed), but how is that more enjoyable? They're just numbers. And really, the Fighter was never particularly lacking in numerical magnitude. The numbers he had access to were always high. It was more how many numbers were stuck at 0 because he had no access to them at all — and I don't recall Pathfinder changing that.

Pathfinder Fighters don't suck for wearing heavy armor. They don't lose speed and can apply more of their Dex bonus to AC. The plus numbers are pertinent. One is a bonus to save vs fear, a main complaint in 3E. Another is bonus to weapon groups. That allows the Fighter to concentrate his feats on stuff other than to hit and damage better. Feats are more interesting such as improving critical hit attacks, shield use, and two-weapon fighting. Also important is the ability to change a feat that becomes obsolete.



It really makes casters feel less special, as it duplicates *some* of their combat tricks. The core awesome part of being the casters isn't really their power explicitly in a fight, however, and even the best swordsage isn't able to ask extradimensional demons questions every morning.



"Silly Fighter, tricks are for Wizards".

[Kyuu Himura]

Wow, took till page four for bloodstorm blade to be explicitly mentioned, I'm surprised. Personally, I like the book in general, assuming it keeps your optimization on par with the group, but that one class just kills me. I know this invites a whole ****storm, but frankly i can't get past the physics of it. how does the weapon, which must transfer energy to deal any damage, have the energy to return to the thrower? what orientation could it hit with to make it bounce where you want it to? at least casters can use the "it's magic" excuse, but when the book is saying you can just bounce this stuff it breaks immersion for me. that's why i don't like the class.

the rest of the book is nice, though, if stretching my willing suspension of disbelief.

Ask Daredevil and Captain America =D

[Welknair]

Yeah, this book is a bit controversial. The primary idea was to add some neat stuff for the players that had realized how much more powerful spellcasters were than other types of characters. Mostly fighters. This book introduces three base classes that are all melee-focused and Tier 3.

ToB helps fix a number of balance problems, but doesn't get close to fixing all of them. Additionally, there are a number of errors and inconsistencies scattered throughout that can make things a bit difficult. I ended up having to modify the Adaptive Style feat as well as the base Swordsage recovery mechanic to stop players from using Adaptive Style to regain all their maneuvers, which frankly made no sense.

[RaginChangeling]

Yeah, this book is a bit controversial. The primary idea was to add some neat stuff for the players that had realized how much more powerful spellcasters were than other types of characters. Mostly fighters. This book introduces three base classes that are all melee-focused and Tier 3.

ToB helps fix a number of balance problems, but doesn't get close to fixing all of them. Additionally, there are a number of errors and inconsistencies scattered throughout that can make things a bit difficult. I ended up having to modify the Adaptive Style feat as well as the base Swordsage recovery mechanic to stop players from using Adaptive Style to regain all their maneuvers, which frankly made no sense.

What did you do instead of letting them use Adaptive Style? I always just thought of it as a annoying feat tax, but its still the worst recovery method by far. The default Swordsage one is just... so terrible.

[Optimator]

It also has a very different feel stylistically from most of the other melee options in D&D - its much more openly wuxia than other, non-explicitly-oriental things.

To be fair, non-ToB classes are pretty Wuxia too when you consider what they can actually do, by the rules, at higher levels. And it's also the higher levels where the real ToB craziness occurs (in terms of appearing more over-the-top, stylistically).

I would agree though that the ToB is more openly wuxia, but I would argue that it less different that a lot of detractors seem to think, since a lot of complaints about the feel arise from mechanical necessities to have it integrate into a table-top game and the existing rules.

[Welknair]

What did you do instead of letting them use Adaptive Style? I always just thought of it as a annoying feat tax, but its still the worst recovery method by far. The default Swordsage one is just... so terrible.

After looking at it again, I appear to have kept the original SS recovery mechanic. I made it such that Adaptive Style is a swift action that can only replace remaining maneuvers (You're swapping, not adding). In return, Sudden Recovery was beefed up to all maneuver recovery once per day as a swift action. This means that SS recovery still isn't great, but at least weird feats aren't being semi-abused to get around this.

[RaginChangeling]

After looking at it again, I appear to have kept the original SS recovery mechanic. I made it such that Adaptive Style is a swift action that can only replace remaining maneuvers (You're swapping, not adding). In return, Sudden Recovery was beefed up to all maneuver recovery once per day as a swift action. This means that SS recovery still isn't great, but at least weird feats aren't being semi-abused to get around this.

Thats a pretty raw deal for Swordsages all told. I usually rule they get all their currently readied maneuvers back after the full round concentration, because the Warblade and Crusader have such kickass recovery methods that even that boost is still painful.

[cfalcon]

The name thing prevents it from being seriously interpreted as fully mundane combat. Not because historical martial arts didn't have name- they often did, and the surviving eastern martial arts have names for moves, and the manuals from western arts do as well. The issue is that it's not THOSE names, and those moves share properties- in fact, it's a bit arrogant to assume that it was, and I doubt the designers thought that at all.

Putting the warblade as the fighter does lack reality in that regard as well. The combat system is deliberately abstract, so something specific (Mountain Tombstone Strike, for instance) is obviously not a real world maneuver. The cooldown system also has a similar restriction.

Anyway, that's just an argument against the warblade really being the fighter with the underlying stuff changed, which is a valid (but imo unimportant) critique- you can't represent real world guys with these classes. It's pretty clearly meant to represent a fantastic and heroic martial arts system. I don't know how many people don't run the book because of that.

[Gametime]

Also note you can search for ToB topics throughout this board. The pro-ToB crew is pretty relentless about having the last word, and usually won't rest until they have picked apart your points. Basically, this is just a bad board to bring it up on, because it's the same thread over and over, but that's considered ok here.



