So why do some people ban Tome of Battle?

[Con_Brio1993]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes. And yet I've seen comments online about how everything in the book is broken, broken enough that several DMs actually ban the thing outright.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why people feel this way about the Tome Of Battle?

[Alleran]

Some people feel it makes combat too "anime" for D&D. It's occasionally known as the "Book of <a word I'm not sure I'm allowed to use> Fightan Magic" in some circles.

[Con_Brio1993]

Some people feel it makes combat too "anime" for D&D. It's occasionally known as the "Book of <a word I'm not sure I'm allowed to use> Fightan Magic" in some circles.

So people ban it because of the flavor? I want to believe there is more to it than that.

[Whammydill]

Maybe they feel that melee can't have nice things.

[Hiro Protagonest]

1. ToB sets the floor high and the ceiling low. Compared to wizards, which start on ground level but the ceiling is at the height of a skyscraper, or clerics/druids, who start a bit higher than that but have a slightly lower ceiling. Or vanilla fighters, who have a low floor and a low ceiling. It can easily be too powerful.

2. Fluff. I hate this argument, but some people just refuse to move from the Sublime Way fluff, and/or think that initiators call their attacks in full anime style. Never mind the fact that Germans gave their techniques poetic names.

3. Mechanics. Some people think they're spellcasters. I knew a poster who thought they were Vancian, but he also admitted that he thinks crossbows are Vancian, so I couldn't exactly follow his train of thought that ToB was worse than crossbows. Others just don't want to learn a new system.

[Manateee]

Basically because you can't screw up a Warblade.

[Sucrose]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes. And yet I've seen comments online about how everything in the book is broken, broken enough that several DMs actually ban the thing outright.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why people feel this way about the Tome Of Battle?

Some people play highly unoptimized campaigns. Tome of Battle is fairly hard to screw up mechanically. Consequently, Tome of Battle characters will frequently outshine the party in sufficiently mechanically inept groups. The gap between a ToB character and any given mechanically inept build (save for Druids, since their default flavor leads pretty directly to the right build choices) is often larger than the gap between an inept martial build and an inept caster build (in point of fact, if the optimization ceiling is low enough, Core martial types can actually outshine casters for much of the campaign).

Also, some people take offense to non-Core mundane characters being better fighters than Core mundane characters.

[ORione]

The book is expensive.

[skycycle blues]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes. And yet I've seen comments online about how everything in the book is broken, broken enough that several DMs actually ban the thing outright.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why people feel this way about the Tome Of Battle?

Some people just don't want to bother learning a new system, although Maneuvers are a totally fine system and not very difficult to learn. I think at least as easy as core spell casting.

In less optimized play groups, all of the classes in ToB could be considered broken. If Clerics are heal-bots and wizards are blasters, then some people think that Swordsages teleporting around, Warblades never being able to fail a save, and Crusaders being actual tanks is a problem.

In some playgroups, Monks, Fighters and Barbarians are considered classes worth taking past 2 (or 6 in some cases) levels. ToB base classes are nearly strictly better than the main 3 melee focused classes from PHB and people don't take kindly to their favorite classes being made useless.

Some people just don't think melee should get nice things. This is not something I'm sympathetic too.

I'm not aware of any other reasons that people use to justify disallowing the book.

[NeoSeraphi]

There are plenty of reasons why people might argue that initiators are like spellcasters. The biggest offender of this is Inferno Blast, which allows a swordsage to simply expel fire from his body without even using his weapon. Some people don't like that.

The main reason, I think, is because the existence of maneuvers completely invalidates almost all of the core classes. The unarmed swordsage invalidates the monk, the crusader invalidates the paladin, and the warblade invalidates the fighter. By "invalidates", I mean they do everything the original classes should be able to do, and they do it well. However, that doesn't sit well with some players, who feel that the fighter should be the best at fighting, and the paladin should be the most powerful divine champion, etc. In fact, I think that if WotC had released the warblade, crusader, and swordsage as ACFs for those three classes rather than base classes in their own right, ToB wouldn't get nearly as much crap as it does.

That said, if you have a fighter and a warblade in the same party, and they have the exact same feats (of course, the fighter gets more, but the exact same important feats), the exact same ability scores, and the exact same equipment, the warblade is going to be far superior than the fighter, in both damage and survivability. Therefore, the warblade is simply a "better" class than the fighter. And that upsets a lot of people.

[The_Snark]

1. ToB sets the floor high and the ceiling low. Compared to wizards, which start on ground level but the ceiling is at the height of a skyscraper, or clerics/druids, who start a bit higher than that but have a slightly lower ceiling. Or vanilla fighters, who have a low floor and a low ceiling. It can easily be too powerful.

This, basically. Tome of Battle classes are more or less optimized right out of the box; you can improve them, but you can generally get a solid character just by picking cool-looking maneuvers and feats from that book+core. In low-optimazation games, the sort where wizard generally blast away with Fireball and Magic Missile and most people don't bother with splatbooks, it really stands out.

I like the book myself, but I have played in groups where it would have been unfairly above the power curve.

[Con_Brio1993]

1. ToB sets the floor high and the ceiling low. Compared to wizards, which start on ground level but the ceiling is at the height of a skyscraper, or clerics/druids, who start a bit higher than that but have a slightly lower ceiling. Or vanilla fighters, who have a low floor and a low ceiling. It can easily be too powerful.

3. Mechanics. Some people think they're spellcasters. I knew a poster who thought they were Vancian, but he also admitted that he thinks crossbows are Vancian, so I couldn't exactly follow his train of thought that ToB was worse than crossbows. Others just don't want to learn a new system.

1. Well it won't be too powerful compared to the full casters.

But I do see how they'd be almost broken in an unoptimized campaign. Especially if all the other players stick to core and think Toughness is a good feat.

3. Yeah I do almost think of it like spellcasting. They certainly break several laws of physics for all their flashy techniques. But there's already a ton of ridiculous stuff in the DND-verse.


edit: Out of curiosity, in games where the rest of the rest of the players are poorly optimized (such that the ban on TOB would be warranted) what classes do you guys use? Tier 4 + 5?

[Manateee]

Also, it's a direct comparison.

Even in a low-op group, an efficiently-played caster makes the Fighter feel good by shutting down encounters with buffs/debuffs/BC and letting the Fighter clean up.

In that same low-op group, the Warblade does the same things as the Fighter, but better.

[Helldog]

{Scrubbed}

[motoko's ghost]

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[Con_Brio1993]

{{scrubbed}}



Also, it's a direct comparison.

Even in a low-op group, an efficiently-played caster makes the Fighter feel good by shutting down encounters with buffs/debuffs/BC and letting the Fighter clean up.

In that same low-op group, the Warblade does the same things as the Fighter, but better.

Interesting. So if someone who actually understands the system were to play with a low-op group it would actually be better to play a Tier 1 than a TOB character.

[Seerow]

1. Well it won't be too powerful compared to the full casters.

But I do see how they'd be almost broken in an unoptimized campaign. Especially if all the other players stick to core and think Toughness is a good feat.

3. Yeah I do almost think of it like spellcasting. They certainly break several laws of physics for all their flashy techniques. But there's already a ton of ridiculous stuff in the DND-verse.


edit: Out of curiosity, in games where the rest of the rest of the players are poorly optimized (such that the ban on TOB would be warranted) what classes do you guys use? Tier 4 + 5?

In a really poorly optimized campaign, even a Cleric, Druid, and Wizard can be weaker than Tome of Battle classes. I mean, if they're played with even a shred of sense, they will be better, but someone who loads up all their cleric's spells with cure/restoration effects (or even buff other people effects), a Wizard who loads up on Magic Missile and Fireball type spells, with no metamagic shenanigans, etc, will all make the Warblade and Crusader look much stronger.

[HunterOfJello]

ToB was a complete game changer when it came out. It presented melee classes and options that were so good that they put the majority of previous melee class and prestige classes to shame. In essence, they took most of those previous character types and made them obsolete. Not all builds were made obsolete. Barbarian type chargers still do more damage, and there's still great value in some of the melee combos, but they're the combos that were already the best of the best. However, even those builds lack the versatility of a plain no-frills Warblade.

ToB also changed the way that melee characters were played in the game. For someone who was used to melee PCs generally sucking and not caring that they sucked, this was generally disturbing. The individuals who played badly built Fighters and greatly enjoyed playing a character that sucked while surrounded by wizards and clerics who didn't, this was also unsettling. There is also the problem that a ToB melee character set in the same party as an unoptimized non-ToB melee character will quickly illuminate the obvious difference in power and general usefulness that the ToB classes possess. This can make the non-ToB using player feel sad, useless, and annoyed. Envy does, of course, breed contempt. If the non-ToB using player also begins to read through the ToB and has trouble understanding it (especially if they start off in the Crusader section) or they just flat out decide that they hate the book without reading it, then you have a power difference that will become a problem in the future.

There is also the fact that many people got used to how melee characters were played pre-ToB and enjoyed it that way. It is important to remember that ToB came out very late in the 3.5 run and that the original melee classes all generally played like the 3e, 2e, and 1e melee characters. They had gained more options, bells, and whistles, but were generally the same thing.

Ex: Roll a die, add a modifier, did you trip? Yes you tripped. Next persons tun.

ToB goes much further than that and changed things around a great deal. Many people enjoy ToB, but others miss the way things were and dislike the powers that melee classes suddenly possess. Many people also haven't read the book or seen the characters in action over a long series of levels among the spellcasting and psionic classes to get a good impression of them. If you just look at a ToB character from level 1-6 or so, you'll find a surprisingly powerful character. Yet that is common among the melee classes. The Totemist is definitely at the top of the power list for level 2 characters, but it diminishes from then on. ToB melee classes have a fun character development in that they are powerful from 1-6 (where casters catch up) and then still increase quite a bit as they level all the way up to 20. They don't fall into pit holes and get stuck into diminishing returns like many pure Fighters or pure Monks are bound to. They keep things fresh and fun.


I enjoy the ToB for characters that I play, but as a DM I would enjoy to DM a game that didn't use the book. Seeing a more hardcore, death and hardship game would be fun for me. However, I don't think I would entertain that notion forever, or forbid the use of ToB after so many levels (some DMs enjoy setting the ToB base classes up as PrCs that can only be accessed after so many levels).

All in all, it's a personal decision of whether to use the book or not, but I highly suggest that the individual making the decision get a full education about the book and it's wondrous wonders before they make any knee jerk assumptions or decisions.


In a really poorly optimized campaign, even a Cleric, Druid, and Wizard can be weaker than Tome of Battle classes. I mean, if they're played with even a shred of sense, they will be better, but someone who loads up all their cleric's spells with cure/restoration effects (or even buff other people effects), a Wizard who loads up on Magic Missile and Fireball type spells, with no metamagic shenanigans, etc, will all make the Warblade and Crusader look much stronger.


I think that this can be true if there is poor spell selection involved, but I don't think that the Wizard or Cleric in question would feel any dislike for a Warblade and Crusader in their party. Crusaders are masters at healing allies and protecting them from damage. Warblades are great at charging in and taking all of the attention of enemies while slicing them apart in a whirlwind of steel and blood. I know that, as a Wizard, I would highly approve of friends who take part in such actions. Every weak enemy sliced down by a Warblade, every extra bit of healing from the Crusader, and every extra shield block that the Crusader puts forward knocking swords and arrows away from my glorious spellcasting self is an extra opportunity to go and throw out the spells I enjoy.

(Sidenote: I once allowed a party of a Wizard and Druid to recruit a dwarven crusader into their party, but had to make a reason for him to run off to protect is clan after 3 sessions because he was way to ridiculously effective at protecting both of them.

Martial Spirit Stance + Crusaders Strike + Vanguard Strike + Shield Block + Mountain Hammer is waaaaaaaaaay too useful for taking out enemies while protecting casters at the same time)

[navar100]

{{scrubbed}}

[motoko's ghost]

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[Coidzor]

Coincidentally, I believe this is the same thread title as the last thread that asked this question. I think it made it to about 15 pages.

[ORione]

Coincidentally, I believe this is the same thread title as the last thread that asked this question. I think it made it to about 15 pages.

Let's beat that.

[Steward]

For me (though I've never actually banned it per se in the handful of games that I've run) it's because I just don't understand. I really like the idea behind it, and I have the feeling that it's probably really simple, but I have the book and I've read through the class descriptions like six times and I still don't know how it works. It's not the book's fault or anything; it's just that for some bizarre reason I can't wrap my mind around it the way I can with psionics or incarnum or truenaming.

[gkathellar]

For me (though I've never actually banned it per se in the handful of games that I've run) it's because I just don't understand. I really like the idea behind it, and I have the feeling that it's probably really simple, but I have the book and I've read through the class descriptions like six times and I still don't know how it works. It's not the book's fault or anything; it's just that for some bizarre reason I can't wrap my mind around it the way I can with psionics or incarnum or truenaming.

Maybe we can help? This is most of what there is to know, forget all your other assumptions:

You know a certain number of maneuvers, determined by your class and level. On even numbered class levels above 4, you can switch out lower-level maneuvers for high level ones.
You also know a number of stances determined by your class and level. Stances provide passive benefits — you always have one stance on, and you can switch stances with a Swift action. You never get to trade in lower level stances for higher level ones the way you do with maneuvers.
Your maneuver and stance selection options are determined by availability to your class, by the prerequisites a given maneuver has (listed in its description), and by your Initiator Level, which is equal to (level in the relevant Initiator Class)+(level in all Initiator PrCs)+(level in all other classes)/2 and allows access to maneuvers of a given level at the same rate a wizard gains access to new spell levels.
You have a certain number of maneuvers readied, determined by your class and level. By taking 5 minutes of preparation, you can choose which of your maneuvers known are going to be readied for the next fight.
In combat, you can activate readied maneuvers to perform affects described in their individual text. When you activate a maneuver, it is "expended."
You can regain "expended" maneuvers through a method independent to your class.

[Coidzor]

For me (though I've never actually banned it per se in the handful of games that I've run) it's because I just don't understand. I really like the idea behind it, and I have the feeling that it's probably really simple, but I have the book and I've read through the class descriptions like six times and I still don't know how it works. It's not the book's fault or anything; it's just that for some bizarre reason I can't wrap my mind around it the way I can with psionics or incarnum or truenaming.

You have a set of abilities(maneuvers) readied. Then you use an ability. That use expends the ability, much like a spell. Then, there's a maneuver recovery mechanic that each class has, Warblades either spend a standard action or full attack without using a maneuver that round, Crusaders don't do anything and their maneuvers auto-refresh, and Swordsages don't get a feat at first level and instead spend a full-round action to refresh their maneuvers. Then those abilities are no longer expended.

