Restructuring ToB Discipline access on a class by class basis

[rollforeigninit]

So I was wondering if anyone had tried allowing the 3 classes from ToB to simply choose which Disciplines they have access too. Give Crusaders 3 Disciplines, Swordsages get 6 & Warblades get 5.

Alternately you might want to give the Disciplines a simple point system where the Supernatural effect schools count for 2 disciplines. As far as I can tell that would be Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit, and Shadow Hand. This would change the number of school "points" to Crusader: 4, Swordsage: 8, and Warblade: 5.

It might cause some weirdness with Prestige class access but it might make things more interesting as well.

[hushblade]

Isn't desert wind generally considered the worse discipline? I don't think just having a supernatural component should justify getting more points. Diamond Mind is arguably the best, and isn't supernatural at all.

[FMArthur]

A lot of people have come up with the idea, but I'm not sure if many have tried it.

The 'supernatural' exception isn't really necessary; out of those three only Devoted Spirit is actually worth more than usual. Devoted Spirit in general is full of basically irreplaceable abilities. But power-wise, Diamond Mind and White Raven are about as good and sometimes better, even if they're not quite as unique as it, and I think the Crusader still uses its powers best anyway due to its class features. It wouldn't upset the balance significantly to just allow the classes to have 3, 6 and 5 disciplines in simple fashion without bothering to mark any as being different.

[rollforeigninit]

I'd agree with that assessment as far as power level goes but what criterion would you use instead? I've also seen Desert Wind reworked a little to be electrical based (slightly better IMHO). I suppose there could just be a flat out point based buy in for each school but that would get out of hand pretty easily.