I don't have a problem with your opinions on the book or reasons for banning it, but I have to object to the characterization of the "pro-ToB crew." First of all, because I don't think it's fair to lump together everyone who likes a book into a single monolithic entity, any more than it would be fair to lump everyone who dislikes the book into a single category.

Second, because it reads to me like a preemptive attempt to cut off discussion by reframing objections as "picking apart" points. That might not have been your intention.




Anyway, that's just an argument against the warblade really being the fighter with the underlying stuff changed, which is a valid (but imo unimportant) critique- you can't represent real world guys with these classes. It's pretty clearly meant to represent a fantastic and heroic martial arts system. I don't know how many people don't run the book because of that.

I think that would be a bigger deal if you could represent real world guys with the fighter any better. ToB isn't realistic, certainly, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue it's less realistic than anything else about D&D combat.

[cfalcon]

I think that would be a bigger deal if you could represent real world guys with the fighter any better. ToB isn't realistic, certainly, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue it's less realistic than anything else about D&D combat.

You can, actually. The fighter's swing (or *anyone's* attack roll) is an abstraction. It might represent several things, and this is by design. The spells, by contrast, are specifically *that very thing*. There martial techniques also are *that very thing*. The "simulation" level of spells in high: you cast fireball, the pea shoots out (not two peas, not several abortive peas, no one parries a pea), and then it goes to the place (not a nearby place, you don't bat it away) and it explodes into fire (actual fire that burns stuff and melts things, not an abstraction). Then you take damage, and that damage is abstract (because hit points are), and you can avoid some of it by dodging, covering yourself, or otherwise not taking it full force.

The attack roll is deliberately abstract, but the martial techniques very plainly describe what the hit is, that it is a single hit (or more, in those cases where it is mechanically more) and exactly what they do. They are as specific as the spells. That pretty clearly spells out a heroic martial technique system, and at implementing that, ToB is probably the best I've ever seen in this whole genre.

[Firechanter]

re Adaptive Style vs. Swordsage Recovery.
It already requires a particular (though very common, apparently) interpretation of the feat to actually ready all maneuvers. It could equally well be read as simply swapping out your selection, and _then_ you first have to refresh them to regain spent slots.

[PollyOliver]

Huh. I never really considered that adaptive style was meant to do anything less than somewhat fix the swordsage's horrible recovery mechanism. I mean, without it, the swordsage's mechanism is so horrible that if you run out of maneuvers essentially all you can do is full attack--on the one ToB class that is completely unsuited for just full attacking. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever if you can't use it to refresh as well.

Edit: I know in 3.5 balance isn't an argument by any stretch of the imagination. But still...

[cfalcon]

Adaptive Style really seems to overwrite the Swordsage recovery method. I'm not really sure if it's intended or not. The plain wording of it seems to function, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the intent.


Since I got a bunch of ToB guys on the horn, how do you guys play:

1- Adaptive Style- is this just a feat every Swordsage takes and never has to deal with their subpar meditative recovery? Or do you only have it swap stuff out?

2- Creating new techniques- the book mentions that you can create new techniques, just as a wizard or sorcerer can research a new spell. I think it ever has similar costs and time to do this, and much like the sorcerer, you can't cheese your total number of spells learned in this way- you learn them instead of learning other spells, presumably while levelling. So far, so good. But, the game has a SHARPLY limited number of 9th level techniques. Do you let your 9swords PCs research additional techniques and get around the (only implied, never stated) limit of one per school? Or do you make them replace it, which isn't stated anywhere but everyone assumes it when they learn their schools (to the point that it limits the power of a typical 9swords combatant, versus the world where Desert Wind has 10 9th level techniques to learn).

3- Fighters and friends- how do you deal with these classes? Do you buff them, or just assume that they are obsolete, or is pretty much everyone in your world optimized, such that 2 levels of fighter is pretty common, but a fighter 15 is pretty much not anyone at all?

4- Adding schools- do you add schools, or do you find the 9 adequate?

5- Commonly nerfed or buffed techniques- is Iron Heart Surge a bit too strong? Do you help out Setting Sun?

[cfalcon]

Huh. I never really considered that adaptive style was meant to do anything less than somewhat fix the swordsage's horrible recovery mechanism.

I would suggest that it was meant to be adaptive, not to refresh you instantly, and that if the Swordsage was meant to have an easy time of recovery, then he would- one guy gets it for sneezing, the other for punching, but he has to go sit on his hands. That seems pretty deliberate.


I mean, without it, the swordsage's mechanism is so horrible that if you run out of maneuvers essentially all you can do is full attack--on the one ToB class that is completely unsuited for just full attacking. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever if you can't use it to refresh as well.

There's plenty of classes that run out of juice and are helpless. In this corner, I present Crossbow Wizard, and over yonder, I present Novaed Already Today Psion! The swordsage also has a greater number of features (and more mystical ones), and bigger access to odd stuff, like the monk, who can run out of juice to an extent as well. So it may very well be intentional.


Additionally, and I think this is the most compelling argument in favor of "they probably meant to bork the Swordsage", he has a LARGE number of maneuvers, by far the highest. I suspect he's supposed to simply not run out during a single encounter at mid level and beyond.

[PollyOliver]

This is for my RL group, not the pbp games I'm in:

1. We use adaptive style to replace the normal mechanic, because it sucks that much
2. We've never done it as players, but the usual DM in our group has occasionally given out new maneuvers as plot rewards
3. Usually fighter gets used for 2-level dips in gestalt games or we take a variant like Zhentarim or Dungeoncrasher or Targeteer. We occasionally play really low-op games, though, so it does show up then sometimes.
4. We're pretty much allowed to swap in homebrew disciplines form the board at character creation. Assuming they've been reviewed enough, or are from one of the more well-known homebrewers, they're usually okay.
5. I don't think we've altered the original disciplines. I think our usual DM was working on something for desert wind and stone dragon, as those are the two that tend to get completely ignored in our group, but I don't know that he ever finished it.