Maneuvers seem to be hierarchical like spells and feats with prerequisite maneuvers and maneuver chains similar to those found in feats or shadowcasting or truenaming(IIRC).

[KillianHawkeye]

Why does anybody ban anything? Because they don't like it or they don't understand it.

[Eshi]

tome of battle essentially takes classes like fighter and monk and fixes them - or in other words, renders them completely obsolete. The people who understand that they were terrible classes in need of fixing anyway welcome the book. Those that think monks are totally OP and every spellcaster needs fireball, will ban it.

[Chronos]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes.There's certainly a colossal gap there, and it needs closing. But the reason why I don't like Tome of Battle is that it not only doesn't close that gap, it makes it worse. The casting classes are still just as far ahead of the martial classes as they ever were, but now there's also a new category of classes who are also well ahead of the martial classes. It feels to me like the book is saying to people who like martial classes, "Don't play a martial class, they suck. Instead, play one of these new classes that kind of vaguely resembles a martial class, but isn't.". Now, if the martial classes were improved significantly, then I wouldn't mind the existence of Tome of Battle: Variety is good, it keeps things interesting. But as it is, Tome of Battle doesn't improve warrior-types; it eclipses them.

People often say that the core warrior classes are just too irretrievably broken to fix, but that's not true. All the Fighter has is bonus feats? Fine, then, make some new feats that are worth taking. Make a bunch of them, so many that you can go straight Fighter 20 and still always have good and interesting choices. Make so many that people sometimes won't want to prestige class out, so as not to miss out on more feats. Once you've done that, then add Tome of Battle.

[Alleran]

Let's beat that.
Challenge Accepted! (http://transformedandscaled.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/barneyChallenge.jpg)


Why does anybody ban anything? Because they don't like it or they don't understand it.
Or they don't have the book and are wary about a player who does have it knowing enough to get several unbalancing combinations that the DM wouldn't find out about until they're used in-game (potentially making the other players obsolete as well). Even if said player gave the book to the DM to look through pre-game, I doubt that you'd be able to pick up every single potential exploit there is. It's sometimes less about not understanding it, and more about making sure all the players in the game are on more or less the same playing field.

[Blackfang108]

What I've noticed about D&Ders (generality ahead. I am not stating that this is what everyone believes, merely that a good number of people seem to believe it.)

Wizards, clerics, druids and the like can do anything by virtue of being magical.

Fighters are mundane, and should therefore be realistic.

Realistic.

Ina game with non-human sapients who can a.) crossbreed with Humans B.) Live for hundreds of years and C.) Magically notice all hidden doors that they're near.

[Coidzor]

There's certainly a colossal gap there, and it needs closing. But the reason why I don't like Tome of Battle is that it not only doesn't close that gap, it makes it worse. The casting classes are still just as far ahead of the martial classes as they ever were, but now there's also a new category of classes who are also well ahead of the martial classes. It feels to me like the book is saying to people who like martial classes, "Don't play a martial class, they suck. Instead, play one of these new classes that kind of vaguely resembles a martial class, but isn't.". Now, if the martial classes were improved significantly, then I wouldn't mind the existence of Tome of Battle: Variety is good, it keeps things interesting. But as it is, Tome of Battle doesn't improve warrior-types; it eclipses them.

Of course ToB classes are martial classes. Their paradigm is still using sticks to hit things. Aside from swordsages who can sometimes use their sticks really quickly to make fire. :smalltongue:

[Wings of Peace]

A slight curiosity. How many people made a connection between ToB and anime without either hearing it from someone else or reading the box in ToB that brings it up.

[Chronos]

Of course ToB classes are martial classes. Their paradigm is still using sticks to hit things. Aside from swordsages who can sometimes use their sticks really quickly to make fire.If they restricted themselves to doing that, they would be on the same level as the fighter.

DM: OK, Bob, it's your turn. What do you do?
Bob: I use my stick to hit things.
DM: OK, roll to hit and for damage.

If that's what Bob is doing, it doesn't matter if he's using a warblade or fighter; in the current system, he's still going to lag behind the wizard. What I envision is a system where Bob could just use his stick to hit things, and still shine.

[Coidzor]

If they restricted themselves to doing that, they would be on the same level as the fighter.

So what do you think maneuvers are? Waving the sticks and causing damage or inflicting status effects without actually hitting opponents with the sticks?


What I envision is a system where Bob could just use his stick to hit things, and still shine.

So something that doesn't resemble 3rd Edition D&D in the slightest, as the amount of HP enemies had relative to the amount of damage a not-very savvy stickwielder's player can hash out would have to decrease sharply.

I suppose on the bright side that would make blasting viable, though it'd also start to run the risk of having melee damage output be rendered superfluous due to blasting without some changes to the magic system and that's a project unto itself.

More power to you if you can find a system like that to your liking or make one yourself, because to kludge 3.X into that framework would require enough houseruling and homebrew you pretty much are and if you've managed not to, might as well have, made your own system.


A slight curiosity. How many people made a connection between ToB and anime without either hearing it from someone else or reading the box in ToB that brings it up.

I still haven't. :smalltongue: Closest to that has been admitting that the derisive nickname related to that perception is actually just hilarious.

[Manateee]

A slight curiosity. How many people made a connection between ToB and anime without either hearing it from someone else or reading the box in ToB that brings it up.
Um, yeah. About the part where the swordsage flew through the air punching fireballs, waiting for the moment to unleash its five shadow CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!!!.

Yeah, I know that's not all that's in the book, but remember when Divine Mind tainted most of the community to CPsi for like 2-3 years?

[Wings of Peace]

Yeah, I know that's not all that's in the book, but remember when Divine Mind tainted most of the community to CPsi for like 2-3 years?

Nope. I was living a cozy life on the 339 boards back then where we were all laughing about the Erudite and the Magic Mantle. :smallsmile:

[sonofzeal]

Um, yeah. About the part where the swordsage flew through the air punching fireballs, waiting for the moment to unleash its five shadow CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!!!.
Honestly, I think that's a poorly-disguised Kill Bill reference more than anything. I've never seen an anime with names quite like that, although a few do admittedly come close - often because they're riffing off the same source material.


Yeah, I know that's not all that's in the book, but remember when Divine Mind tainted most of the community to CPsi for like 2-3 years?
I thought it was the stealth nerfs to Astral Construct among others that soured people more?

[Yora]

I have no ToB in my games, because I hate rules creep. The PHB has everything you need and heaping on more and more rules only makes the players think of the game more as a game of character building and tactics, than about a world and a story.
However, this applies to pretty much any other splatbooks as well. For me, to add something to the game, it has to actually introduce something new, not just a different way of doing something that already exist.

[TriForce]

Some people play highly unoptimized campaigns. Tome of Battle is fairly hard to screw up mechanically. Consequently, Tome of Battle characters will frequently outshine the party in sufficiently mechanically inept groups. The gap between a ToB character and any given mechanically inept build (save for Druids, since their default flavor leads pretty directly to the right build choices) is often larger than the gap between an inept martial build and an inept caster build (in point of fact, if the optimization ceiling is low enough, Core martial types can actually outshine casters for much of the campaign).

Also, some people take offense to non-Core mundane characters being better fighters than Core mundane characters.


im one of the DM's that ban ToB, or at least a lot of content in it, and this is mainly the reason why.

my group and myself) are people who like the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game, and if i want to play a game where i optimize myself to be as powerful as i can be, ill go play on my computer. in my personal opinion, DnD is not a game where optimization is needed or evenwanted, since its about playing a character in a fantasy world, and not about how to kill things as efficiently as possible. ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin, simply has no place in that playstyle, my campaigns are so that every class or person has their own ways to be useful in the party, since thats what i adjust my campaign about. if someone would play a ToB class in a campaign like that, the gap between him and the rest would be huge, plus it would be a indication to me that combat became a too big part of my campaign, and i would need to tone it down

[Gnaeus]

People often say that the core warrior classes are just too irretrievably broken to fix, but that's not true. All the Fighter has is bonus feats? Fine, then, make some new feats that are worth taking. Make a bunch of them, so many that you can go straight Fighter 20 and still always have good and interesting choices. Make so many that people sometimes won't want to prestige class out, so as not to miss out on more feats. Once you've done that, then add Tome of Battle.

Actually, thats a great reason to use tome of battle. Since Martial Study and martial stance are available as feats, they do a tremendous amount of good for some fighters. Getting Thicket of Blades, for example, is a huge boost for a trip fighter.


ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin,

I find that personal attacks against pretty much every other poster are usually the very best way to make people take my arguments seriously. :smallannoyed:

[Myth]

im one of the DM's that ban ToB, or at least a lot of content in it, and this is mainly the reason why.

my group and myself) are people who like the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game, and if i want to play a game where i optimize myself to be as powerful as i can be, ill go play on my computer. in my personal opinion, DnD is not a game where optimization is needed or evenwanted, since its about playing a character in a fantasy world, and not about how to kill things as efficiently as possible. ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin, simply has no place in that playstyle, my campaigns are so that every class or person has their own ways to be useful in the party, since thats what i adjust my campaign about. if someone would play a ToB class in a campaign like that, the gap between him and the rest would be huge, plus it would be a indication to me that combat became a too big part of my campaign, and i would need to tone it down

Mind sharing the details on that? And on your players and their level of system mastery?

Using generalizations and bad labels like "munchkin" for anyone who loves building efficient and synergized characters is bad practice IMO. 3.5 is a system that greatly rewards people who are smart, creative and who put in the time to read and research the rules. If you play with people who have "their dude" "do stuff", who take Toughness because their Figher needs to be tougher, then I don't even want to talk about it. But suffice to say that 3.5 is not the system for you guys.

Roleplaying is not hampered by optimization, that's classical Stormwind right there.

So you say that ToB classes will outshine EVERYONE else? Do you only play regular vanilla melee classes and blasters? If you can equally allow a Wizard and a Fighter to shine, can't you change your game so that a Wizard and a Warblade can do so?

Sorry but none of your arguments make sense to me.

[Killer Angel]

Interesting. So if someone who actually understands the system were to play with a low-op group it would actually be better to play a Tier 1 than a TOB character.

It would be better also for another reason.
To play a T1 (or T2) character from Core, will show the way to the other players, while playing a ToB character, it would be probably dismissed as "overpowered". There wouldn't be any improvement for the rest of the group.


my group and myself) are people who like the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game, and if i want to play a game where i optimize myself to be as powerful as i can be, ill go play on my computer. ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin, simply has no place in that playstyle, my campaigns are so that every class or person has their own ways to be useful in the party, since thats what i adjust my campaign about. if someone would play a ToB class in a campaign like that, the gap between him and the rest would be huge, plus it would be a indication to me that combat became a too big part of my campaign, and i would need to tone it down


:smallsigh:
This is like saying "arcane casters cannot be munchkin with spells as haste or black tentacles. They should do real roleplay with fireball and cone of cold".

[Talionis]

im one of the DM's that ban ToB, or at least a lot of content in it, and this is mainly the reason why.

my group and myself) are people who like the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game, and if i want to play a game where i optimize myself to be as powerful as i can be, ill go play on my computer. in my personal opinion, DnD is not a game where optimization is needed or evenwanted, since its about playing a character in a fantasy world, and not about how to kill things as efficiently as possible. ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin, simply has no place in that playstyle, my campaigns are so that every class or person has their own ways to be useful in the party, since thats what i adjust my campaign about. if someone would play a ToB class in a campaign like that, the gap between him and the rest would be huge, plus it would be a indication to me that combat became a too big part of my campaign, and i would need to tone it down

This is the lame "explanation" I see all the time. I find some way to justify my Pun Pun wizard, but no melee character can be better than an average fighter because it's not realistic.

To be honest, I love three point five and wish more ToB stuff had been printed because it does give nice things to melee characters that run a gambit from mundane to include some magical abilities.

Each player and DM can decide what is overpowered for there games, but I have trouble with the hypocrites that allow power casters and ban ToB.

[Thurbane]

Is the last thread on this exact topic even at necro age yet?

[Akisa]

Then there are people who have irrational dislike of the book because she felt it has lead to fragmented community due to the edition wars. Yes I know it's petty, but hey some people felt like it was a test book for 4e.

[NinjaStylerobot]

I don'y use it because I was disappointed. I was hoping for something like

"Mega leap" Your character jumps up 10 feet in the air per level then fafely lands. Whilst he is jumping he can make a single attack"

"Wall shattering strike"

"Resist death"

"Flurry of arrows"

Or something like that.

It turned out to be simply a bunch of spells given to martial classes.

[Eldan]

You know, most of these are in that book?

Your description of Mega Leap is half the maneuvers in Tiger Claw.
Wall Shattering Strike is several maneuvers in Stone Dragon, starting at level 1.
Resist Death is a crusader stance, just the name is different.
Flurry of arrows is a bit more difficult, I admit, as most maneuvers are melee only. But there's the Bloodstorm Blade, which could probably be redone as an archery class. And there's tons of homebrew.

[Drathmar]

A slight curiosity. How many people made a connection between ToB and anime without either hearing it from someone else or reading the box in ToB that brings it up.

There's a box in the ToB that mentions anime?

As somewhat of an otaku... who watches a LOT of action and specifically fighting/magical action anime... I didn't make the connection till this thread.

[NinjaStylerobot]

More inportantly it had nothing to offer fighters, monks ect. It was just a bunch of other classes.

[Talionis]

More inportantly it had nothing to offer fighters, monks ect. It was just a bunch of other classes.

That's really not true since the initiator mechanic is advanced by half by non-initiators, it is one of the most dip-able books ever made.

[Drathmar]

There's certainly a colossal gap there, and it needs closing. But the reason why I don't like Tome of Battle is that it not only doesn't close that gap, it makes it worse. The casting classes are still just as far ahead of the martial classes as they ever were, but now there's also a new category of classes who are also well ahead of the martial classes. It feels to me like the book is saying to people who like martial classes, "Don't play a martial class, they suck. Instead, play one of these new classes that kind of vaguely resembles a martial class, but isn't.". Now, if the martial classes were improved significantly, then I wouldn't mind the existence of Tome of Battle: Variety is good, it keeps things interesting. But as it is, Tome of Battle doesn't improve warrior-types; it eclipses them.

