ToB on its own

[gkathellar]

I've been thinking a lot about running a ToB-only game, and one of the things that's crossed my mind is whether ToB is "internally balanced" — that is to say, do all the classes maintain their functionality and relative usefulness when you remove everything else from the game? My intuition is that they do, but I'm wondering if the Playground has a different opinion.

As a corollary, if you think the removal of everything non-ToB would effect its internal balance, what would you modify for that? I'm by no means opposed to House Rules and homebrew, so what do people think could afford to be changed in a ToB-only game?

[Boci]

Could work, as long you keep the core feats. Might be a bit dry though. Consider:

1. Allowing feats from other books, like player's handbook 2 and complete warrior.
2. Allowing some hombrew disciplines.

Finally, does that mean the PrC like Ruby Knight Vindicator are out?

[Saintheart]

Finally, does that mean the PrC like Ruby Knight Vindicator are out?

That PrC being the operative example that if you let a cleric or DMM anywhere near a system, it dominates it :smallbiggrin:

[Greenish]

ToB classes lack access to status-removing stuff until very high levels. Well, aside from IHS, but that's self-only and doesn't help if you contact mummy rot (no duration) or or get turned into stone (can't use maneuvers), for example.

That's something to keep in mind when picking enemies to toss at the party.

[RaggedAngel]

The only other thing is traps, which a lot of people don't use in the first place. To handle that you could make Trapfinding a feat, or you could just give it to Swordsages and then boost their skills up to 8+Int and give them Search, Disable Device, and Open Lock.

[HappyBlanket]

ToB is good, but a team of them is still just a group of melee characters. They'll need healing (Crusader lacks meaningful healing of others (sic)), and at times they'll want to have a caster among their ranks.

[nyarlathotep]

It would be rather limiting in character concept to be honest. Balance wise the system would work pretty well as long as it was low on the status effects and traps. Certain archtypes could easily be replicated with existing classes and minor homebrew (bard and binders are fine, arcane casters being relegated to dread necro-esque one school casters) and others would require quite a bit of homebrew to work (most cleric stuff).

[Burnheart]

Have you seen Callos_DeTerran's Warriors and Wuxia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205213)? Its a ToB only Campain Setting including various optional rules as well as homebrew classes and Disciplines.

[Drachasor]

I say grab Healing Surges from 4th Edition, make some maneuvers that use them (and/or add their use to existing maneuvers), and you are nearly good to go.

The only thing left is to deal with disease and whatnot. You could not use such monsters. You could make the onset of the problem happen after combat, so they can find someone to help. You could make maneuvers, alternative class abilities, or magical items available to deal with them.

[byaku rai]

It could work, depending on the campaign itself. For example, in a relatively low-level campaign (saying this mostly because of the lack of monster spell-like abilities) focused on a nation at war with the party acting as a group of elite mercenaries/soldiers and the majority of enemies being other fighter or ranger-types, it could work quite well.

In a traditional campaign, it would fail hard due to lack of healing/buffing/stat defect removal. It could still potentially fail due to lack of those, especially if the opponents are other Sublime Way users with the ability to debuff/ cause stat defects.

[FMArthur]

It's not totally complete even for mundanes; you lack scouts and archery, for one thing, and you also still need to include the PH's equipment lists. I would almost rather chuck the PH's feats than keep them if the players don't know which ones to avoid, but some ToB content refers to them and a number of feats require PH feats. You need the Monk's chart if you want to use Unarmed Swordsages, but tossing that and just using Superior Unarmed Strike isn't a horrible way to implement unarmed combat, either (though I would rather just let any class trade weapon proficiencies for it instead of making them eat their feats just to punch people).

[Tvtyrant]

Healing surges and some stuff like Eberron's PPs would go a long way to making this work. Also, a lot of the stuff like natural attackers would be dropped.

For new classes that would work with this you could consider making a new Barbarian that has rage+Stances and a very small list of maneuvers that refresh when ragin, and a Nature-y one that gets track and other wholesome nature abilities. Maybe just make a nature based school that grants things like Tremor-sense as a stance.

[Godskook]

ToB classes lack access to status-removing stuff until very high levels. Well, aside from IHS, but that's self-only and doesn't help if you contact mummy rot (no duration) or or get turned into stone (can't use maneuvers), for example.

Actually, by RAW, IHS only works on things measured in rounds(the same argument that applies to why a DFA can't take metabreath feats). I don't think there are *any* poisons with that short of a duration.

@OP, it really depends on how much of the splat-world you're removing from the setting. The book doesn't contain enough feats/items to support itself without at least core, and ideally a few other feat-books and MiC. And without caster assistance, certain enemy types will be difficult->impossible to kill, like open-range dragons, who can flyby to victory.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Honestly, having your core classes come from everything but the PHB would probably improve balance immensely, maybe with the exception of a few other heavy caster classes (Wu Jen, Psion, Archivist, and Artificer) and the retention of things like the bard. Tome of Battle just does melee well with a low OP floor and decent abilities outside of just feats to mundane types. It also plays nice with most of the specialized casters (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, low OP Wu Jens, Favored Souls, and Shugenjas). Not to mention things like soul binding and Incarnum.

[Drachasor]

Hmm, if you toss in Healing Surges like I suggested, you could partially balance the crappy Stone Dragon maneuvers by letting them let you use a Healing Surge when used.

[Greenish]

a few other heavy caster classes (Wu Jen, Psion, Archivist, and Artificer)Spirit Shaman! Full core caster list in your beg and call is a mighty thing indeed.

[dspeyer]

Make sure none of the enemies can fly.

[Drachasor]

Make sure none of the enemies can fly.

Weeeell, actually there are options to handle flying creatures in ToB. Now the falling damage isn't pretty...

It might help to add a discipline for bows or the like to help out here, or if you have flying monsters then also give out items which grant flight.

[sonofzeal]

That is to say, do all the classes maintain their functionality and relative usefulness when you remove everything else from the game?
Yes. The three classes are balanced against each other very well, and fill slightly different roles.


As a corollary, if you think the removal of everything non-ToB would effect its internal balance, what would you modify for that? I'm by no means opposed to House Rules and homebrew, so what do people think could afford to be changed in a ToB-only game?
The main issue is that, with the narrowing of focus, there's a reduced ability to deal with things outside of that focus. That's true for any party where the PCs are all playing somewhat similar characters.



Possible fix: Add some restoratives to the Crusader (the "Cleanse" series from the Healer class would be perfect). Add Trapfinding, Rogue skills, and 8+Int skillpoints to the Swordsage. Add an archery school to the Warblade's school list.

Done. =P

[Drachasor]

You could also pump up the usefulness of Heal. Allow it to more immediately treat disease and poison perhaps, allow it to help with various draining effects, and even, perhaps, allow it to apply protection against such effects for a limited time.

[Greenish]

Add an archery school to the Warblade's school list.Had you a specific school in mind?

I've a black rain warblade in the pipeline, but the character he's a backup for hasn't shown signs of kicking the bucket anytime soon.

[Essence_of_War]

To clarify, are you making only ToB available to players? Or only ToB available to the world?

If the former, there are generally lots of things that magic does better than ToB/melee and so you'll need to be on the lookout for encounters that are much harder without magic.

Somethings ToB doesn't do extremely well out of the box, for example:
1) Flying
2) Detecting invisible opponents
3) Countering magical buffs/protections

There are tricks in ToB and other sources that can help you deal with all of these, but players have to know/be aware of them, and be aware that they'll need them.

Edit: Out of combat healing also. Crusader is great in-combat, but someone who can use, at a minimum, a wand of CLW/Lesser Vigor is pretty important.