[Firechanter]

1- Adaptive Style- is this just a feat every Swordsage takes and never has to deal with their subpar meditative recovery? Or do you only have it swap stuff out?

I didn't have a Swordsage yet in actual play, and I am torn on the matter. On the one hand, they do get a buttload of maneuvers. On the other hand, once they have used one it's practically gone. So I could well imagine allowing Adaptive Style to refresh their maneuvers as well.


2- Creating new techniques <snip> But, the game has a SHARPLY limited number of 9th level techniques. Do you let your 9swords PCs research additional techniques and get around the (only implied, never stated) limit of one per school?

Didn't get to those places yet, but basically, I don't see a problem there. As I see it, the limit of one level 9 maneuver per school comes only from limited space in the book, because they had to fill so many pages with their cheesy fluff. There's nothing that suggests "there can be only one", so a player would be welcome to develop more and also learn multiple level 9 moves from one school. Compared to magic, there are a couple of thousand spells in D&D, why should there only be 9 level 9 maneuvers?


3- Fighters and friends- how do you deal with these classes? Do you buff them, or just assume that they are obsolete

They are pretty much relegated to NPC class status. A player may still pick a few levels in them if he wants their specials/feats, but I strongly discourage making them a build's base class. For instance, one of my players is prone to rolling a Dwarf Fighter any time, but for the new campaign I managed to whet his appetite for a Crusader or Warblade, because I want to balance the game on Tier 3 and that's simply not possible with a Cleric and a Fighter in the group.
Oh and for that matter, I replace/expand Favoured Classes accordingly.

Also, I guess I'm going to replace the Ranger with the Swift Hunter homebrew, which is essentially a gestalt Ranger/Scout.


4- Adding schools- do you add schools, or do you find the 9 adequate?

I don't, but I hear there's a huge amount of homebrew for new schools. I'm not going to add homebrew until the existing stuff starts to become boring.


5- Commonly nerfed or buffed techniques- is Iron Heart Surge a bit too strong? Do you help out Setting Sun?

Just started a thread about Surge; I don't know what to do with it. Setting Sun hasn't come up due to the lack of a Swordsage.

[Greenish]

I would suggest that it was meant to be adaptive, not to refresh you instantly, and that if the Swordsage was meant to have an easy time of recovery, then he would- one guy gets it for sneezing, the other for punching, but he has to go sit on his hands. That seems pretty deliberate.A full round action is hardly "instantly" or "easy time". :smallamused:

[Coidzor]

There's plenty of classes that run out of juice and are helpless. In this corner, I present Crossbow Wizard, and over yonder, I present Novaed Already Today Psion!

And it's pretty ubiquitous that people hate such things and wish to avoid them except when they're intentionally triggered as in the case of the psion.


I would suggest that it was meant to be adaptive, not to refresh you instantly, and that if the Swordsage was meant to have an easy time of recovery, then he would- one guy gets it for sneezing, the other for punching, but he has to go sit on his hands. That seems pretty deliberate.

You seem to have admitted to an active dislike of ToB in its entirety though, so how can one actually give your suggestion a fair hearing knowing that? :smallconfused:

[Gametime]

You can, actually. The fighter's swing (or *anyone's* attack roll) is an abstraction. It might represent several things, and this is by design. The spells, by contrast, are specifically *that very thing*. There martial techniques also are *that very thing*. The "simulation" level of spells in high: you cast fireball, the pea shoots out (not two peas, not several abortive peas, no one parries a pea), and then it goes to the place (not a nearby place, you don't bat it away) and it explodes into fire (actual fire that burns stuff and melts things, not an abstraction). Then you take damage, and that damage is abstract (because hit points are), and you can avoid some of it by dodging, covering yourself, or otherwise not taking it full force.

The attack roll is deliberately abstract, but the martial techniques very plainly describe what the hit is, that it is a single hit (or more, in those cases where it is mechanically more) and exactly what they do. They are as specific as the spells. That pretty clearly spells out a heroic martial technique system, and at implementing that, ToB is probably the best I've ever seen in this whole genre.

But there are martial techniques that map adequately to actual fighting. Not all of them (or maybe even most of them) do, to be sure, but there are maneuvers in, say, Iron Heart that boil down to "I attack recklessly, dealing extra damage at a penalty to AC" or "I parry the attack."

I'm also not sure I buy the idea that an abstraction is necessarily better suited to representation that anything else. Why should you be allowed to fill in abstraction, but not change existing descriptions? Should I ban Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion from my games because that spell was specifically defined as being Mordenkainen's and no such character exists in my world, whereas the spells without possessives have the inventor undefined?

[NichG]

I've been playing a swordsage and I regularly run out of maneuvers suited for a given enemy. I usually end up with something like two boosts, three or four primary attack maneuvers (Time Stands Still and Avalanche of Blades, Diamond Nightmare Blade, Pouncing Charge), a couple situational attack maneuvers (Mountain Hammer and its descendents for high DR situations, Disrupting Blow for things with low will saves), and a few counters (and the lovely Shadow Blink).

So in a given fight I could be out of my primary attack tricks in 4 rounds. If a fight lasts 6 rounds (a long fight), I'll burn a full round action once during the fight to refresh, which is 1/6th of my total actions in the fight. That's decently significant. I'll run out more quickly if it turns out that one of my main attacks is unsuitable for this fight, e.g. Avalanche of Blades against a high AC enemy or Pouncing Charge when I can't charge), or if I go high Counter or Boost in my readied set.