People often say that the core warrior classes are just too irretrievably broken to fix, but that's not true. All the Fighter has is bonus feats? Fine, then, make some new feats that are worth taking. Make a bunch of them, so many that you can go straight Fighter 20 and still always have good and interesting choices. Make so many that people sometimes won't want to prestige class out, so as not to miss out on more feats. Once you've done that, then add Tome of Battle.

Here is what I envision reading this post:

Bob: I want to play an awesome sword wielding fighter who tears through enemies in melee!
DM Chronos: Well I could let you play a ToB character who would do that, but that would make the core book obsolete so sorry, but you have to play a broken class that can't do this unless you imagine really really hard.
Bob: Aww... but I don't wanna be a Fighter/Lion Totem Barb/Cleric with Travel Devotion again...
DM Chronos: Too bad! I will not let you use something that will let you do what you want because it outshines a broken class!

[The Glyphstone]

More inportantly it had nothing to offer fighters, monks ect. It was just a bunch of other classes.

What it offered Monks was a gold watch and a nice pension plan while a competent class took their place.

Fighters, etc., on the other hand, benefited huge. You did notice feats like Martial Study and their Fighter Bonus Feat tag, right? ToB is one of the most dip-friendly books ever, with the 1/2 Martial Adept level bonus rule for determining maneuvers - one level of Warblade in the middle of a pure Fighter build adds a crazy amount of options.


Also, this is early. It's supposed to be Tome of Battle Tuesday when these threads appear.:smallbiggrin:

And predictably, Talionis swordsaged me.

[gkathellar]

"Mega leap" Your character jumps up 10 feet in the air per level then fafely lands. Whilst he is jumping he can make a single attack"

The entire Tiger Claw discipline?


"Wall shattering strike"

The entire Stone Dragon discipline?


"Resist death"

The entire Devoted Spirit discipline?


"Flurry of arrows"

This one I have to give you. Ranged disciplines were regrettably absent.


It turned out to be simply a bunch of spells given to martial classes.

I have no idea what this means relative to those other things. Are the materials supplied somehow not those things because their level structure tangentially resembles that of spells? What makes a set of abilities "spells" as opposed to "not spells" aside from being called, you know, spells.


There's a box in the ToB that mentions anime?

Right in the beginning, there's an aside about how people shouldn't get too wrapped up in the wuxia and "anime" imagery ToB sometimes presents. Frankly they're right: Chivalric tales are basically the wuxia of Europe, and the Germans got just as crazy about giving cool names to their martial arts moves as the Chinese did.

[Con_Brio1993]

im one of the DM's that ban ToB, or at least a lot of content in it, and this is mainly the reason why.

my group and myself) are people who like the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game, and if i want to play a game where i optimize myself to be as powerful as i can be, ill go play on my computer. in my personal opinion, DnD is not a game where optimization is needed or evenwanted, since its about playing a character in a fantasy world, and not about how to kill things as efficiently as possible. ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin, simply has no place in that playstyle, my campaigns are so that every class or person has their own ways to be useful in the party, since thats what i adjust my campaign about. if someone would play a ToB class in a campaign like that, the gap between him and the rest would be huge, plus it would be a indication to me that combat became a too big part of my campaign, and i would need to tone it down

Holy false dichotomy!

I'm very much into the roleplay aspect, and optimizing a character so that they have the most options available does not hinder that. It helps.

[Wings of Peace]

Right in the beginning, there's an aside about how people shouldn't get too wrapped up in the wuxia and "anime" imagery ToB sometimes presents. Frankly they're right: Chivalric tales are basically the wuxia of Europe, and the Germans got just as crazy about giving cool names to their martial arts moves as the Chinese did.

The reason I asked the question originally is because I'm convinced a lot of the arguments about how ToB is too anime compared to the other martials stem from WotC's own decision to actively place the idea in a box with big letters.

[Polarity Shift]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes. And yet I've seen comments online about how everything in the book is broken, broken enough that several DMs actually ban the thing outright.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why people feel this way about the Tome Of Battle?

They don't know any better.

[Drathmar]

im one of the DM's that ban ToB, or at least a lot of content in it, and this is mainly the reason why.

my group and myself) are people who like the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game, and if i want to play a game where i optimize myself to be as powerful as i can be, ill go play on my computer. in my personal opinion, DnD is not a game where optimization is needed or evenwanted, since its about playing a character in a fantasy world, and not about how to kill things as efficiently as possible. ToB, while probably very useful for people who want to munchkin, simply has no place in that playstyle, my campaigns are so that every class or person has their own ways to be useful in the party, since thats what i adjust my campaign about. if someone would play a ToB class in a campaign like that, the gap between him and the rest would be huge, plus it would be a indication to me that combat became a too big part of my campaign, and i would need to tone it down

Okay so if I wanted to roleplay a mystical swordsman/assassin (chaotic good... kills people for justice!... lol...) using your rules I would have to multiclass/prestige like crazy, which is hard to do and give RP reasons for, not to mention almost impossible to start off as unless you start at like level 7+.

However if you allowed ToB I could do this from Lvl 1 as a swordsage, play a character I wanted to play, that has RP value in this way.

Like I am doing now in a campaign. ToB isn't just for optimizers/munchkins... just like optimizing and roleplay don't have to be separate.

[gkathellar]

The reason I asked the question originally is because I'm convinced a lot of the arguments about how ToB is too anime compared to the other martials stem from WotC's own decision to actively place the idea in a box with big letters.

On the one hand, I think that's at least partially true.

On the other hand, I do think a lot of it stems from these entirely false notions people have about medieval Europe and European martial arts, where they expect medieval European fantasy to have this certain barbarous, Wild West kind of aspect.

[arguskos]

I find that personal attacks against pretty much every other poster are usually the very best way to make people take my arguments seriously. :smallannoyed:
And this is why I never post in these threads anymore. I've counted at least 5 or so (stopped counting, was getting angry) insults hurled towards people that dare ban ToB. Given that I am one such person (and I have my reasons, none of which come down to "doesn't understand it", "doesn't know any better", "hates melee", "doesn't like players having nice things", "thinks it's too anime", or anything similar), I cannot stand these threads. The level of vitriol hurled at those of us who have legitimate disagreements with the book is frankly irresponsible and insulting. Seriously people, let's not insult others, ok?

Oh, and those of us who attack ToB? Same request: don't do that, ok?

Finale note: Gnaeus, the above is not directed at you, but at the topic in general. From what I've seen, you generally are pretty respectful, which I appreciate. :smallwink:

[Tyndmyr]

A slight curiosity. How many people made a connection between ToB and anime without either hearing it from someone else or reading the box in ToB that brings it up.

I did not consider ToB in general especially anime like in general upon first reading, though I admit that a few specific maneuver names did make me consider one of the schools(I forget which one) to be a bit anime-like.

I consider the main problem of ToB to be the crusader. Now, I love the crusader, it's delightful...but it's not at all balanced in some sorts of games. Namely, low op and/or low level games. At level 1, it's undoubtedly the best option, and if you have other people playing things like a monk, the difference will be quite extreme. In short, things that are challenging the rest of the party don't scratch the crusader. This is what prematurely makes some people judge the entire book as overpowered.

[The Glyphstone]

But isn't that the Crusader's job? They are tanks on legs, their purpose is to be incredibly difficult to hit or hurt and extending that by proxy via stances and maneuvers to allies. Their damage output compared to most other classes is rather lackluster and their maneuver recovery system is better for long-haul battles and unimpressive at burst output.

[Thurbane]

A slight curiosity. How many people made a connection between ToB and anime without either hearing it from someone else or reading the box in ToB that brings it up.
ToB was the second non-core book I bought (after PHB 2). As soon as I read Inferno Blast (I think flipping to the list of stances and manoeuvres was the second or third thing I did after opening the book) the thought that popped straight into my head was Dragon Ball Z. I know, I know, Desert Wind isn't indicative of most of the book. Still, you asked...

Influences (anime or otherwise) really have nothing to do with my group doesn't use the book (note: we don't have "banned" books as such, we play a mostly core game with occasional splats thrown in). Like psionics, Incarnum and other subsystems, my group doesn't really have the interest or time to learn them. I know ToB is relatively easy to learn in the grand scheme of things, but a few of the guys I game with are very "part time" and/or only have the most basic grip of the core rules - throwing in subsystems was pretty much off the table. Also, there's a kind of unwritten rule that we don't use stuff that the whole group doesn't have easy access to.

So, aside from ToB fans and ToB haters, there is a 3rd group out there - people that don't particularly feel one way or another, but consider it just another splat that we may or may not use, depending on availability.

[Talionis]

I haven't seen a winning argument for banning ToB short of I only play with Tier 4 classes and below. That I'll accept. I've even heard of DM's nerfing or allowing Wiards to self-nerf to levels that make it acceptable.

If its a non-logical issue like fluff then maybe you should consider re-fluffing the ToB material.

If you have never used read it and you are the DM, I get that. The guy that wants to pay ToB stuff should let you borrow his.

For people that say it's too expensive. I understand that, but ToB isn't a vastly more expensive book than any of the Completes. I've bought ToB twice once for me and once as a gift on online auctions because they didn't have any more copies local.

For people who say its too complicated, a lot of things in DnD can be complicated just in Core. DnD is a complicated game and I haven't found the ToB to be more complicated than any other new mechanics.

The biggest flaw to ToB is that they didn't do more with it. Because it gives a lot of neat things, most of which can be fluffed as non-magical to mundane characters. I think it brings a diversity of mechanics and game play to characters that were direly in need of it in 3.5.

If you don't like it. I think its your loss. I don't mean to be vitriolic about it. But DnD is about bringing a group of people together to play and have fun. I think allowing, especially ToB will allow more people you play with to have fun. Maybe I am prostelitizing it, but more is generally better. I'd suggest eliminating particular maneuvers if they are causing problems in your game, not the mechanics.

[Arbitrarious]

As has been said some people don't like the "feel". I am certainly not one of them. In fact, ToB solved one of my greatest complaints as a DM and player.

I want to have awesome tactical fighting options that work. Most require a feat chain. This feat chain may or may not require a feat/ability score tax before I even can do what I want well. I am a level 4 character and I have spent half my feats on doing X. By the love of all that's holy, X better freaking work! Begin spamming X (let's say improved trip). After 2 game sessions all monsters appear to be oozes, serpents, multi-legged, much larger then PCs, dwarfs, or some combination of the above (Huge Gelatinous Dwarf Drider, aka Dwider). No more feats to improve ability or many more feats required for small improvement.

Enter ToB. Combat tactic is a maneuver, one of handful that my class just gets. I can feat to make it better, but fairly good on its own. Can't spam the ability so DM doesn't remove feet or cliffs from the game, but can use it often enough to satisfy theme of character. YEAH! :smallsmile:

[The-Mage-King]

ToB isn't just for optimizers/munchkins... just like optimizing and roleplay don't have to be separate.

Quoted For Truth.

[Tyndmyr]

But isn't that the Crusader's job? They are tanks on legs, their purpose is to be incredibly difficult to hit or hurt and extending that by proxy via stances and maneuvers to allies. Their damage output compared to most other classes is rather lackluster and their maneuver recovery system is better for long-haul battles and unimpressive at burst output.

Indeed they are, and they do it well...but frankly, at low level, you crush it on damage too. You're really no worse than a fighter in terms of regular hits, plus you have maneuvers, some of which add damage.

Now, as either op levels climb(or regular leveling takes place), crusader's do not seem at all unbalanced, but many a DM won't wait around to see that. They'll just see that right now, you're not taking a scratch, you can make the entire party less likely to take damage, and you're getting the most damage. In short, at level one, in an average game, you kind of are the star of the show, and a worried DM might overreact to that.

[NinjaStylerobot]

Also, this is early. It's supposed to be Tome of Battle Tuesday when these threads appear.:smallbiggrin:

And predictably, Talionis swordsaged me.

Huh....I gues Il look it over again.

Derp.

[Talionis]

As has been said some people don't like the "feel". I am certainly not one of them. In fact, ToB solved one of my greatest complaints as a DM and player.

I want to have awesome tactical fighting options that work. Most require a feat chain. This feat chain may or may not require a feat/ability score tax before I even can do what I want well. I am a level 4 character and I have spent half my feats on doing X. By the love of all that's holy, X better freaking work! Begin spamming X (let's say improved trip). After 2 game sessions all monsters appear to be oozes, serpents, multi-legged, much larger then PCs, dwarfs, or some combination of the above (Huge Gelatinous Dwarf Drider, aka Dwider). No more feats to improve ability or many more feats required for small improvement.

Enter ToB. Combat tactic is a maneuver, one of handful that my class just gets. I can feat to make it better, but fairly good on its own. Can't spam the ability so DM doesn't remove feet or cliffs from the game, but can use it often enough to satisfy theme of character. YEAH! :smallsmile:

This would be my biggest complaint with Core. Everything for mundanes was valued too highly and everything for casters was valued too cheaply.

Full BAB was greatly over-valued. (Even Monks didn't get full BAB which is silly). Feat chains made you dump several feats into a chain in order to get the Feat you actually wanted with four pre-requisites (Greater Multishot comes to mind as an example). ToB fixed that by absorbing whole feat chains into a single manuever. Yes the maneuvers have prerequisites, but those prerequisites can actually do another only very slightly related but useful thing. In a feat chain the new feat basically just replaces your last feat with a slight upgrade.

ToB basically grants a ton more feats to mundanes since each maneuver is roughly on power level with a feat or feat chain.

Actually the more raw power a character has the less versatility it should have. The DC Universe is famous for its near god-like heroes. But who in their Universe has the most versatility? Batman (the Mundane). In our universe Batman is a wizard because it has near god-like versatility.

The mechanics also force a little variety since none of the recovery mechanics allow for you to do the same thing round after round, but they do allow you to do it almost every round. You can fluff that as minor fatigue or the maneuvers just taking a little more setting up even though you can do something else while you set up to do it again.

[ORione]

For people that say it's too expensive. I understand that, but ToB isn't a vastly more expensive book than any of the Completes. I've bought ToB twice once for me and once as a gift on online auctions because they didn't have any more copies local.
direly in need of it in 3.5.


I have two Complete books. I found them relatively cheap at a used bookstore. If that happened with ToB, I would get it.

As it is, Amazon is asking for $40 (http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Dungeons-Dragons-Fantasy-Roleplaying/dp/B001NXDS48/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328541812&sr=8-1) for a used copy - the same price they're asking for a new copy of Complete Arcane (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Arcane-Players-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/B001QCXFJO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328541769&sr=8-1).

[Talionis]

I have two Complete books. I found them relatively cheap at a used bookstore. If that happened with ToB, I would get it.

