NooB of TooB

[Thespianus]

I'm kind of new to Tome of Battle, but I'm taking the leap into Tiger Claw with a Warblade.

I have a few questions:

1) When in the Leaping Dragon Stance, the character gets a "+10-foot enhancement bonus on Jump checks". What does this mean? Do I just add 10 ft to the jump check result?

I could understand "+10 enhancement bonus on Jump Checks", but a "+10-foot enhancement bonus"? I don't think I've seen that before.

2) The Sudden Leap Maneuver grants a jump check as a swift action. I realize that this is a great way to get a "mini-Pounce": swift jump and then full attack. But does the swift jump distance count against the character's movement för the round? That is, if the character makes a swift leap with the Sudden Leap Maneuver, can she keep moving dorunt her Move action?

I have to say that going into Warblade with these Tiger Blade maneuvers is pretty hilarious with a Barbarian 8/Fighter 1 with Leap Attack and a through-the-roof boosted Jump skill. This character will do some serious jumping around. :smallwink:

[Keld Denar]

1) This is PROBABLY a typo, but since the errata for ToB was cut painfully short, we'll never know. Ironically, Leaping Dragon Stance allows you to treat standing jumps as running jumps, and the DC of a running long jump is equal to the distance traveled. Thus, a +10 bonus to your jump check would result in 10 extra feet of horizontal travel, FWIW.

2) It isn't part of your movement. It is part of your swift action. Your movement speed has NOTHING to do with it (outside of any bonus to jump checks you might have for having a speed > 30 feet). You could keep moving after your swift leap, or you could full attack, or charge, or do anything else with the whole rest of your action.

[Lateral]

1) Yeah, it's kind of weird, but how it works is it adds ten feet to the distance you're jumping. Not +10, ten extra feet of distance.
2) It's a separate action and not part of your move action, so you may jump and then use a move action to move or jump again, or use a move action and then use Sudden Leap.

I'm not sure why you would want Barbarian 8/ Fighter 1, though, since Barbarians can get extra uses of rage through the Extra Rage feat anyway. It's better just to go Barbarian 2/Fighter 2 and then straight into Warblade if you really need feats, and usually just Barbarian 2/ Warblade should be sufficient to get the Barbarian goodies.

[Thespianus]

1) This is PROBABLY a typo, but since the errata for ToB was cut painfully short, we'll never know. Ironically, Leaping Dragon Stance allows you to treat standing jumps as running jumps, and the DC of a running long jump is equal to the distance traveled. Thus, a +10 bonus to your jump check would result in 10 extra feet of horizontal travel, FWIW.
Yeah, I'll see what my DM says about that. It does seem like a typo, but - as you said - the errata was.. well, found lacking. ;)

I figure the combination of Leaping Dragon Stance and Sudden Leap could be good for something, in those situations where the Barbarian/Warblade can't charge, but can jump. At least she gets a full attack in, which is always fun.


2) It isn't part of your movement. It is part of your swift action.
Ok. Thanks. With Haste, a Ring of Jumping, Fast Movement and the Leaping Dragon Stance, this girl can do some serious jumping. ;) Not sure to what end, but still... ;)

[Thespianus]

I'm not sure why you would want Barbarian 8/ Fighter 1
We've been playing the campaign for a while, and the Barbarian 8/Fighter 1-chassis has kind of evolved over the years we've been playing. I've been looking high and low for something to add a little different abilities to the character, and settled on a Warblade due to the Rule of Fun (a cleric could have added more Umpf, for example, but a Warblade is plenty fun)

Thanks for the replies.

[Lateral]

Ok. Thanks. With Haste, a Ring of Jumping, Fast Movement and the Leaping Dragon Stance, this girl can do some serious jumping. ;) Not sure to what end, but still... ;)

Battle Jump plus Leap Attack plus jumping plus Pounce (via Spirit Lion Totem) equals pain. Swift action jumping gives you an extra move action to play around with as well.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Battle Jump plus Leap Attack plus jumping plus Pounce (via Spirit Lion Totem) equals pain. Swift action jumping gives you an extra move action to play around with as well.

Get shock trooper and power attack as well, and if you're a goliath go two levels of dungeoncrasher fighter and get knockback. Go full power attack on your attack, preferably with some attack bonuses from spells like haste, bull's strength, and bless. Make up for your horrible AC with wall of blades.

[Keld Denar]

With Haste, a Ring of Jumping, Fast Movement and the Leaping Dragon Stance

Note, if you treat it as a typo, LDS is an Enhancement bonus, and so is a Ring of Jumping. You'd only take the larger of the two as they wouldn't stack.

[Lateral]

Get shock trooper and power attack as well, and if you're a goliath go two levels of dungeoncrasher fighter and get knockback. Go full power attack on your attack, preferably with some attack bonuses from spells like haste, bull's strength, and bless. Make up for your horrible AC with wall of blades.