[Edhelras]

While I love ToB I have found this to be true. The group I am in right now is fairly new to the game. The average player on a good hit at level one dealt ten to twelve damage on a good hit. My Warblade at level 1 can deal 6+3d6 with his greatsword on a regular attack (using Punishing stance) and for hard enemies he can crank that to 7+4d6 since I used by human feat to learn Burning Blade. That's a full 2d6 + 1 above what he would normally be able to do as another melee class like the fighter and well above what his fellow party mates do for damage.


I haven't read the entire thread, but this example is why I feel ToB is unfascinating to me. A lvl 1 character dealing 7+4d6 damage? Whatever would be the point of that? The whole point of being playing a low-level character is (to me, that is) exactly that you're ineffective, in mortal danger, vulnerable. This is also why I never feel I can entirely into adventures that start out at higher levels, unless I have a character that has a pre-history in another campaign. It is, to me, the very experience of being bad at what I do, at low levels, that provides a backdrop to illuminate the progress that my character is making. Once I reach the higher levels, above 12-15 or something, it starts getting more boring (to me).

This discussion is also colored by the basic assumption that some classes outshine the others - so as a consequence, those sup-par classes need to be improved. I have never really understood that assumption, as my own experience is different. I feel that with a good adventure/good DM, the challenges can be such that all party members gets a chance to shine. Most particularly (and this is why I don't like 4ED) if casters have a limited spell-per-day, magic levels are low, resting/recuperating is dangerous, and the game focuses on not only combat but also role-play, skill use, problem-solving, NPC interaction.

In my own experience, truly I have been impressed by the awesomeness of casters, in battlefield control and massive damage output. But I have also been impressed by the grittiness of Fighters, or the survivalism of Rangers. In a proper adventure, there should be more and sturdier locked doors than the Fighter can bash or the casters can fix with spells, so the Rogue gets to shine. And I have many times witnessed the effect of the Paladin's immunity to fear and his aura of courage, at low levels where everybody else would be running, screaming. I have also had my Paladin swimming in filthy waters that made everybody else mortally sick with filth fever, without access to curative treatment.

Again, I accept that at higher levels some classes may become overpowered, but those levels aren't very interesting - to me. Likewise, I'm not very interested in optimization and the optimal use of PrCs, unless they make sense story-wise to my character.

All this is irrelevant since it's just my personal opinion. If people get more fun out of using ToB and similar improvements, that's a good thing. Only for me, that element would probably reduce fun. Also, on a general level I'm against that development in DnD that tends to reduce the challenge, increase the effectiveness - for what purpose? What I would like to be supplied with is a game that gives a perfect challenge for non-optimized, story-centered but still reasonably effective low to middle-level characters. Like many supplements to the core books, I feel ToB is a step in the wrong direction. But this is moot now that 4ED has come...

[balistafreak]

Going to dodge the 4th Edition bullet/hook, 'cause I know exactly where that one will lead. :smalltongue:

You're not okay with a 1st level character dealing 4d6+7 (average 21) damage? At 1st level, it's hardly relevant whether he deals 2d6+6 (18 Strength Fighter with Greatsword, average 13) or >9000 damage, because at 1st level basically everything is going do die if hit.

I'll agree with you that the number looks scary at first, but when you realize that almost everyone is getting one-hit-KO'd at 1st level, it actually stops being relevant; barring your 1st level characters facing higher level foes, and I mean WAY higher, like 4th-6th at the very least, and that much disparity is a problem already for the following reason.

Low-level characters in D&D are not "incompetent", just squishy. Really squishy. All of them. Many people dislike that chance that Random Orc #8 has that chance of ending their entire character with Random Greataxe Critical Hit, and so eschew playing at <3rd-6th level entirely.

At later levels Fighters/Barbarians actually overtake ToB classes in raw damage (full attacks and ubercharging), but lose out on flexibility and cool stuff to do - as has been explaind a holjillion times already.

To address this belief:


This discussion is also colored by the basic assumption that some classes outshine the others - so as a consequence, those sup-par classes need to be improved. I have never really understood that assumption, as my own experience is different. I feel that with a good adventure/good DM, the challenges can be such that all party members gets a chance to shine.

Just because something can be fixed, doesn't mean it was never broken. A good DM can fix anything - but it's nice to have a system where he doesn't have to, because that means more time for the DM to focus on things like narrative, streamlining, and encounter planning.



Also, on a general level I'm against that development in DnD that tends to reduce the challenge, increase the effectiveness - for what purpose?

It's called the Optimization Subgame. You optimize, the DM optimizes, overall power level is higher across the board to some extent. Some people love it, as you can see with the optimization threads. It usually benefits the players, since the players usually spend more time on the subgame than the DM, but this is normally a good thing, and the DM can just grab a bigger baddie anyways. Occasionally it devolves into an arms-race that walks down the road of Pun-Pun (:smallannoyed:) but you'll find that many of us have established "gentleman's rules". (For example, I personally have no problem with cohorts, summons, and extra actions, but shapechanges and polymorphs make me cringe.)


What I would like to be supplied with is a game that gives a perfect challenge for non-optimized, story-centered but still reasonably effective low to middle-level characters.

Despite what I said about the fallacy of "it isn't broken since you can fix it", I don't think you'll find one that exists already. Welcome to D&D 3.5, and run the games as you see fit, just like it recommends. :smallsmile:

[Firechanter]

At later levels Fighters/Barbarians actually overtake ToB classes in raw damage (full attacks and ubercharging), but lose out on flexibility and cool stuff to do - as has been explaind a holjillion times already.