As it is, Amazon is asking for $40 (http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Dungeons-Dragons-Fantasy-Roleplaying/dp/B001NXDS48/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328541812&sr=8-1) for a used copy - the same price they're asking for a new copy of Complete Arcane (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Arcane-Players-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/B001QCXFJO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328541769&sr=8-1).

I bought both of mine for less than twenty including shipping on eBay. But I'm not sure how many times I had to try.

[The Glyphstone]

Indeed they are, and they do it well...but frankly, at low level, you crush it on damage too. You're really no worse than a fighter in terms of regular hits, plus you have maneuvers, some of which add damage.

Now, as either op levels climb(or regular leveling takes place), crusader's do not seem at all unbalanced, but many a DM won't wait around to see that. They'll just see that right now, you're not taking a scratch, you can make the entire party less likely to take damage, and you're getting the most damage. In short, at level one, in an average game, you kind of are the star of the show, and a worried DM might overreact to that.

Eh, fair enough.

[big teej]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes. And yet I've seen comments online about how everything in the book is broken, broken enough that several DMs actually ban the thing outright.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why people feel this way about the Tome Of Battle?

as of now?

I ban it for the same reason I ban any other book.

"I don't have it yet"

whether I ban it afterwards remains to be seen.

[Helldog]

ToB allows me to do what they do in History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. That's a huge plus for me.

[big teej]

Some people play highly unoptimized campaigns. Tome of Battle is fairly hard to screw up mechanically. Consequently, Tome of Battle characters will frequently outshine the party in sufficiently mechanically inept groups. The gap between a ToB character and any given mechanically inept build (save for Druids, since their default flavor leads pretty directly to the right build choices) is often larger than the gap between an inept martial build and an inept caster build (in point of fact, if the optimization ceiling is low enough, Core martial types can actually outshine casters for much of the campaign).

Also, some people take offense to non-Core mundane characters being better fighters than Core mundane characters.

I also forsee this being a ban-reason as well. but I'm reserving judgement untila cquiring the book itself.

[TheGeckoKing]

Pertaining to the question, I have no idea. Yeah, ToB stinks of anime in some places, but I guess I personally like the system because it lets me play those silly characters that head-butt adamantine doors open and scream silly names as they flay your face off with five-strike-ice-creeper-whatevers. There are a few reasons I could guess that would put me off;

Low-op. ToB resists being downplayed into T4-5 territory unless you do something silly like a 6 Con Stone Dragon Specialist Raptoran Crusader, and so low-op groups will just say "Too powerful, sorry".
Unfamiliarity/Doesn't Own the Book/New to the Game - 'Nuff said.
Fluff - A sour point for many, but hear me out. Essentially, the DM doesn't want the extra work of fitting in ToB's fluff, or sorting out a refluff with you. He has other stuff to do, ya'know. The NPCs, the Mobs, the Story, the Encounters ect. and the last thing he would want to deal with is you and your wacky concept char. I'm generalizing, btw. Lots of DM's will make exception or be O.K with it. The point still stands though.
ANOTHER THING - Egads, this is painful. ToB came late, and so DMs already have the backlog of Psionics, Binding, Shadowcasting, Truenaming, Incarnum, the addition of a multitude of feats and classes and PrCs and races and a DM is fully justified in saying "Enough is enough. I'm not learning another subsytem, no matter how "easy" it supposedly is."

[Hiro Protagonest]

I don'y use it because I was disappointed. I was hoping for something like

"Mega leap" Your character jumps up 10 feet in the air per level then fafely lands. Whilst he is jumping he can make a single attack"
Half of Tiger Claw. Sudden Leap, Leaping Dragon Stance, Soaring Raptor Strike, Swooping Dragon Strike.

"Wall shattering strike"
Mountain Hammer line.

"Resist death"
Half of Devoted Spirit, and almost all Iron Heart counters and boosts.

"Flurry of arrows"
Dancing/Raging Mongoose.

Or something like that.

It turned out to be simply a bunch of spells given to martial classes.
They're abilities. Just like the one's you described above. The only thing is you can't spam them. If you've ever fought in real life, you know that battle is constantly changing, and that you can practically never use the same technique twice. The only "spells" are for the swordsage or people with Martial Study, and you can build a completely mundane swordsage.

I also forsee this being a ban-reason as well. but I'm reserving judgement untila cquiring the book itself.

The only way to truly screw up ToB is to focus on Stone Dragon and be in the air all the time. And then only if all your stances are Stone Dragon stances. Otherwise, if you use a maneuver every round you're tier 3.

[Psyborg]

Solution for flavor problems:
1. Ban Desert Wind or whatever the fire school is.
2. Restrict Shadow Hand to assassin-y PrC/guild/quest to earn training/whatever, since it's mildly supernatural.
3. Rename some of the other maneuvers.

Problem solved.

[Talionis]

Solution for flavor problems:
1. Ban Desert Wind or whatever the fire school is.
2. Restrict Shadow Hand to assassin-y PrC/guild/quest to earn training/whatever, since it's mildly supernatural.
3. Rename some of the other maneuvers.

Problem solved.

Mostly it would be make player rename everything. Have each maneuver require approval. Even Desert Wind isn't too powerful. It just isn't mundane. If all maneuvers have to be mundane, then yah you need to kill most if not all the discipline, but I don't think keeping it mundane is important.

[NinjaStylerobot]

Geez! I already said Il give it another look! I did! Its very cool! (Except for the names. They sound like chinees 3Cent knockoffs)

[Grommen]

Never have banned it. Players and I looked at it. Read part of it. Got sickened by page after page of new mechanics, put it down and ran away screaming.

That is my problem with the majority of the material that I read out of that book. It's overly complex. I have enough problems keeping track of NPC's, monsters and the story. I don't want to, right in the middle of a fight, have to stop and read something that I've forgotten. Or get it grossly wrong, and have the players get all upset. (Cause they do, players are very fragile creatures most of the time. Go figgure).

I've gone the "trust your players not to take advantage of you" route. It failed. Miserably.... So I have to read and understand every aspect of what ever your trying to play. If I don't get it, or don't want to...It's not allowed.

Lame excuse?...yep...
Do I care? Nope.
Why? My story and if you don't like it. Go DM your own.

I also don't have the issues with casters that everyone else does. Cause I know how to say "NO" to people. And if necessary I'll fight back with the same thing that they are doing. You would be surprised how fast people quit using Over powered crap when they get killed by it.

Players "DM why are we getting attacked by waves of Golems?"
Me "Your tank is a Warforged Warblade, now get out your oil and lobe it up."
Player #2 "Ok I'll just grease the golems them!"
Me "Ya you did that the last time. This time they are wearing cleats. Your grease is useless now! baaa hahahahaha"

Player "Dude why is that Troll holding a Panther Assault Cannon? That thing will turn me into paste in one hit!"
Me "What are you holding in your hand? O ya that's right it's a Panther Assault Cannon? Better hope you go first cause he smart linked his..Doubt that he'll miss."
Player "I'm taking a Light Pistol next time."

[Helldog]

Geez! I already said Il give it another look! I did! Its very cool! (Except for the names. They sound like chinees 3Cent knockoffs)
The names aren't any more "chinees" than McDonalds.

[Tytalus]

And this is why I never post in these threads anymore. I've counted at least 5 or so (stopped counting, was getting angry) insults hurled towards people that dare ban ToB.

He was insulting those that use it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Geez! I already said Il give it another look! I did! Its very cool! (Except for the names. They sound like chinees 3Cent knockoffs)

I know, but I felt the other people responding to yours didn't give all the examples. Especially for Flurry of Arrows. Since Stone Dragon only has one line of maneuvers that penetrate hardness, and Iron Heart is a strong defensive school for keeping you alive.

As for the names, go read a German swordfighting manual.

[Tyndmyr]

Never have banned it. Players and I looked at it. Read part of it. Got sickened by page after page of new mechanics, put it down and ran away screaming.

That is my problem with the majority of the material that I read out of that book. It's overly complex. I have enough problems keeping track of NPC's, monsters and the story. I don't want to, right in the middle of a fight, have to stop and read something that I've forgotten. Or get it grossly wrong, and have the players get all upset.

It's...not really that complicated. I could see if it was Incarnum or the like, but this is probably easier than spells. Certainly, it has obvious parallels to spells.

# of maneuvers/stances known: Each class has a table. This is fairly simple.
Using stances: You are in a single stance at once. Can change as swift action, IIRC. This is fairly intuitive.
# of maneuvers readied: Again, there's a number on the table.
Using maneuver: Read description. Hell, for 90+%, the summary is sufficient. It's almost invariably single attack + something. They're pretty easy.
Refresh mechanic: One for each class, but they're all quite simple.

The correlation to vancian casting is...fairly clear, and anyone who's played a caster ever should be able to pick up the system in a heartbeat.

[Talionis]

It's...not really that complicated. I could see if it was Incarnum or the like, but this is probably easier than spells. Certainly, it has obvious parallels to spells.

# of maneuvers/stances known: Each class has a table. This is fairly simple.
Using stances: You are in a single stance at once. Can change as swift action, IIRC. This is fairly intuitive.
# of maneuvers readied: Again, there's a number on the table.
Using maneuver: Read description. Hell, for 90+%, the summary is sufficient. It's almost invariably single attack + something. They're pretty easy.
Refresh mechanic: One for each class, but they're all quite simple.

The correlation to vancian casting is...fairly clear, and anyone who's played a caster ever should be able to pick up the system in a heartbeat.

I'm with you that I didn't find the system any more complex than spells. The descriptions are good. They work very intuitively. Anyone on these boards can ask help and get it without problem. But you really shouldn't need much.

Incarnum, I would agree is actually difficult to understand. Not because you can't follow how it works, but because it is so hard because each thing does something different if bound or infused. Thus, Incarnum's real problem is that you can't look at a short description and know what it really does. For the most part, you can look at the two and a half pages of short descriptions and know what each maneuver does.

[gkathellar]

As for the names, go read a German swordfighting manual.

Seriously, even the stuff available on Wikipedia is pretty hilariously awesome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_school_of_swordsmanship). Can you imagine if they called their attacks? "Iron Door Defense! Doubling Middle Hew! Unicorn Guard! Crown Transition! Secret Technique: Squinting Hew!"


RAW do you have to actually call your attacks when using TOB abilities?

Not by RAW, or by RAI. If you want to because it's cool, that's another story.


I mean if you dislike the anime fluff you could just refluff it.

Seriously, where is this anime fluff everyone keeps talking about? What does that even mean? Is ToB full of girls drinking tea and giant robots? Because all I'm seeing are rules for creating the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne and the characters from Storm Riders.

[Con_Brio1993]

RAW do you have to actually call your attacks when using TOB abilities?

I mean if you dislike the anime fluff you could just refluff it.



You would be surprised how fast people quit using Over powered crap when they get killed by it.

Players "DM why are we getting attacked by waves of Golems?"
Me "Your tank is a Warforged Warblade, now get out your oil and lobe it up."
Player #2 "Ok I'll just grease the golems them!"
Me "Ya you did that the last time. This time they are wearing cleats. Your grease is useless now! baaa hahahahaha"

Player "Dude why is that Troll holding a Panther Assault Cannon? That thing will turn me into paste in one hit!"
Me "What are you holding in your hand? O ya that's right it's a Panther Assault Cannon? Better hope you go first cause he smart linked his..Doubt that he'll miss."
Player "I'm taking a Light Pistol next time."

So instead of handling it out of game you decide to be a jerk and kill off the player characters because you perceived one of their tactics as overpowered?

[NinjaStylerobot]

As for the names, go read a German swordfighting manual.

I meant warblade.

It sound like the "Robot mega fighetr" equivalent to "RoboCop".

Most of the later DD3e names begin to get REALY throwaway.

[Coidzor]

The PHB has everything you need

That right there, I believe that's an argument that needs to be backed up.


Is the last thread on this exact topic even at necro age yet?

Hmm, I think it might be just under the normal cut off but locked. At least, the last thread I recall on this subject.

[Helldog]

I meant warblade.

It sound like the "Robot mega fighetr" equivalent to "RoboCop".

Most of the later DD3e names begin to get REALY throwaway.
Lol. You really don't have anything better to have an issue with?

[NinjaStylerobot]

Lol. You really don't have anything better to have an issue with?

Am I not allowed to dislike the name? I said "Wow the book is kewlies and I likeis the mechaniks" but I have to friggen praise every single molecule of the book?:smallannoyed:

[Hiro Protagonest]

That right there, I believe that's an argument that needs to be backed up.

Yeah. Core doesn't even have Stand Still, the best way for a lockdown build to deal with opponents that can't be tripped. Or Wolf Totem Barbarian, so all trippers have to have 13 int. Yora calls it power creep, but it would only be power creep if core was balanced.

[Helldog]

Am I not allowed to dislike the name? I said "Wow the book is kewlies and I likeis the mechaniks" but I have to friggen praise every single molecule of the book?:smallannoyed:
Am I not allowed to dislike that you dislike the names?

[Suddo]

Didn't read the thread, won't read the thread, will only comment.

Because some people don't like it. That's all. I have a DM I play under that doesn't like it. You know what I do. Say okay and not play it. I'm not against the DM banning what ever he feels like. Don't like Polymorph, ban it. There are plenty of things in the world that are abuse-able and/or well below their cost that I don't argue with. And in the end they are the world creator. They created a world with out it.

[Ravellion]

Because I run published adventures, and they don't have warblades in them, but fighters and barbarians. I don't want to up the power curve, even if it means the party is more balanced between members, because it means I have to do more work preparing the adventure.

[NinjaStylerobot]

Am I not allowed to dislike that you dislike the names?

You are, but you jsut sort of mentioned that I shouldn't or whatever.

Point is cool book. For sake of simplicity will integrate powers as feats.

[Helldog]

You are, but you jsut sort of mentioned that I shouldn't or whatever.
No, I didn't.

[NinjaStylerobot]

No, I didn't.

Oh...Ok..So...Um...BANANA!

Its actualy very easy to intergrate the book. Just change the study feature from 1/2 to full and were all set.

[Tyndmyr]

Didn't read the thread, won't read the thread, will only comment.

Because some people don't like it. That's all. I have a DM I play under that doesn't like it. You know what I do. Say okay and not play it. I'm not against the DM banning what ever he feels like. Don't like Polymorph, ban it. There are plenty of things in the world that are abuse-able and/or well below their cost that I don't argue with. And in the end they are the world creator. They created a world with out it.