...I forgot to include Power Attack and Shock Trooper. >_<

[Essence_of_War]

I would consider taking another level of fighter for the feat, as it will boost your starting Warblade IL by another point.

Check out the WB handbook in my sig also. It is VERY handy!

Enjoy ToB! :smallbiggrin:

[Thespianus]

Note, if you treat it as a typo, LDS is an Enhancement bonus, and so is a Ring of Jumping. You'd only take the larger of the two as they wouldn't stack.

Nah, Ring of Jumping gives a +5 Competence bonus. They stack alright. :smallwink:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#jumping

The character has a +27 bonus to Jump Checks already (+29 if Raging, or +37 if Raging and Hasted). With the +10 from the Leaping Dragon Stance (of we count it as a +10 enhancement bonus), we're talking +47 to the Jump Check, making DC 60 Jump Checks a real possibility. That's 60 ft in one Swift Action jump, OR 15 ft straight up from standing still. That just HAVE to be useful at some point. ;)

[Cog]

Thus, a +10 bonus to your jump check would result in 10 extra feet of horizontal travel, FWIW.
Alternatively, it's equivalent to a +40 bonus on a vertical jump. By normal rules a long jump and a high jump reach exactly the same height; this is the only way I'm aware of to change that.

[boj0]

Alternatively, it's equivalent to a +40 bonus on a vertical jump. By normal rules a long jump and a high jump reach exactly the same height; this is the only way I'm aware of to change that.


You have that very backwards (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/jump.htm)

+40 to a long jump is ~ +10 to a high jump

[Cog]

You have that very backwards (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/jump.htm)

+40 to a long jump is ~ +10 to a high jump
Um, yes? Plus 10' to a high jump is the equivalent of +40 to the jump check. The stance we're discussing? It gives plus 10' to a jump.

[boj0]

:smallredface: My bad, I thought you were just talking about a +10 to the check

[Thespianus]

I now made my pick of Maneuvers (3) and Stances (1) for this Barbarian 8/Fighter1/Warblade1 character.

Since the character has a very high jump-skill already ( due to Leap Attack fun), I'm grabbing Tiger Claw maneuvers mainly. The Maneuvers are:

Rabid Wolf Strike - not so great, but I need a Maneuver to qualify for:

Sudden Leap - which seems to be a lot of fun and help movement quite a bit, especially when the character is in:

Leaping Dragon Stance

The third Maneuver I picked was Steel Wind (Iron Heart). First, getting two attacks as a standard action can be good, and it allows the character to qualify for Iron Heart Surge at the next level.

Is this a decent selection for a THF Greatsword wielding Shock Trooper type of character? There seems to be some decent synergy, even though the Maneuvers can't be used when charging.

Later on, I'll look into some White Raven charge-boosts too, but I want to focus on adding extra abilities to the character for the first two levels, then look into getting charge boosts from White Raven later on.

[Veyr]

It's probably worth asking your DM about the maneuver prerequisites: they're kind of dumb (especially in Tiger Claw, particularly with Sudden Leap), they don't really affect balance all that much, and they're a serious pain in the ass to keep track of when making a character. A lot of DMs I know will waive them, or do something like "3rd-5th level maneuvers require 1 prior maneuver, 6th-8th level maneuvers require 2 prior maneuvers, 9th level maneuvers require 3 prior maneuvers."

[Keld Denar]

A fair number of the single attack TC maneuvers are rather good. Death From Above, in particular, is nice since you deny your foe their dex AND it has fairly decent +damage.

Emerald Razor is one of the gold standard low level Diamond Mind manevuers. Touch Attacks are very tough to guard against, especially as monster size goes up. Most dragons have a touch AC of like, 8 or less when you start getting into the large+ size catagories (assuming they don't have Scintilating Scales running). Other big sacks of HP like oozes, collosal sized vermin and animals, giants, "fighter" type NPCs and anything that relies primarily on natural and/or manufactured armor tend to have rather low touch ACs.

[Hiro Protagonest]

A fair number of the single attack TC maneuvers are rather good. Death From Above, in particular, is nice since you deny your foe their dex AND it has fairly decent +damage.

Emerald Razor is one of the gold standard low level Diamond Mind manevuers. Touch Attacks are very tough to guard against, especially as monster size goes up. Most dragons have a touch AC of like, 8 or less when you start getting into the large+ size catagories (assuming they don't have Scintilating Scales running). Other big sacks of HP like oozes, collosal sized vermin and animals, giants, "fighter" type NPCs and anything that relies primarily on natural and/or manufactured armor tend to have rather low touch ACs.

Emerald razor really is great.