That, and the damage potential of those extreme builds is useless overkill, as an 800HP monster doesn't mind whether it is offed by a 1000, 2000 or 100000 damage attack.
A ToB character can very well be built to one-shot most high-HP monsters, with a much lower investment / level of specialization. Their output won't be super-ridiculous, which is a good thing, because the DM can allow the player to actually use his stunts, and isn't forced to deny the one-trick-pony his one trick if he wants to make an interesting encounter.

[cfalcon]

And it's pretty ubiquitous that people hate such things and wish to avoid them except when they're intentionally triggered as in the case of the psion.

I would argue that the designers definitely intended it in the case of the wizard. Generally speaking, any class that has something pretty rulebreaking that they can do (and then run entirely out), is "interesting" from a design perspective- it's supposed to make the players (or more broadly, the controller of any of these characters) "think" more. For instance, the Crusader's class features are pretty powerful, and his method of using his abilities is supposed to hold him back- you don't always have the ability you need at any given time. This is meant to be a tradeoff. One of *his* benefits is moderately easy recovery of moves.




You seem to have admitted to an active dislike of ToB in its entirety though, so how can one actually give your suggestion a fair hearing knowing that? :smallconfused:

If you can't read my posts, then I suggest you just skip them. I'm not saying this out of some deep hatred for swordsages, or people who play them, or a desire to read ToB in the strictest and meanest way possible. Stop thinking like a player and ask, what were the authors doing when they gave the swordsage a terrible recovery mechanic? I'm not saying you should just go and implement that in your games, but I am saying that it's fully possible the original designers wanted to have the swordsage not be very effective once he runs out of juice, because the game has plenty of stuff like that in plenty of other places.

Anyway, that's why I asked it as one of my questions. If the community pretty much runs it as it states in the book (and it's pretty much a mandatory swordsage feat), then no one really has any experience running a swordsage with the limited recovery mechanic- at that point, it's a rejected mechanic, and likely not really worth digging into. But if half of folks run it one way and half the other, maybe we can hear which makes it a better game. Characters with weaknesses can be interesting, or it can be totally lame. It depends on the weakness.

I also never said I dislike ToB in its entirety. That's something you made up, because I don't run it in my games. If I didn't like a book I wouldn't have read it cover to cover like eight times.

[Particle_Man]

It is also difficult to make a, say, level 12
Warblade, compared with a level 12 fighter. Unless you actually
extrapolate a chart, and even then you have the "I get this at this
level, and I replace it by here" problem. This is a DM problem,
however.

The easy solution that will be legal over 95% of the time and really
quick: Allow Warblade maneuvers only from 2 disciplines (also works for
level 12 crusaders). For level 12 Swordsages allow maneuvers only from
3 disciplines.

If you are really in a hurry, pick one (if odd character level) or two
(if even character level) maneuver(s) at the highest maneuver level they
can get, then two from the next highest, etc., until you run out of
readied maneuvers (non-readied ones usually don't matter for NPCs).

Good enough for an NPC encounter.

[Boci]

I haven't read the entire thread, but this example is why I feel ToB is unfascinating to me. A lvl 1 character dealing 7+4d6 damage? Whatever would be the point of that?

Your average fighter is doing 2d6+6 damage, so in the example above the warblade is doing the same amount of damage, plus he is using a stande to deal an extra 1d6 in return for -2 to AC. The extra 1d6+1 comes from him burning a feat on a non warblade maneuvre, and therefor only works with certain character concepts, plus at latter levels he will most likely wish to retrain it. Is that really so much?

[Eldariel]

Your average fighter is doing 2d6+6 damage, so in the example above the warblade is doing the same amount of damage, plus he is using a stande to deal an extra 1d6 in return for -2 to AC. The extra 1d6+1 comes from him burning a feat on a non warblade maneuvre, and therefor only works with certain character concepts, plus at latter levels he will most likely wish to retrain it. Is that really so much?

A 1st level Barbarian can deal 4d6+18 damage a turn quite easily, for 3 encounters per day. And that's only a Human/WhateverNonStrBonusRace Barbarian.

[Serenity]

Adaptive Style's text says under Normal that you can usually only change your maneuvers by spending 5 minutes of rest. It gives you the ability to take a Full Round action to do what would normally take 5 minutes--ready a list of maneuvers. When a crusader uses it, he gains new maneuvers as if he had just readied maneuvers for the day. It is thus explicit by the RAW that Adaptive Style acts as effective maneuver recovery.

[DeltaEmil]

Yes, but only explicitely for the crusader. Reading more into it is not RAW, and for many, not RAI either.

In the end, it depends on how much lenient a gm is, and if combat goes on so long that the swordsage really gets into the problem of being forced to spend several rounds using a full-round action to recover one maneuver. Personally, I doubt that this happens often, if at all at the higher levels, so I'm not in favor for making swordsages use the adaptive style feat to recover all their maneuvers. Other might, if they're okay with it.

[Boci]

Yes, but only explicitely for the crusader. Reading more into it is not RAW, and for many, not RAI either.

But under normal it says you take 5 minutes to recover your maneuvres, and since normal describes what if different when you do not have this feat, it would appear adaptive style does re-ready all your maneuvres.

Besides, if the feat only allowed you exchange unexpended maneuvres it would be less than worthless. There is no meneuvre situational enough to justify spending a feat for the privilage of doing nothing for 1 round in combat just to use that maneuvres next round.


A 1st level Barbarian can deal 4d6+18 damage a turn quite easily, for 3 encounters per day. And that's only a Human/WhateverNonStrBonusRace Barbarian.