*shrug* I don't like the banning of things without a reason. Sure, I have a custom campaign setting...(most long time DMs seem to), but the entire point of it is as an interesting place for players to play. Because of that, it's designed to be inclusive to players.

If you're designing custom things anyways, why would you not design them such that they allow the players to use their preferred things?

[gkathellar]

Am I not allowed to dislike the name? I said "Wow the book is kewlies and I likeis the mechaniks" but I have to friggen praise every single molecule of the book?:smallannoyed:

You shouldn't like the name warblade. It's a stupid name. Even so, you get used to it.

[NinjaStylerobot]

"You are now a warblade"

" But I use an club"

"YOU ARE A WARBLADE!"

[Helldog]

"You are now a warrior (with the class Warblade)."

"Okay."

[Serpentine]

I don't really ban anything, but nothing's automatically allowed, either. I suppose for me it might be more accurate to say that everything is available on a probationary basis, under the condition that it fits the flavour and power-level of my game and with a strong preference that characters are built with a similar game philosophy to mine.

On ToB specifically, I actually encouraged a player to take Swordsage and it seems to be going pretty well. It may well help, though, that the only other martial character is the DMPC, so she's not overshadowing anyone important.

On the "too anime" argument, that's one I never felt strongly about and I haven't really seen much of that sort of anime, but over a year or two I watched several Hong Kong martial arts type movies, and it occurred to me... There is pretty much nothing in the ToB that would be out of place in one of those movies and vice-versa. Running into the air, walking on water, slicing someone with a sword at a distance, stopping someone's heart with a few well-placed blows, whipping up a tornado... Hell, I'm pretty sure I've even seen someone start fires with their sword.
Point being, I guess, it might share some stuff with anime, but it's nothing exclusively or definingly anime.

The "it's too magicky" argument is one I understand, but not one I get, if that makes sense.
I understand it, because I feel the same way. Before ToB came out, I was playing around with a half-formed idea of giving martial classes the ability to do certain superpowery type things of the sort you might expect to see, say, Hercules or Viking heroes do - causing earthquakes with their hammers, cleaving mountains, that sort of thing. Then ToB came out, and I don't need to do that anymore. Yes, a lot of the abilities are too "magical" for what I was going for, but there's a lot more abilities that are not. There's so many options in the book that it's easy to avoid the ones that you can't or don't want to reflavour to suit you. And personally, mostly I just find the trickier ones a challenge. All the "your sword catches on fire and you do fire damage now" type ones, I'll just say something along the lines of "you use a little-known technique to move your blade so incredibly fast that it superheats the air around it and scorches your victim as it slices into them".
Something like, say, the holocaust cloak (creatures that get too close take fire damage) could be something like "through meditation you gain the ability to effect your metabolism, increasing your body heat to incredible levels that scald anyone who gets too close". It's not all that far beyond some real-world claims I've heard about monks and aesetics and simple freaks.

On flavour in general, there's plenty there I don't like at all, but I just ignore that. I always do. I completely disregard the whole "secret society" aspect, and as long as someone can justify what they want to do to my satisfaction, they can refluff anything they want.

[Myth]

Because I run published adventures, and they don't have warblades in them, but fighters and barbarians. I don't want to up the power curve, even if it means the party is more balanced between members, because it means I have to do more work preparing the adventure.

What? How does this make any sense? Do published adventures tell your players what classes to pick?

So if you try to DM for the playgrounders and they roll a Wizard / Cleric / Druid (all completely Core) and they eat your published module alive you won't have a problem? Or if you roll for some Stormwind embracing newbies who play a Fighter / Monk / Paladin? How exactly does the banning of ToB help you avoid doing your job as a DM?

[gkathellar]

On the "too anime" argument, that's one I never felt strongly about and I haven't really seen much of that sort of anime, but over a year or two I watched several Hong Kong martial arts type movies, and it occurred to me... There is pretty much nothing in the ToB that would be out of place in one of those movies and vice-versa. Running into the air, walking on water, slicing someone with a sword at a distance, stopping someone's heart with a few well-placed blows, whipping up a tornado... Hell, I'm pretty sure I've even seen someone start fires with their sword.
Point being, I guess, it might share some stuff with anime, but it's nothing exclusively or definingly anime.

I agree with you in general, but I'm confused by the assertion that wuxia films are anime, since they're not Japanese, and they're not usually animated.

[ngilop]

As far as I can tell, Tome of Battle seriously lessens the colossal gap between full casters and martial classes. And yet I've seen comments online about how everything in the book is broken, broken enough that several DMs actually ban the thing outright.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why people feel this way about the Tome Of Battle?

everytime ive seen the Tome of Battle banned it is for one simple reason.

The group is still playing teh old class roles, I.E cleric heal. wizards just blast and cast haste, and fighters are juggernauts.

when you add ToB in the mix you get a warblade or as it is more accurately known , 'what the 3rd ed fighter should have been all along'

and when that level of power and versatility comes into the group, the DM takes a look at it then looks at the fighter and says ' OW(%&)# NO BANNED!!!!" and never really looks at what the druid can do with just his class feature of animal companions.

[Seerow]

I agree with you in general, but I'm confused by the assertion that wuxia films are anime, since they're not Japanese, and they're not usually animated.

Didn't you know? Anime is a fancy way of saying "Asian Fiction"

[Serpentine]

I agree with you in general, but I'm confused by the assertion that wuxia films are anime, since they're not Japanese, and they're not usually animated.1. What's wuxia, again?
2. Did I say that? :smallconfused:

[Helldog]

I agree with you in general, but I'm confused by the assertion that wuxia films are anime, since they're not Japanese, and they're not usually animated.
Not to mention that I don't even see in ToB anything resembling Nichijou, K-On!, Working!! or countless other anime that has nothing to do with fantasy, magic or combat.


1. What's wuxia, again?
The thing you think when you say "anime". Superhuman/supernatural warriors/fights.

[Serpentine]

When I think anime, I think... okay, Dragonball Z, but mostly Miyozaki and Fruits Basket and also Berserk.

...would it be so bad if ToB were "Berserkish"?

edit: Wait, non-animated? You mean the "Hong Kong samurai movies" I was talking about? Is that what wuxia is, but also including the animated ones?

[ngilop]

I do not bann the ToB myself. I do though have one mjaor issue against that book and WoTC in general.

The book should not have created 3 whole new classes and tons of fluff to go along with them. instead what should have happened was the book comes out and is titled


Tome of Battle
Paladins, Monks, and Fighters Redux

if they had done that and made some of the martial abilties more thought out and explained (iron heart surge comes to mind) i am sure that nobody would ban the book.

[Roxxy]

I don't allow it because it's expensive, I don't have it, and I don't intend to buy it. I've flipped through a copy of it, and I don't hate it at all, but I don't have a need for it. I narrowed the disparity in my PF games with some house rules, and that works just fine for me. I don't need to spend $40 dollars on a different disparity fix when I could buy other RPG books instead.

[huttj509]

The thing you think when you say "anime". Superhuman/supernatural warriors/fights.

First, Serp's point was that the wuxia aspects of the ToB were NOT exclusive to anime, and referred to old martial arts movies, contrasting them with anime, while noting some similarities in style, wondering if that was the reason people call it all "anime."

I think that in general, to the western audience nowadays, most of them were introduced to some of the eastern quasi-supernatural "use your trained inner energy to do superhuman things" THROUGH various anime (I blame DBZ). So when they see something like, say, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (yay fights while jumping across the treetops, cause you're just that cool and light of step), they draw the similarity to something they're more familiar with, especially if they don't know the correct terminology (I don't even know where I first learned the term Wuxia).

Now, yes, not all anime is DBZ (fortunately). What gets brought over to the West however do tend to be strongly stereotypically Shounen (think robots and ninjas duking it out) or stereotypically Shoujo (while wondering if that cute boy will ever notice them), which contributes to stereotypes of what "anime" is.

4 words: Grave of the Fireflies (very moving animated movie about a couple of kids in Japan at the end of WW2). We followed it with some Lupin III (silly thief is silly) to cheer everyone up afterwards.



More on topic, honestly, if someone actually reads the book, and decides that, for example, it really wouldn't fit with his group because the melee are already strong (due to player styles), and people are happy with the options they have, well, if it ain't broke don't fix it. What bugs me is when people have knee-jerk reactions, thinking every ToB class is summoning fire like a Swordsage can (if he takes the right discipline).

If you dislike it for what it is, fine. Just don't dismiss it for what it isn't (which some people do, the shift in style can be jarring to some).

[gkathellar]

1. What's wuxia, again?

Wuxia is a genre of dramatic swordfighting story across multiple mediums (mostly film and literature), in which the warriors involved usually have supernatural powers and are members of a very developed martial arts culture. It has existed in Chinese culture for hundreds of years, and is roughly equivalent to the chivalric tales of Europe.

Hong-Kong action typically refers to less fantastic, modern action films.


2. Did I say that? :smallconfused:

You equivocated the resemblances between ToB and Wuxia to resemblances between ToB and anime. Sorry if I came across as crass in pointing that out.

What bugs me about that ToB = anime line of thinking is how it's pretty clearly nonsense. All "anime" means is "animation" — in practice, that means that it's animated and that it's from Japan. It's a medium, with dozens of genres and sub-genres in it, and given the exposure the west has had to Miyazaki's creative catalog that should come as no great surprise to anyone. Sure, anime with fighting in it is known for its fast-paced, elaborate action sequences ... but so are American video games like God of War, or any number of fantasy novels.

[Helldog]

First, Serp's point was that the wuxia aspects of the ToB were NOT exclusive to anime, and referred to old martial arts movies, contrasting them with anime, while noting some similarities in style, wondering if that was the reason people call it all "anime."
What does it have to do with what I said? I just answered a question.

[Serpentine]

Wuxia is a genre of dramatic swordfighting story across multiple mediums (mostly film and literature), in which the warriors involved usually have supernatural powers and are members of a very developed martial arts culture. It has existed in Chinese culture for hundreds of years, and is roughly equivalent to the chivalric tales of Europe.Oh. There you go.

You equivocated the resemblances between ToB and Wuxia to resemblances between ToB and anime.Not really. In fact, if anything, I was attempting to point out similarities between two things I assumed - incorrectly - were distinct.

Alright, so if we forget about the "anime" thing, and say "this book does have some significant similarities in style and substance to the wuxia genre - that is, period-type fantastic action type stories (which I use here, again no doubt incorrectly but buggrit, to include similar types of stories from other parts of the world such as the aforementioned European chivalric tales)"... is that so bad? I mean, there's a lot of really good, cool, evocative stuff in there. Things like Berserk and the legends of Herakles are pretty much exactly what I had in mind when I was trying to work out my pre-ToB houserules.

[huttj509]

What does it have to do with what I said? I just answered a question.

Sorry, think I misread/misinterpreted your comment, I thought you were saying Serp DID call it "anime".

[Andorax]

Wow...creeping up on page 5, and my "favorite" reason still hasn't been mentioned. These threads really are starting to slack off.

People ban Tome of Battle because its mechanics are too much like 4th edition. 4th edition is "bad" because we're still playing 3.5 (and if we were playing 4th, we wouldn't be here talking about it).

[Akisa]

Wow...creeping up on page 5, and my "favorite" reason still hasn't been mentioned. These threads really are starting to slack off.

People ban Tome of Battle because its mechanics are too much like 4th edition. 4th edition is "bad" because we're still playing 3.5 (and if we were playing 4th, we wouldn't be here talking about it).

Umm actually I did bring something similar to that up.

[Chronos]

Quoth Coidzor:
So something that doesn't resemble 3rd Edition D&D in the slightest, as the amount of HP enemies had relative to the amount of damage a not-very savvy stickwielder's player can hash out would have to decrease sharply.

I suppose on the bright side that would make blasting viable, though it'd also start to run the risk of having melee damage output be rendered superfluous due to blasting without some changes to the magic system and that's a project unto itself.Actually, I see no reason why 3rd edition couldn't have feats that would let a fighter do a ton of damage, enough to deal with even high-HP enemies. Or alternately, let a fighter do things other than HP damage. Even sticking to the "fighters have to do realistic things because they're not magical" paradigm (which I disagree with, but you know, just for the sake of argument), there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to inflict ability score damage, or fatigue, or fear effects, or stunning, or sickening, or unconsciousness, or most of the other status conditions spellcasters can throw around (OK, I'll grant that fighters turning an enemy into a frog wouldn't work, but that's a special case).

But what really makes the difference for me is that some players don't like to have to make choices while they're playing. There are some players who genuinely enjoy playing "I hit the nearest monster until it's dead, and then I start hitting the next-nearest monster". These players don't want to decide which maneuver they're using against which monster, or what stance they're in, or the like. And that's pretty much how the core melee classes work. The problem is that the styles of characters that play that way don't contribute very well to the party's objectives. Yes, making a Big Book of In-Combat Choices for People who Like Swords will be good for those players who like in-combat choices, but it's not so good for those people who like to just have a single simple option that they use all the time.


Oh, and as to the flavor of Tome of Battle: Honestly, my first association with it is Avatar: the Last Airbender (which is stylistically similar to anime in some ways, but is all American). On more than one occasion, I've seen someone ask "How do I play a firebender like Zuko in D&D?", and even despite my own distaste for the book, I've answered "Be a swordsage and use a lot of Desert Wind maneuvers".

I also have no problem with the names of the maneuvers, since I've never actually considered the name of anything in any of the books to actually be something that's in the game world. If I ask someone in-game what their profession is, I'm not going to expect them to say "I'm a fighter-ranger with a barbarian dip", I'm going to expect "I'm a swordslinger", or "I fight to protect my homeland", or "I'm an elite scout in so-and-so's army", or whatever. Likewise for skills, spells, etc.: Standardized names for some abilities might develop in some contexts (wizards probably have established conventions for what to call spells, for instance), but it's still probably more common than not for people to have their own names for their abilities. In-character, a warblade (who just calls himself a swordsman) might well refer to his maneuvers as "that trick I do where I twist my sword around like this", or the like.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Oh, and as to the flavor of Tome of Battle: Honestly, my first association with it is Avatar: the Last Airbender (which is stylistically similar to anime in some ways, but is all American). On more than one occasion, I've seen someone ask "How do I play a firebender like Zuko in D&D?", and even despite my own distaste for the book, I've answered "Be a swordsage and use a lot of Desert Wind maneuvers".

Pfft. Everyone knows you play a Tashalatora kineticist psion with Kung Fu Genius and only use Energy powers (and possibly some others that you could plausibly refluff to firebending or fighting skill, such as Psionic Overland Flight to represent that powerful firebenders can make jets of flame).