Your party is 20th level, the BBEG is a great wyrm red dragon. The dragon's winning. You then remember he has a touch AC of 2.

[Cog]

...maneuver prerequisites: they're kind of dumb (especially in Tiger Claw, particularly with Sudden Leap)...
I think this is a very good argument for why ToB is mundane, actually. They made it hard for melee to get free movement, just like always. :smallcool:

[Thespianus]

A fair number of the single attack TC maneuvers are rather good. Death From Above, in particular, is nice since you deny your foe their dex AND it has fairly decent +damage.
Death from Above requres Level 4 Maneuvers, and we're still not there. I'll pick it when we get there, though. :)


Emerald Razor is one of the gold standard low level Diamond Mind manevuers.
Yeah, it seems good, but it has a silly "One Maneuver" prereq, and Diamond Mind doesn't seem very Rageing Barbariany - Concentration has not been a priority when assigning skill ranks ;)

I know that's just fluff, but we like fluff. :)

[Talya]

Death from Above requres Level 4 Maneuvers, and we're still not there. I'll pick it when we get there, though. :)


Yeah, it seems good, but it has a silly "One Maneuver" prereq, and Diamond Mind doesn't seem very Rageing Barbariany - Concentration has not been a priority when assigning skill ranks ;)

I know that's just fluff, but we like fluff. :)

Barbarian finds other ways to do their massive amounts of damage, Diamond Mind is not really appropriate for them. On the other hand, Greater Insightful Strike can easily do more damage than many level 9 strikes. It's not all that hard to have +40 to concentration, for instance. 80+2d20 is good damage.

[Thespianus]

Barbarian finds other ways to do their massive amounts of damage, Diamond Mind is not really appropriate for them. On the other hand, Greater Insightful Strike can easily do more damage than many level 9 strikes. It's not all that hard to have +40 to concentration, for instance. 80+2d20 is good damage.

Yeah, it seems really great on a different type of character, but it's not for this Barbarian. Tiger Claw seems to be right up the Barbarian's alley, though. That and Iron Heart Surge. ;)

[Keld Denar]

IHS is kinda funny, since it doesn't work against most of the things it is supposed to work against because you can't initiate a maneuver when you are dazed, paralyzed, stunned, dominated, nausiated, or a host of other nasty conditions.

BUT, since you are a Barbarian, there is an easy-bake solution. Mad Foam Rager from the PHBII is both thematic (who doesn't froth at the mouth when they gleefully hack through the soft flesh of their foes?), and also VERY useful in conjunction with IHS. It allows you to delay just about any negative effect for 1 round as an immediate action. That's just long enough to pop off that IHS right before the effect kicks in and denies you the ability to deny it.

BY CROM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Thespianus]

IHS is kinda funny, since it doesn't work against most of the things it is supposed to work against because you can't initiate a maneuver when you are dazed, paralyzed, stunned, dominated, nausiated, or a host of other nasty conditions.

I just noticed that IHS is neither a Boost, a Strike or a Counter. Trust WOTC to leave a hole like that ;)

But, yeah, the RAW of IHS combined with the rules for when you can initiate a maneuver seem to cut down on the usefulness of IHS.

[navar100]

Leaping Dragon Stance



You erred, or not.

There is debate as to whether multiclassing into an adept at some character level above 1 allows your stance gained at first class level adept to be above maneuver level 1. I know other classes give 1/2 character level intitiator level, but the issue arises when talking about gaining that first stance.

Each of the adept classes, when talking about stances, reads: "You begin play with the knowledge of one 1st level stance ..." The debate is whether that is to mean literally or figuratively. If taken literally, your first stance must, must, must be a maneuver level 1 stance. If taken figuratively, then you can consider stances above maneuever level 1 because "begin play" is just vernacular of explaining how the class works presuming you're starting at character level 1.

[Thespianus]

Each of the adept classes, when talking about stances, reads: "You begin play with the knowledge of one 1st level stance ..." The debate is whether that is to mean literally or figuratively. If taken literally, your first stance must, must, must be a maneuver level 1 stance. If taken figuratively, then you can consider stances above maneuever level 1 because "begin play" is just vernacular of explaining how the class works presuming you're starting at character level 1.
Yeah, I forgot about that. I'll bring that up with my DM and somehow I'll think he'll let that stance slip through.

Thanks though for pointing that out.

[Sucrose]

I just noticed that IHS is neither a Boost, a Strike or a Counter. Trust WOTC to leave a hole like that ;)

But, yeah, the RAW of IHS combined with the rules for when you can initiate a maneuver seem to cut down on the usefulness of IHS.

I'd ask your DM if you can use Saph's fix from this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145101). It's homebrew, but it gives you the effect that Iron Heart Surge is supposed to mimic a great deal better than the normal Iron Heart Surge can.