Greatsword, 18 strength, whirling frenzy?

[cfalcon]

A 1st level Barbarian can deal 4d6+18 damage a turn quite easily, for 3 encounters per day. And that's only a Human/WhateverNonStrBonusRace Barbarian.

How does the barbarian get the 4d6+18? I'm thinking, an 18 Str barbarian, with, maybe a greatsword? Raging brings Str to 22. That should make his normal attack be 2d6+9, which is still a lot less than both the (heavily tweaked) martial guy, but also what you pointed out. How are you doubling this, is my question?

Edit: above post answered it, it's some double attack variant thing that I wouldn't allow :P

( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm )

I'm suspecting that this extra attack requires a full attack too- does the tweaked out martial guy?

[Boci]

How does the barbarian get the 4d6+18? I'm thinking, an 18 Str barbarian, with, maybe a greatsword? Raging brings Str to 22. That should make his normal attack be 2d6+9, which is still a lot less than both the (heavily tweaked) martial guy, but also what you pointed out. How are you doubling this, is my question?

My guess is whirling frenzy. Extra attack, all attacks take a -2 penalty (cancelled out by the increase in strength).

Even without it, which just plain rage the barbarian is close (16.5 vs. 14).

[Eldariel]

Greatsword, 18 strength, whirling frenzy?

Yup. For example. Take Extra Rage as your first feat for good measure so you can do it 3 times per day. If you're Human, you take it twice for 5 times per day.

[DeltaEmil]

But under normal it says you take 5 minutes to recover your maneuvres, and since normal describes what if different when you do not have this feat, it would appear adaptive style does re-ready all your maneuvres.

Besides, if the feat only allowed you exchange unexpended maneuvres it would be less than worthless. There is no meneuvre situational enough to justify spending a feat for the privilage of doing nothing for 1 round in combat just to use that maneuvres next round.The rules are explicite how it works for crusaders, that's all there is, and that's only because crusaders have their unique and random maneuver recovery. It says nothing how it works for swordsages and warblades.
Giving the feat more capabilities than what is written is purely a matter of how much power one gives to a swordsage, which is okay for many groups, but definitely not what is written there.

[Boci]

Giving the feat more capabilities than what is written is purely a matter of how much power one gives to a swordsage, which is okay for many groups, but definitely not what is written there.

And you think a feat that gives your character the privilage of doing nothing for 1 round in combat just to use a maneuvres of choice the next round doesn't need changing?

[DeltaEmil]

And you think a feat that gives your character the privilage of doing nothing for 1 round in combat just to use a maneuvres of choice the next round doesn't need changing?No, as I said in another posting above, the situation that a swordsage is out of any maneuver and needs to spends several rounds doing nothing but recovering maneuvers one by one during combat is practically zero (most combats in D&D 3.5 still only go 3-4 rounds for most groups, as well as mine). The advantage of the swordsage is also that it has a lot more maneuvers readied than the crusader (who needs to wait till the one maneuver he wants to use is drawn because only 2-4 are granted in the beginning at all, and it is always randomly).

[Firechanter]

Here we need to take into account the experimental nature of the Tome of Battle. The different recovery mechanics aren't there for the hell of it, but because the designers wanted to see what works best in game, and what the players like best / are willing to tolerate.

Hence the three wildly different approaches,
- "recover maneuvers for free, but at random"
- "have a large ammo clip, but lose a full round to recover one maneuver"
- "have few maneuvers, but recover them as swift action"

I guess the designers really thought that the massive amount of maneuvers available to a Swordsage makes recovering them during a fight unnecessary.
Players have shown to think otherwise.

So long story short, the SS recovery probably was not intended to be as rotten as it turned out to be. So there's little harm in fixing this by allowing Adaptive Style to refresh maneuvers as well.

[Boci]

No, as I said in another posting above, the situation that a swordsage is out of any maneuver and needs to spends several rounds doing nothing but recovering maneuvers one by one during combat is practically zero (most combats in D&D 3.5 still only go 3-4 rounds for most groups, as well as mine).

A swordsage will be exspending 2 maneuvres per round, so to not run out of maneuvres, they need 8 readied maneuvres, so at lower levels, they can need to recover them.

[DeltaEmil]

If they need to recover them, they're only going to need to do it once in most cases, if at all. As the character is not fighting in a vacuum all alone, most enemies will often be hurt or be disabled by other characters, and the option of charging still happens at all levels (sometimes, a boost might enhance a charge, and a maneuver might have the same effect of a charge too). At the lowest levels, most enemies will be killed by one hit (and hitting is the important thing, which the charge action does provide, so it remains a popular action). At the mid levels, the swordsage will not run out of options unless the player really rolls bad and the combat drags on, and enemies still don't survive too many hits. Feats might also grant new combat maneuvers, or options which tactical feats also provide, making an adept of the sublime way behave more dynamic in combat than only using maneuvers and boosts or counters.

[Boci]

If they need to recover them, they're only going to need to do it once in most cases, if at all. As the character is not fighting in a vacuum all alone, most enemies will often be hurt or be disabled by other characters, and the option of charging still happens at all levels (sometimes, a boost might enhance a charge, and a maneuver might have the same effect of a charge too). At the lowest levels, most enemies will be killed by one hit (and hitting is the important thing, which the charge action does provide, so it remains a popular action). At the mid levels, the swordsage will not run out of options unless the player really rolls bad and the combat drags on, and enemies still don't survive too many hits. Feats might also grant new combat maneuvers, or options which tactical feats also provide, making an adept of the sublime way behave more dynamic in combat than only using maneuvers and boosts or counters.