[Ravellion]

What? How does this make any sense? Do published adventures tell your players what classes to pick?

So if you try to DM for the playgrounders and they roll a Wizard / Cleric / Druid (all completely Core) and they eat your published module alive you won't have a problem? Or if you roll for some Stormwind embracing newbies who play a Fighter / Monk / Paladin? How exactly does the banning of ToB help you avoid doing your job as a DM?On the one hand, it is more of a verisimilitude thing ("how come we never run into other warblades? Who taught you this stuff anyway?").

On the other hand, one overpowered character and some low powered characters usually leads to the overpowered character holding back. If all of them can go over the top, then they don't hold back at all, and published adventures suddenly have to be revamped a lot to pose any challenge (more work than I can do on the fly).

I don't ban ToB exclusively btw. I play Trailblazer, and that's all they've got - no Completes either. Trailblazer does boost the martial classes significantly, though obviously not in the realm of the ToB.

And my players would never all play Wizard / Cleric /Druid. They believe a party should have someone in the meat shield role, and preferably a trapfinder too.

[Helldog]

On the one hand, it is more of a verisimilitude thing ("how come we never run into other warblades? Who taught you this stuff anyway?").
Characters are walking through town shouting "I'm a Warblade!", so your players won't know who is a Warblade. Maybe that mercenary they met last session was a Warblade? Or that knight they fought 3 sessions back was in reality a Crusader? They can't know. Martial characters are just warriors like Fighters.

[Rubik]

On the one hand, it is more of a verisimilitude thing ("how come we never run into other warblades? Who taught you this stuff anyway?").As noted, a warrior is a warrior; they just do their things in different ways, similarly to how clerics and psions both "cast spells" in completely different manners.


And my players would never all play Wizard / Cleric /Druid. They believe a party should have someone in the meat shield role, and preferably a trapfinder too.Any of those three can play meatshield (druids can do it multiple times at the same time), and all three can easily be trapfinders if they have the right options available to them (any summons can trapfind, and wizards get reserve feats for that; clerics can get trapfinding with the right domains).

[Wings of Peace]

Wow...creeping up on page 5, and my "favorite" reason still hasn't been mentioned. These threads really are starting to slack off.

People ban Tome of Battle because its mechanics are too much like 4th edition. 4th edition is "bad" because we're still playing 3.5 (and if we were playing 4th, we wouldn't be here talking about it).

Even if I thought ToB was similar to 4e, wouldn't it make more sense to hate 4e for being like Tome of Battle then? I mean, ToB came first so you can't really say it was emulating 4e yet.

[Averis Vol]

Seriously, where is this anime fluff everyone keeps talking about? What does that even mean? Is ToB full of girls drinking tea and giant robots? Because all I'm seeing are rules for creating the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne and the characters from Storm Riders.

take a look at some episodes of one piece. of course this is just one example and i only glimpse the show when my sister watches it, but they really are kind of ridiculous.

as for tome of battle i actually like the book (though i'v never been allowed to use it) and it just seems that if you stop calling the classes "Mundane" and call them "slightly magically endowed" like they really are you might have a better chance of getting through to people. this isn't directly or even remotely directed at you but more so to anyone who thinks that you hitting someone and healing your ally is a non magical thing.

But, i definitely think it is a book you need to warn your players about when you allow it so they don't get angry when the melee in the group actually does some damage for once.

[Seerow]

this isn't directly or even remotely directed at you but more so to anyone who thinks that you hitting someone and healing your ally is a non magical thing.

It's as non-magical as a Paladin's healing. Remember the only class that can use Devoted Spirit maneuvers is the Crusader, which is the Paladin counterpart.

Similarly Desert Wind, the school with the fire shenanigans, and Shadow Hand, the one with the really long anime-esque name and the teleport maneuvers, are exclusive to Swordsage, which is the monk/rogue hybrid/counterpart. Given the Monk can already teleport and with a feat set his fists on fire, this sort of thing is pretty much entirely in flavor for them.

The only one of the classes that claims to be completely mundane is the Warblade. And it doesn't do any of the things I usually see people complaining about "omg sword magics!" cite as too supernatural.

[Hiro Protagonest]

take a look at some episodes of one piece. of course this is just one example and i only glimpse the show when my sister watches it, but they really are kind of ridiculous.

Warblades, even with Belt of Giant Strength +6 and a +4 from Tomes/Wishes, can't lift an entire stone building above their head. Or slice the air so that they can make melee attacks from far away (although you could refluff Bloodstorm Blade). And even in epic levels, they can't do half the stuff Zoro can do post-time skip (try to find a maneuver that replicates 360-Pound-Cannon).

Edit: Actually Seerow, the crusader is completely mundane. Nothing from Devoted Spirit has a Su tag. The healing isn't actual healing, it's a gain in morale or just a renewed drive.

[Seerow]

Edit: Actually Seerow, the crusader is completely mundane. Nothing from Devoted Spirit has a Su tag. The healing isn't actual healing, it's a gain in morale or just a renewed drive.


My point is regardless of the Su tag or not, the Crusader's fluff is all about divine inspiration, and is supposed to be a Paladin counterpart. Even if the abilities are technically Ex, their fluff is basically "Paladin without a stick up their ass code of conduct". I find people complain a lot more about fluff than the mechanical ability to do a little healing in a anti-magic field. For example the person I was responding to said he'd be fine if they were identified as "Slightly magically endowed", which is pretty fitting with the fluff, I'd say.

[Averis Vol]

you misunderstand me. zoro is completely ridiculous. i meant in terms of them shouting out the names of there little stabs and punches (something i really don't care for). as to the part of "mundane healing through divine inspiration" ......don't you think that's a little stupid? no offense but it seems to me that apart from medical kits and surgery there should be no such things as "mundane healing" the concept in itself seems to be saying that me rallying you can close your wounds. i'd be much more receptive to this if it was, ohh say, temporary HP that could be written off as a bit of adrenaline from the "divinely inspirational boost".


Edit: seerow, when has a paladin ever claimed to not be magical?

[Rubik]

you misunderstand me. zoro is completely ridiculous. i meant in terms of them shouting out the names of there little stabs and punches (something i really don't care for). as to the part of "mundane healing through divine inspiration" ......don't you think that's a little stupid? no offense but it seems to me that apart from medical kits and surgery there should be no such things as "mundane healing" the concept in itself seems to be saying that me rallying you can close your wounds. i'd be much more receptive to this if it was, ohh say, temporary HP that could be written off as a bit of adrenaline from the "divinely inspirational boost".HP in D&D is fluffed both as wounds, as demoralization, and as a decrease in stamina. Boosting the morale of your allies to push them past their normal limits is perfectly viable, both in fiction and nonfiction stories.

Otherwise you wouldn't have li'l ol' ladies lifting cars off of their grandchildren.

[Manateee]

They can't know.
Short of making a DC 10 knowledge check, anyway.

[Hiro Protagonest]

you misunderstand me. zoro is completely ridiculous. i meant in terms of them shouting out the names of there little stabs and punches (something i really don't care for). as to the part of "mundane healing through divine inspiration" ......don't you think that's a little stupid? no offense but it seems to me that apart from medical kits and surgery there should be no such things as "mundane healing" the concept in itself seems to be saying that me rallying you can close your wounds. i'd be much more receptive to this if it was, ohh say, temporary HP that could be written off as a bit of adrenaline from the "divinely inspirational boost".

ToB characters don't shout out the names in the default fluff. Neither did real-life Asian martial artists and samurai. Or German swordfighters.

As for the mundane healing, HP isn't just a measure of how many times you can get hit in the face. Otherwise a level 20 fighter is ridiculous simply because he can stand being stabbed in the heart by a dagger over 20 times. Directly. In. The heart. HP is a representation of any of the following: morale, fatigue, luck, divine blessing, and occasionally wounds. Magical protection can also be a way of explaining it for casters.

[gkathellar]

take a look at some episodes of one piece. of course this is just one example and i only glimpse the show when my sister watches it, but they really are kind of ridiculous.

One Piece is one show. Should I argue the point by listing the number of anime shows that don't have supernatural martial arts? Or even any martial arts at all? The point I was making when you quoted me was that it's not "anime" fluff because anime is a medium that encompasses a lot of different genres. Not all anime is One Piece or DBZ. I've watched entire shows about girls drinking tea, or time travel, or coming-of-age/rock 'n roll stories, or any number of other things.

I object to the "anime" fluff claim on the grounds that it's a dramatic mischaracterization of not only ToB's versatile, dramatically interesting mechanics, but also of both foreign and domestic media.

[Averis Vol]

HP in D&D is fluffed both as wounds, as demoralization, and as a decrease in stamina. Boosting the morale of your allies to push them past their normal limits is perfectly viable, both in fiction and nonfiction stories.

Otherwise you wouldn't have li'l ol' ladies lifting cars off of their grandchildren.

but again these are all different systems in different books. or to core the decreasing of stamina is loss of constitution (which technically does result in HP loss, i concede that one) and demoralization are the fear status' shaken, panicked and what have you. when your healed how many times is it a pat on the back from your bud and a thumbs up?

[Serpentine]

Short of making a DC 10 knowledge check, anyway.It wouldn't get you a class name in my game. "This person channels the will of the very gods", "this person bends the very fabric of magic to their whim", "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques that allow them to push their bodies beyond normal limits and perform feats that seem almost magical through discipline and intense training", maybe even "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques very similar to the ones you've studied in", that sort of thing maybe. But not "this character is a warblade".

[Averis Vol]

One Piece is one show. Should I argue the point by listing the number of anime shows that don't have supernatural martial arts? Or even any martial arts at all? The point I was making when you quoted me was that it's not "anime" fluff because anime is a medium that encompasses a lot of different genres. Not all anime is One Piece or DBZ. I've watched entire shows about girls drinking tea, or time travel, or coming-of-age/rock 'n roll stories, or any number of other things.

I object to the "anime" fluff claim on the grounds that it's a dramatic mischaracterization of not only ToB's versatile, dramatically interesting mechanics, but also of both foreign and domestic media.

alright alright, meant no offense by it. i was just saying that there are shows that do this. i didn't mean to discredit your argument i just meant to say that i can see the anime fluff part and it's wrong to say that seeing it as such is a wrong example as i guarantee the naruto fans and such eat all this swordsage and warblade stuff up.

[Hiro Protagonest]

but again these are all different systems in different books. or to core the decreasing of stamina is loss of constitution (which technically does result in HP loss, i concede that one) and demoralization are the fear status' shaken, panicked and what have you. when your healed how many times is it a pat on the back from your bud and a thumbs up?

So now because demoralization already has mechanics, it can't be anything not explicitly referred to as demoralization?

Also, I think you missed my post, in which I cited that HP also represents luck, which can be sheer luck, the gods, or the fates. This one also makes sense, since you don't actually any mechanical penalty until you reach 0 HP.

Edit: Naruto is full of casters, not warblades and swordsages. I suppose you could say they're arcane swordsages, as that makes more sense than wizards, but arcane swordsage is an incredibly broken class that is also a true spellcaster. Only Rock Lee could be described otherwise, and I could stat him up as an ex-monk/spirit lion totem whirling frenzy barbarian/drunken master.

[TheGeckoKing]

The healing isn't actual healing, it's a gain in morale or just a renewed drive.

Not directing this at you particularly, but the whole idea about Devoted Spirit supposedly healing with the power of morale really, reeeeeeally bugs me. Unless you're changing the fluff (In which case we're talking about different things and I give up) I quoteth;

Crusader's Strike:

Divine energy surrounds your weapon as you strike. This power washes over you as your weapon finds its mark, mending your wounds and giving you the strength to carry on.

Strike of Righteous Vitality:

As your enemy reels from your mighty blow, an ally nearby is simultaneously healed and cleansed of its wounds by the power of your faith.

How is that morale based again?

One other quibble:

......being stabbed in the heart......

Isn't that an example of what a critical hit tends to be?

[gkathellar]

It wouldn't get you a class name in my game. "This person channels the will of the very gods", "this person bends the very fabric of magic to their whim", "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques that allow them to push their bodies beyond normal limits and perform feats that seem almost magical through discipline and intense training", maybe even "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques very similar to the ones you've studied in", that sort of thing maybe. But not "this character is a warblade".

That seems perfectly reasonable. Especially if you treat classes as metagame constructs, in which case should do so for all purposes.

(Also, is your avatar ... taking a bath? Are those bubbles? Is it snowing or something?)

[Hiro Protagonest]

Not directing this at you particularly, but the whole idea about Devoted Spirit supposedly healing with the power of morale really, reeeeeeally bugs me. Unless you're changing the fluff (In which case we're talking about different things and I give up) I quoteth;

Crusader's Strike:


Strike of Righteous Vitality:


How is that morale based again?
Yeah I know, but I'm saying they can be refluffed to be completely non-magical.

One other quibble:


Isn't that an example of what a critical hit tends to be?

Critical hit with a dagger: 2d4 damage.

[Averis Vol]

aye i did miss that post.

and for mechanical penalties due to damage earlier i incorporated Fallouts limb damage system into my game so if you took a greatsword blow to the arm you probably weren't using/don't have that arm anymore. but that's a different topic for another time.


my point is that you can call it whatever you want i guess but the fact that it's already represented in the game as something typically means that yes, its already there, it doesn't have another effect.

[Serpentine]

(Also, is your avatar ... taking a bath? Are those bubbles? Is it snowing or something?)It's uh... sort of a really obscure in-joke <.< I'll give you a hint: my avatar's counterpart belongs to a Succubus.

On-topic... uuummmm... I fully support refluffing, I guess.

[Averis Vol]

Edit: Naruto is full of casters, not warblades and swordsages. I suppose you could say they're arcane swordsages, as that makes more sense than wizards, but arcane swordsage is an incredibly broken class that is also a true spellcaster. Only Rock Lee could be described otherwise, and I could stat him up as an ex-monk/spirit lion totem whirling frenzy barbarian/drunken master.

see this is the point where me hating anime comes into play as i can't actively argue against you on this topic. so i guess i concede that point to you.

[Coidzor]

Fluff - A sour point for many, but hear me out. Essentially, the DM doesn't want the extra work of fitting in ToB's fluff, or sorting out a refluff with you. He has other stuff to do, ya'know. The NPCs, the Mobs, the Story, the Encounters ect. and the last thing he would want to deal with is you and your wacky concept char. I'm generalizing, btw. Lots of DM's will make exception or be O.K with it. The point still stands though.