Why are you so against granting swordsages the ability to recover their maneuvres with adaptive style? If its not neccissary then it doesn't have to be taken, so granting thew options wouldn't be a problem. So does that mean you think it would be OP?

[Aricandor]

Having read this thread, only one thing bugs me:

What does wuxia mean? :smalltongue:

As for the book... People have done a good job detailing why it's divisive, so I'll just throw it in that I like it and I use it largely unmodified, but usually give alternative names for maneuvers since a lot sound really dorky ("Pearl of Black Doubt", what the hell..?). :smallbiggrin:

[DeltaEmil]

Why are you so against granting swordsages the ability to recover their maneuvres with adaptive style? If its not neccissary then it doesn't have to be taken, so granting thew options wouldn't be a problem. So does that mean you think it would be OP?Yes, because practice shows that swordsage don't need to refresh their maneuvers that often. And I find the interpretation that adaptive style making a swordsage in a quasi-warblade to be wrong too in both RAW and RAI.


What does wuxia mean? :smalltongue:In this thread, wuxia is about the jumping and artistic combat style depicted in chinese kung-fu movies or other stuff like 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and 'Hero', in contrast to most combat depicted in western action movies.

[Boci]

Yes, because practice shows that swordsage don't need to refresh their maneuvers that often.

Sowrdsages have little use for such an option, therefor giving it to them would make them overpowered? How does that work?

[Seerow]

How does the barbarian get the 4d6+18? I'm thinking, an 18 Str barbarian, with, maybe a greatsword? Raging brings Str to 22. That should make his normal attack be 2d6+9, which is still a lot less than both the (heavily tweaked) martial guy, but also what you pointed out. How are you doubling this, is my question?

Edit: above post answered it, it's some double attack variant thing that I wouldn't allow :P

( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm )

I'm suspecting that this extra attack requires a full attack too- does the tweaked out martial guy?

Why wouldn't you allow Whirling Frenzy barbarian? It's basically trading the bonus constitution from the normal rage, he gets a small AC bonus rather than a AC penalty, and a weak version of Flurry.

As for needing a full attack action, Whirling Frenzy is compatible I believe with the Spirit Lion Totem (I think that's what it's called) Barbarian ACF that gains access to Pounce in exchange for fast movement.

[Serenity]

The rules are explicite how it works for crusaders, that's all there is, and that's only because crusaders have their unique and random maneuver recovery. It says nothing how it works for swordsages and warblades.
Giving the feat more capabilities than what is written is purely a matter of how much power one gives to a swordsage, which is okay for many groups, but definitely not what is written there.

Again, you are ignoring the Normal text I quoted, which clearly states that Adaptive Style is equivalent to and supersedes a martial adept's ability to spend 5 minutes of focus to ready a list of maneuvers.

[DeltaEmil]

Again, you are ignoring the Normal text I quoted, which clearly states that Adaptive Style is equivalent to and supersedes a martial adept's ability to spend 5 minutes of focus to ready a list of maneuvers.Adaptive style lets you change your readied maneuvers. It does not let you recover your expended readied maneuvers, not even for the crusader.

[Veyr]

Your maneuvers are all available after readying them. If for whatever reason, you had a combat that lasted over 500 rounds, someone without Adaptive Style could spend the entire five minutes in combat changing his readied maneuvers, and they would all be available to him.

This is RAW, RAI, RAMS, and even RAMSTS, since the FAQ backs this up as well. You are, quite simply, wrong.

[cfalcon]

In this thread, wuxia is about the jumping and artistic combat style depicted in chinese kung-fu movies or other stuff like 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and 'Hero', in contrast to most combat depicted in western action movies.

Well, in contrast to historical combat. I don't like to use words like "wuxia" and "anime" to describe the 9swords stuff: it's pretty clear that these media were the points of inspiration, however, so the terms fit to an extent, but it's not really an accurate way of putting it.

Combat in western action movies these days is just a shaky camera. D&D combat can be depicted (and was originally meant to simulate) as realistic. Then there are aspects that are flagged as fantastic (pretty much every magical thing), etc.

[cfalcon]

Why wouldn't you allow Whirling Frenzy barbarian?
I don't like alternate class features. Broadly they aren't tested as well as the original ones, and they are usually meant to address issues that I normally fixed in another fashion. By default I don't allow new stuff, but of course if a player comes to me with something I would consider it. This seems like a case of something that is better than the original thing, and it also replaces rage. I'm not going to let a barbarian *replace rage*! That's his primary feature!


It's basically trading the bonus constitution from the normal rage, he gets a small AC bonus rather than a AC penalty, and a weak version of Flurry.

Which is out of flavor for the barbarians I want, but more importantly, is a pretty steep advantage at low levels. I also don't like stuff that lets you trade defense for offense, and extra Con at low levels is statistically unlikely to save you, but an extra attack each round is much more likely to swing the battle in your favor- at low levels, this pretty much doubles his output at the cost of two temporary hit points he would otherwise have. I would say that whirling frenzy is pretty much superior to the normal rage, at least at low levels, so yes, I would ban it and never look back.


As for needing a full attack action, Whirling Frenzy is compatible I believe with the Spirit Lion Totem (I think that's what it's called) Barbarian ACF that gains access to Pounce in exchange for fast movement.

Does that exchange occur at first level? Obviously I ban that too in any event! I think it's called Lion Totem, I'm not so sure about the spirit part. It replaces your normal fast movement, and but I'm not sure if it comes into play at 1st level or a bit later.

I believe that the core issue with pounce is that when we went from 2ed to 3rd we lost the baseline full attack after a move that we've had since like, at least the 80s, but gained the ability to do it with haste, which literally everyone had in 3.0 past about 7th to 11th level (partial charge, then full attack). Then 3.5 took that away, and suddenly martial characters all couldn't punch stuff. So I added ways around that (it took two sessions at level 6 before I realized that no one on the table would let a full attack resolve in almost all cases, either NPC or PC)... originally I did it with feats, but currently I have it just set up such that if your BAB is +11, you can take two attacks with a standard or an AoO, the second being at -10, or -8 if it is with a second weapon. So naturally, I wasn't pleased when they started sneaking in a billion ways to get pounce instead of just fixing their dumb system, which (IMO) I had already done with some houserules. I like any fix that fixes *everyone*, because paladins, rangers, fighters, rogues, monks... all have this issue. Plus I like barbarians having a move of 40.


Tome of Battle, of course, offers a pretty elegant solution to this too: there's limited access pounce in some of the trees (which IMO is substantially more clever a solution than the lion totem switch), and *every* school has some great stuff that just takes a standard. "Move and hit" works just as well as "move and cast", sans the annoying thing where you theoretically provoke AoO (by the way, for those running a game: check out Pathfinder's take on Concentration. The short version is that they replace the skill with a level check, and casting defensively scales as 15+2xSpell level, so it never becomes flat out trivial to make that check). This is one of the mechanical features that sell the book to people, because they played substantially more than 2 sessions without a houserule to fix the punchy-move-thing :P

[Veyr]

I don't like alternate class features. Broadly they aren't tested as well as the original ones, and they are usually meant to address issues that I normally fixed in another fashion.
Wait, what — you think Wizards tested anything? :smallconfused:

[Hiro Protagonest]

Wait, what — you think Wizards tested anything? :smallconfused:

This. Seconded. +1. whatever.

[cfalcon]

This is RAW, RAI, RAMS, and even RAMSTS, since the FAQ backs this up as well. You are, quite simply, wrong.

The FAQ states this as well, eh? I find that pretty compelling. Normally when the customer service guys step in back up (or weasel around) a rule, it's usually with the intention of making the game better. I've seen exceptions, but I would normally go with what's in a FAQ or sage advice, over the stock rules.

I sort of apologize for picking at the point, but I really wanted to know how the community played it. It doesn't sound like the swordsage without this feat has received that much playtesting. This question is more about his balance point versus the Warblade and the Crusader, and it seems that *most* of the responders play it as a refresh, and find it better that way.

[Boci]

I don't like alternate class features. Broadly they aren't tested as well as the original ones, and they are usually meant to address issues that I normally fixed in another fashion. By default I don't allow new stuff, but of course if a player comes to me with something I would consider it. This seems like a case of something that is better than the original thing, and it also replaces rage. I'm not going to let a barbarian *replace rage*! That's his primary feature!

And its not very powerful. The bonus to saves is pretty minor, the hitpoints will rarely matter since they go away at the end, so all you really get is strength the bonus strength and an annoying -2 to AC. Yes, whirling frenzy is better than rage, that isn't a problem mechanically in a game with at least moderate optimization.

[cfalcon]

Wait, what — you think Wizards tested anything? :smallconfused:

The PHB was definitely tested, both for 3.0 and to a lesser extent for 3.5. The later stuff, testing tended to fall by the wayside, as demonstrated by the pretty goofy mix of power levels, and in some cases, unaddressed combos (or the opposite, things that should work together not). Some things are higher quality than others, and the testing is a big part of this- however, even the broadest set of testers may not play like you do, so of course, you'll likely have to address some details.

[Seerow]

cfalcon I hope you ban stuff for casters as often as you do for melee, or I would absolutely hate to play in your games.

[Seerow]

The PHB was definitely tested, both for 3.0 and to a lesser extent for 3.5. The later stuff, testing tended to fall by the wayside, as demonstrated by the pretty goofy mix of power levels, and in some cases, unaddressed combos (or the opposite, things that should work together not). Some things are higher quality than others, and the testing is a big part of this- however, even the broadest set of testers may not play like you do, so of course, you'll likely have to address some details.

I guess those Clerics, Wizards, Druids, and Sorcerers, and all those overpowered spells, just fell through the cracks?

You crack me up.

[cfalcon]

And its not very powerful. The bonus to saves is pretty minor, the hitpoints will rarely matter since they go away at the end, so all you really get is strength the bonus strength and an annoying -2 to AC. Yes, whirling frenzy is better than rage, that isn't a problem mechanically in a game with at least moderate optimization.

Mostly I just tell them what's allowed for sure, and then have houserules that I try to give them on a printout at the start. Then if they come to me with a blastyspell from the Spell Compendium I say yes, and if they walk in with Divine Metamagic or Genesis or Celerity I gently explain how never ever ever. Ever.


Anyway, I like rage as it is. I don't like things that replace rage to make it better, because then I accidentally messed up every nameless barbarian in the Teryeal Expanse, because they should have been learning this flurry thingy.

[cfalcon]

cfalcon I hope you ban stuff for casters as often as you do for melee, or I would absolutely hate to play in your games.

Oh, yea. No question. Casters are still way stronger at high levels, but that's not for the silly combos you see around here. At high levels, physical classes deal more damage than casters in *most* fights, but of course, the casters still have plenty of tricks.

[balistafreak]

The contention seems to come from the interpretation of the two word phrase "readied maneuvers".

Are readied maneuvers:


The full set of maneuvers that will be refreshed, including those already expended?
Only the maneuvers ready to be used?

Here comes the confusing bit. From what I can make of the rules, a readied maneuver is still readied after you use it. It just happens to be expended. A maneuver cannot be used if it is either not readied or expended. Recovering a maneuver removes the expended status from it. Expended does not overwrite readied but rather is a separate descriptor.

So the first bullet, which the FAQ supports.