No. Because if the DM doesn't like me enough to have a 5 minute conversation, then he doesn't like me enough to be worth playing with and will not go along with anything fun or interesting because he either dislikes me or has an inherently low opinion of the worth of his players.

[TheGeckoKing]

Yeah I know, but I'm saying they can be refluffed to be completely non-magical.

Yeah, but that's like saying Truenaming is great.....if it's mechanics torn apart and remade from scratch. Sure you're right in a way, but it ends up with the discussion ending up as me acknowledging my points, and then you saying "Yeah, but if we ignore them....".
However, practically speaking I'm not against refluffing in most cases, so point conceded.


Critical hit with a dagger: 2d4 damage.

Think proportionally. A crit with a dagger is probably a cut in a painful area - like that part of your foot between your toes.


No. Because if the DM doesn't like me enough to have a 5 minute conversation, then he doesn't like me enough to be worth playing with and will not go along with anything fun or interesting because he either dislikes me or has an inherently low opinion of the worth of his players.

So if the DM doesn't want extra work when you could probably just use existing stuff to make up a concept, he's a horrible DM and possibly a horrible person in general?
......
Are you serious?

[gkathellar]

So if the DM doesn't want extra work when you could probably just use existing stuff to make up a concept, he's a horrible DM and possibly a horrible person in general?
......
Are you serious?

You're taking what he said way out of context. Coidzor's point is that refluffing ToB takes all of 90-180 seconds, and if the DM can't spare that much time to talk with a player there's already a problem at the table.

[Coidzor]

So if the DM doesn't want extra work when you could probably just use existing stuff to make up a concept, he's a horrible DM and possibly a horrible person in general?
......
Are you serious?

I would have been equally astounded by your earlier assertion that the DM is just too busy to take a negligible amount of time out to have a conversation outside of the game with a player, but I've seen it often enough that I no longer have any patience for it, hence my blunt response. I apologize if that came off a little brusque.

Here's what I am saying, just for clarity's sake. The amount of real work that the DM would have to do would take about 2 minutes out of the 5 minute conversation that they'd have to have with the person broaching the subject. If they had enough familiarity with ToB to reject it on the basis of the fluff, what little of it there is, in the first place. Anything less and you're heading into a different reason, mostly the ones where they've seen neither hide nor hair of the book.

And if a DM doesn't consider a player to be worth 5 minutes or, hell, even 10 minutes of their time, why the hell are they playing with such a person? Heck, why is the player playing with that DM if they don't even get 5 minutes total of me time across multiple sessions? :smalltongue:

[TheGeckoKing]

I would have been equally astounded by your earlier assertion that the DM is just too busy to take a negligible amount of time out to have a conversation outside of the game with a player, but I've seen it often enough that I no longer have any patience for it, hence my blunt response. I apologize if that came off a little brusque.

Here's what I am saying, just for clarity's sake. The amount of real work that the DM would have to do would take about 2 minutes out of the 5 minute conversation that they'd have to have with the person broaching the subject. If they had enough familiarity with ToB to reject it on the basis of the fluff, what little of it there is, in the first place. (Anything less and you're heading into a different reason, mostly the ones where they've seen neither hide nor hair of the book.)

And if a DM doesn't consider a player to be worth 5 minutes or, hell, even 10 minutes of their time, why the hell are they playing with such a person? Heck, why is the player playing with that DM if they don't even get 5 minutes total of me time across multiple sessions? :smalltongue:

Firstly, no worries.
Secondly you say 5 minutes, but have you seen, for instance, these refluffs (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archfr/frcc)? That's not 5 minutes by any stretch. Yeah, it's silly, but it proves that refluffing isn't always a quick and easy job, especially if the PC and the DM have different grades of Willing Suspense of Disbelief. Anyway, I meant if the DM feels he's got enough work already without you bringing some wacky concept to the table, he has every right to say no, not that DM's should all hate on the refluffers like they're sentient copies of CompPsi or something.

[Douglas]

It wouldn't get you a class name in my game. "This person channels the will of the very gods", "this person bends the very fabric of magic to their whim", "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques that allow them to push their bodies beyond normal limits and perform feats that seem almost magical through discipline and intense training", maybe even "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques very similar to the ones you've studied in", that sort of thing maybe. But not "this character is a warblade".
RAW is partially on your side, here. Neither Knowledge (local) nor Martial Lore as detailed in Tome of Battle can give you class names. They can, however, give you discipline names, and players can make a strong inference from "this guy knows Iron Heart, Diamond Mind, Stone Dragon, and White Raven".

[Serpentine]

Hmmm. I'm guessing the point of that is so the players can know exactly what the enemy can do. In that case, I'd probably avoid giving the names and just give (fluffy) descriptions, instead.

[Con_Brio1993]

I have no ToB in my games, because I hate rules creep. The PHB has everything you need and heaping on more and more rules only makes the players think of the game more as a game of character building and tactics, than about a world and a story.

I missed this before, but I respectfully disagree. There are a lot of class concepts that aren't in the PHB.

[Metahuman1]

I once had a DM who ran an Oriental Adventure in a homebrew setting.

He banned Tome of Battle because it was "Over-powered and broke." At the time I had the book but had not read it yet, let alone gotten a grasp on the system, so I went along with it and rolled a fighter for my duel Katana wielding Samurai character.


I spent the first three levels of the game sucking, endlessly, against all these bad guys who had more levels then us and Artifact weapons and armor, or were just 20th lvl (No, he point blank told me one of the guys who was evil, whipped my butt, and forced me to give a full apology to him in front of my Damiyo for attempting to murder a child in front of me, an appointed magistrate deputy (Basically FBI in the setting.), was level 20 and I should not bother with having a Revenge grind unless I was gonna get the whole party involved cause I was not gonna hit that level of power before the game ended. Not kidding.). And they ALL had this defult response to being outnumbered, which was the DM's so called balancing mechanic, that they would challenge us and we suffered social stigma if we refused too much.





I will never be able to stop thinking if I'd just been playing a ToB class I might have at least been able to make a decent showing before I died at lvl three and had my work schedule change making continuing playing with the group impossible.

It was a good group with other games, I'd had a blast playing Pendragon and Champions with them prior too this, and I'll admit there were fun parts to the OA game (I at least got to die in style.), and it was that particular group members first time DMing. Just so this doesn't come out too bad.

[Sucrose]

With respect, Metahuman1, I doubt that Tome of Battle classes would have fared much better against a deck stacked that aggressively. I am surprised that it was a good group for other games, because your description of the OA campaign sounds like a pretty terrible DM power trip.

Overleveled enemies with artifact weapons, or flat-out level 20 characters, are pretty much impossible to beat, unless the DM gives you some sort of homebrewed out (except for edge cases, like a well-optimized level 13 Wizard against a 20 Fighter, but I'm pretty sure that the DM would consider that incredibly overpowered, if he thought ToB was broke).

[Coidzor]

With respect, Metahuman1, I doubt that Tome of Battle classes would have fared much better against a deck stacked that aggressively. I am surprised that it was a good group for other games, because your description of the OA campaign sounds like a pretty terrible DM power trip.

To be fair, Oriental Adventures, and especially things with Japanese inspiration or that relate at all to Rokugan seem to be especial bait for that kind of thing between the "force character suicide" and "social conflict" systems.

So he could have gotten one of those rare DMs who was actually borderline and so he had to be running the game in an environment that would tempt him to err rather than go out of his way to do so.

Notsure about the artifacts or massively overleveled enemies thing, though I suspect those were just to go along with making sure that the party couldn't go off the rails once the change was upon him.

[Chronos]

Personally, I don't have any problem accepting that a grizzled, experienced veteran can survive getting stabbed dozens of times (there are real-world precedents, after all), but the whole idea of morale-based wounds just shatters my suspension of disbelief. I just can't picture some warrior saying to his cleric buddy "Hey, can you expend some of your limited supply of healing magic on me? I'm feeling kind of discouraged after that last battle.". Or rolling a good, solid hit, and the DM saying "Success! Your sword got so close to the enemy that he was very clearly shaken up by it!".

[sonofzeal]

Personally, I don't have any problem accepting that a grizzled, experienced veteran can survive getting stabbed dozens of times (there are real-world precedents, after all), but the whole idea of morale-based wounds just shatters my suspension of disbelief. I just can't picture some warrior saying to his cleric buddy "Hey, can you expend some of your limited supply of healing magic on me? I'm feeling kind of discouraged after that last battle.". Or rolling a good, solid hit, and the DM saying "Success! Your sword got so close to the enemy that he was very clearly shaken up by it!".
I agree. That's why I add the "Supernatural" tag to them in my game, just like many Shadow Hand and Desert Wind maneuvers. It fits, and it's an obvious fix.

[navar100]

I once had a DM who ran an Oriental Adventure in a homebrew setting.

He banned Tome of Battle because it was "Over-powered and broke." At the time I had the book but had not read it yet, let alone gotten a grasp on the system, so I went along with it and rolled a fighter for my duel Katana wielding Samurai character.


I spent the first three levels of the game sucking, endlessly, against all these bad guys who had more levels then us and Artifact weapons and armor, or were just 20th lvl (No, he point blank told me one of the guys who was evil, whipped my butt, and forced me to give a full apology to him in front of my Damiyo for attempting to murder a child in front of me, an appointed magistrate deputy (Basically FBI in the setting.), was level 20 and I should not bother with having a Revenge grind unless I was gonna get the whole party involved cause I was not gonna hit that level of power before the game ended. Not kidding.). And they ALL had this defult response to being outnumbered, which was the DM's so called balancing mechanic, that they would challenge us and we suffered social stigma if we refused too much.





I will never be able to stop thinking if I'd just been playing a ToB class I might have at least been able to make a decent showing before I died at lvl three and had my work schedule change making continuing playing with the group impossible.

It was a good group with other games, I'd had a blast playing Pendragon and Champions with them prior too this, and I'll admit there were fun parts to the OA game (I at least got to die in style.), and it was that particular group members first time DMing. Just so this doesn't come out too bad.

You didn't need Tome of Battle. What you needed was a hammer gun to fire at the DM to stop being a donkey cavity Il Duce.

[Thurbane]

Characters are walking through town shouting "I'm a Warblade!", so your players won't know who is a Warblade. Maybe that mercenary they met last session was a Warblade? Or that knight they fought 3 sessions back was in reality a Crusader? They can't know. Martial characters are just warriors like Fighters.
Hey, ever heard of a concept that different groups have/enjoy different styles of play? You're making a lot of assumptions that basically everyone elses D&D runs mechanically and thematically pretty much identical to yours. That's a common cause of friction in these type of threads.

There is no default "right way" to play D&D. A game where characters refer to themselves by class names and even levels is every bit as legit as a game where both of these are metagame concepts and totally unknown to characters...

[Thurbane]

There's also somewhat of a shonky underlying notion that in any game where ToB is not in use, that there is an egotistical DM banning it for no good reason and getting his jollies stomping on the fun of the other players. In my experience, this would be a relatively rare occurrence - I haven't played in a ton of 3.X groups, but the ones I did held pretty much a consensus of what material was in, and what wasn't generally used.

I'm not saying that jerk DMs that ban things without any thought or regard for the player don't exist, but are probably a lot rarer than these type of threads might indicate.

While discussing these topics in the past, some people have been genuinely incredulous that I'm in a basically core only gaming group by general agreement.

[Coidzor]

There is no default "right way" to play D&D. A game where characters refer to themselves by class names and even levels is every bit as legit as a game where both of these are metagame concepts and totally unknown to characters...

Sure, but it's a thing with potential to become very problematic the further one gets into it and mostly just comes up around these parts as a way for the DM to stifle creativity and "legitimize" complaining about "schizophrenic" builds for having more than two classes on the character sheet.

Further, there's no reason to assume that any given DM is addressing is going to have shared the statblock of an opponent with his players, especially given that the rough consensus appears to be that while it's not uncommon for DMs to choose to do that for a notable foe after he's been put to bed forever, it's not exactly common either.

[Helldog]

Hey, ever heard of a concept that different groups have/enjoy different styles of play?
I did.


You're making a lot of assumptions that basically everyone elses D&D runs mechanically and thematically pretty much identical to yours.
Really? Where?


There is no default "right way" to play D&D. A game where characters refer to themselves by class names and even levels is every bit as legit as a game where both of these are metagame concepts and totally unknown to characters...
It's much less probable to refer to yourself with your classes name, even in games without classes as metagame constructs.

[Thurbane]

Really? Where?
See right below:

It's much less probable to refer to yourself with your classes name, even in games without classes as metagame constructs.
According to who? Are you speaking from anecdotal evidence, or making an assumption on how others play the game? I'm not trying to be adversarial, but many of your posts seem to be making statements of opinion as if they are fact...

[pffh]

Firstly, no worries.
Secondly you say 5 minutes, but have you seen, for instance, these refluffs (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archfr/frcc)? That's not 5 minutes by any stretch. Yeah, it's silly, but it proves that refluffing isn't always a quick and easy job, especially if the PC and the DM have different grades of Willing Suspense of Disbelief. Anyway, I meant if the DM feels he's got enough work already without you bringing some wacky concept to the table, he has every right to say no, not that DM's should all hate on the refluffers like they're sentient copies of CompPsi or something.

I can refluff the ToB classes in less then 10 seconds. Want to see me do it?

Warblade is now called fighter, crusader is now called paladin, swordsage is now called monk. Use the fluff for those classes from the players handbook.

[Helldog]

According to who?
According to common sense. Calling yourself Warblade is silly. I've never seen someone who does that.
And there's also combined opinion from this and other boards.


Are you speaking from anecdotal evidence, or making an assumption on how others play the game? I'm not trying to be adversarial, but many of your posts seem to be making statements of opinion as if they are fact...
Aren't YOU making too many assumptions? Funny how my assumptions or "facts" are just statements (that are mostly true), but your assumptions just make you seem confrontational.
You can simply disagree with what I said, but harping at me for it does you no good. It would be nice you could get of my case.

[sonofzeal]

According to common sense. Calling yourself Warblade is silly. I've never seen someone who does that.
And there's also combined opinion from this and other boards.

While I completely agree that a character doesn't need to self-identify by class name, I think it's equally ridiculous to claim that they mustn't identify that way. I've seen plenty of people who do so, on this board and elsewhere. Please do not presume to speak for us.

[Ashtagon]

I agree with you in general, but I'm confused by the assertion that wuxia films are anime, since they're not Japanese, and they're not usually animated.

Except for the fact that they call it "chambara" in Japanese, "wuxia" is an established genre in Japanese pop culture.

[Coidzor]

While I completely agree that a character doesn't need to self-identify by class name, I think it's equally ridiculous to claim that they mustn't identify that way. I've seen plenty of people who do so, on this board and elsewhere. Please do not presume to speak for us.

I couldn't speak to the number of people who feel neutral, positive, or negative towards it, but it's definitely one of the behaviors that consistently gets a stronger negative response than positive one when it does get brought up.

Though, as I mentioned in reply to Thurbane, this is likely at least partially because the vast majority of times when it actually seems to bear mentioning are times when it's being used as a weapon by the DM against his or her players and is merely a symptom of a larger problem.

[sonofzeal]

I couldn't speak to the number of people who feel neutral, positive, or negative towards it, but it's definitely one of the behaviors that consistently gets a stronger negative response than positive one when it does get brought up.

Though, as I mentioned in reply to Thurbane, this is likely at least partially because the vast majority of times when it actually seems to bear mentioning are times when it's being used as a weapon by the DM against his or her players and is merely a symptom of a larger problem.
What gets a strong negative response is the idea that character must identify by their class. I can't even remember the last time I heard someone saying they mustn't, nor can I remember anyone getting a negative response just for mentioning that their Fighter calls themself a Fighter, or that their Druid identifies themself a Druid. It only goes nasty if it turns into some philosophical debate about all characters.

By point of fact, about half of my my recent characters would self-identify by their class name, and I've never before today heard of anyone having a problem with that.

[Gwendol]

According to common sense. Calling yourself Warblade is silly. I've never seen someone who does that.
And there's also combined opinion from this and other boards.


See what you did there? Equating your personal experiences with common sense (whatever that is).

From my point of view ToB makes a lot of other classes obsolete, which means that bringing that system on board more or less invalidates a host of other (core) classes (paladin, monk, fighter all come to mind). Not trying to make a value statement here, but I see why there is great resistance to this if one isn't prepared to give up the PHB martial classes.
Also, I think that drawing a parallel to caster classes such as CoDzillas and wizards, is kind of pointless (in terms of allowing "broken" classes). Their brokenness lies in a whole other plane of existence. The question is if ToB classes can be considered broken when compared with other more-or-less mundane classes. Personally I think not so much, but others may have a different view.

[Coidzor]

What gets a strong negative response is the idea that character must identify by their class.

I'm having difficulty telling the difference between what you mentioned in this last post and the situation in your earlier post. :smallconfused:

It seems like if one is playing in a game where all the characters identify by their class like that, then it seems like one is under some kind of compact or obligation or at least getting peer pressured to the point where one must make a character who identifies by character class.

I don't really see it going down that everyone in the world but one or two PCs would identify by character class, or how it wouldn't come up as a source of conflict if it were the case.


Secondly you say 5 minutes, but have you seen, for instance, these refluffs (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archfr/frcc)? That's not 5 minutes by any stretch. Yeah, it's silly, but it proves that refluffing isn't always a quick and easy job, especially if the PC and the DM have different grades of Willing Suspense of Disbelief. Anyway, I meant if the DM feels he's got enough work already without you bringing some wacky concept to the table, he has every right to say no, not that DM's should all hate on the refluffers like they're sentient copies of CompPsi or something.

1. If you know about those refluffs and decide to use them, well, that's what, about all of 10 seconds?

2. If you use those WOTC sources as a jumping off point in actually taking on extra work, you're going above and beyond what you actually need to do in order to refluff ToB to fit into all but the most convoluted and divorced from baseline D&D of campaign settings. Going too much further down these will bleed over into other sub-topics though.

3. You're continuing to attempt to build up the idea into more than it really is. Warblade = obsessive training and perfecting of technique. Crusader = that and a bit of being touched by the divine. Swordsage = as warblade to the extent that they've stumbled upon some of the same first principles underlying the universe that magic is built upon. Bam. If I said that all aloud it might take me a minute if I were speaking very slowly and deliberately. It took me about half that time to type it as I am a horrible typist when it comes to laptops. Any and all added complications to that basic structure (which is actually the advanced form of basic structure, as the basic, basic form is "axe fluff, will travel,") on the part of the DM, such that he or she 'can't be bothered' or 'doesn't have time' are the quibbling equivalent of empty platitudes, and at this stage in the thought process we've gone through to get here, the hypothetical DM is inventing work he doesn't need to do in order to ban a specific character concept that he finds silly or doesn't like for arbitrary/undefined reasons rather than actually tackling the crux of the issue.

4. You also just inadvertently cast aspersions on the entire book by equating ToB with joke builds. :smalltongue:

5. Player and DM, not PC and DM. The PC has no ability to suspend disbelief unless things are getting pretty meta or you're having a game within a game. :smallwink:

[sonofzeal]

I'm having difficulty telling the difference between what you mentioned in this last post and the situation in your earlier post. :smallconfused:

It seems like if one is playing in a game where all the characters identify by their class like that, then it seems like one is under some kind of compact or obligation or at least getting peer pressured to the point where one must make a character who identifies by character class.

I don't really see it going down that everyone in the world but one or two PCs would identify by character class, or how it wouldn't come up as a source of conflict if it were the case.
Well, perhaps an example is in order.


At one session in my previous IRL campaign, we had a Cleric (me), a Monk, a Marshal/Bard, and a Wizard. My Cleric clearly identified himself as such to all comers - "Hi, I'm Kale, a Cleric of Chauntea". The Wizard usually introduced himself as "the Mage-nificent", but wouldn't deny he was a Wizard if asked. The Monk would deny it, identifying instead as a god-ling. And the Marshal/Bard would simply be confused by the question and resort to her title instead (she was a Dutchess, if I recall correctly).


My Cleric would identify himself as a Cleric, but that's just how he identified himself; "Cleric" functions both as an out-of-game character class, and as an in-game social construct, and he was making use of both. Yet Helldog seems to be saying that this is "silly" and he's "never seen anyone who does that". And that "the combined opinion from this and other boards" is against it.

[Coidzor]

At one session in my previous IRL campaign, we had a Cleric (me), a Monk, a Marshal/Bard, and a Wizard. My Cleric clearly identified himself as such to all comers - "Hi, I'm Kale, a Cleric of Chauntea". The Wizard usually introduced himself as "the Mage-nificent", but wouldn't deny he was a Wizard if asked. The Monk would deny it, identifying instead as a god-ling. And the Marshal/Bard would simply be confused by the question and resort to her title instead (she was a Dutchess, if I recall correctly).

What's the DM's take on it all? That was what seemed to generally be the heart of the conflict when it's come up.


Yet Helldog seems to be saying that this is "silly" and he's "never seen anyone who does that". And that "the combined opinion from this and other boards" is against it.

I must admit, the only really silly thing I see there was that someone who plays with you decided to play a monk of all things. With delusions of grandeur. :smallconfused: :smalleek:

[sonofzeal]

What's the DM's take on it all? That was what seemed to generally be the heart of the conflict when it's come up.
The DM let us do whatever we wanted. And Helldog didn't say anything about DMs. He just said a character self-identifying as a Warblade was "silly", and seemed to be heavily implying it was "badwrongfun". And while I'm firmly against classes-as-ingame-constructs, that simply takes it too far.



I must admit, the only really silly thing I see there was that someone who plays with you decided to play a monk of all things. With delusions of grandeur. :smallconfused: :smalleek:
Well, the Monk was a bit silly, because the player was a bit silly. But my Cleric was voluntarily using the balance fix from my sig which brought it down to T3, and the Wizard had no idea how to optimize and might have been the least effective party member if not for a few timely Command Undead uses.

[TriForce]

I find that personal attacks against pretty much every other poster are usually the very best way to make people take my arguments seriously.


Using generalizations and bad labels like "munchkin" for anyone who loves building efficient and synergized characters is bad practice IMO.

funny, i was unaware that "munchkin" was a insult, my definition of munchkin is "someone who focuses his game on rules and optimization"

also, to all the others who have so graciously replied with "OPTIMAZATION DOESNT HINDER ROLEPLAY" and any variation thereof, you might want to actually read my post. i never said it would, i said it wasnt the focus of any DnD session i did, and therefor ToB wouldnt fit in as much as other books who DO focus more on the roleplay concept.


This is like saying "arcane casters cannot be munchkin with spells as haste or black tentacles. They should do real roleplay with fireball and cone of cold". i have no idea how you can possibly think my post has anything to do with what you just said. im not making any statements about power issues in 3.5, and im not saying casters are only real casters when they use blast spells. your putting words in my mouth that were never there


Using generalizations and bad labels like "munchkin" for anyone who loves building efficient and synergized characters is bad practice IMO. 3.5 is a system that greatly rewards people who are smart, creative and who put in the time to read and research the rules. If you play with people who have "their dude" "do stuff", who take Toughness because their Figher needs to be tougher, then I don't even want to talk about it. But suffice to say that 3.5 is not the system for you guys.


first of all, thank you for deciding what system im allowed to use and what not.
second, my group are people who have plenty experience, with AD&D, 3rd ed, 3.5 and 4th, all of wich we played for several years, except 4th.
thirdly: you say that 3.5 "rewards" smart, creative and researched character creation. as opposed from making a singleclass monk i assume? since you can roleplay better with a swordsage then with a monk? (or any other low tier class vs high tier) your not making sense



Okay so if I wanted to roleplay a mystical swordsman/assassin (chaotic good... kills people for justice!... lol...) using your rules I would have to multiclass/prestige like crazy, which is hard to do and give RP reasons for, not to mention almost impossible to start off as unless you start at like level 7+.

well for starters, your way of character creation is the reverse of ours. we decide on a personality for our characters and fill in the rest later, you start with a class idea and fill in the rest later

[nocker]

Personally, I don't have any problem accepting that a grizzled, experienced veteran can survive getting stabbed dozens of times (there are real-world precedents, after all), but the whole idea of morale-based wounds just shatters my suspension of disbelief. I just can't picture some warrior saying to his cleric buddy "Hey, can you expend some of your limited supply of healing magic on me? I'm feeling kind of discouraged after that last battle.". Or rolling a good, solid hit, and the DM saying "Success! Your sword got so close to the enemy that he was very clearly shaken up by it!".

Hit Points as pure wounds shatter suspension of disbelief too, at least in three points:
1- You're fighting an enemy with a greataxe, or a tyrannosaurus and is hit several times. If you're a 16th level barbarian or warblade, you're probably not even worried. So, how do you explain this in game? My answer for this is that due to the characters superior dodging skills and pure grit these attacks somehow just scratched him, without even drawing blood. And if they're just scratches, morale based healing means they can forget about them.

2 - Critical existence failure: related to the point above. If hit points are purely wounds, being hit by a greataxe or being bitten by a dinosaur would inflict some kind of penalty on the character. My SoD completely breaks down if hit points don't include dodging and grit.

3 - Quick healing. 1st edition had a healing system that could be argued to represent hit points as pure wounds (with nice stuff as if you hit the negatives and is brought back you'll be bedridden for at least one week). People recover from axe wounds in months, not days. Since the game uses the later timeframe, hit points can't be pure wounds.

Each piece of fluff that shows hit points solely as "wounds closing" can be understood is a shorthand for the whole deal (it takes less paper to write just "wounds closing"). The chance that the the game writer doesn't have thought fully about what hit points represent is also a sad possibility.

[Sucrose]

funny, i was unaware that "munchkin" was a insult, my definition of munchkin is "someone who focuses his game on rules and optimization"

also, to all the others who have so graciously replied with "OPTIMAZATION DOESNT HINDER ROLEPLAY" and any variation thereof, you might want to actually read my post. i never said it would, i said it wasnt the focus of any DnD session i did, and therefor ToB wouldnt fit in as much as other books who DO focus more on the roleplay concept.

i have no idea how you can possibly think my post has anything to do with what you just said. im not making any statements about power issues in 3.5, and im not saying casters are only real casters when they use blast spells. your putting words in my mouth that were never there



first of all, thank you for deciding what system im allowed to use and what not.
second, my group are people who have plenty experience, with AD&D, 3rd ed, 3.5 and 4th, all of wich we played for several years, except 4th.
thirdly: you say that 3.5 "rewards" smart, creative and researched character creation. as opposed from making a singleclass monk i assume? since you can roleplay better with a swordsage then with a monk? (or any other low tier class vs high tier) your not making sense




well for starters, your way of character creation is the reverse of ours. we decide on a personality for our characters and fill in the rest later, you start with a class idea and fill in the rest later

Munchkin is very definitely an insult around these parts. It is someone who breaks both the rules of the game and the social contract of the group in order to obtain moar pluses.

Powergamers tend to want moar pluses, and do whatever it takes to get them short of actually breaking the rules or the social contract.

Optimizers are simply those who enjoy the ruleset, and understand how to get the closest to their desired character concept using the resources at hand.

Optimizing is the process of building a character such that he or she has the abilities that you believe they should have. Since people generally want to play competent adventurers, pluses do get involved at some point, but they aren't really the end goal.

Second, aside from the 'Races of' books and setting books, there aren't really any books that have a greater emphasis on flavor than Tome of Battle does. ToB merely having different stances and maneuvers, each with their own strong points, does a great deal, in my opinion, to make the combat feel more like actual martial practices than the Core martial system, which really feels more like some sort of rock 'em sock 'em robots.

Finally, you seem to misunderstand the last poster you quoted. He did decide on a character concept. He just knew what he wanted said character to be able to do, in addition to his personality. He had no particular class that he was wanting to play, but immediately knew that the Swordsage's mechanics would fit elegantly, whereas other classes would require a great deal of kludging.

[Drathmar]

alright alright, meant no offense by it. i was just saying that there are shows that do this. i didn't mean to discredit your argument i just meant to say that i can see the anime fluff part and it's wrong to say that seeing it as such is a wrong example as i guarantee the naruto fans and such eat all this swordsage and warblade stuff up.

Probably would have been closer to the mark if you had said bleach...



well for starters, your way of character creation is the reverse of ours. we decide on a personality for our characters and fill in the rest later, you start with a class idea and fill in the rest later

Not really, it depends on the campaign, but I have done that. The point is you can make a personality that would tend toward being someone like that, and to play that character without ToB you would have to multiclass like crazy.

My point was that one thing ToB does is let people play certain character concepts effectively without overly multiclassing/dipping/PrCing.

[nocker]

According to common sense. Calling yourself Warblade is silly. I've never seen someone who does that.
And there's also combined opinion from this and other boards.
I'd have no problem with this assertion had you not posted it on the same site that also hosts The Order of the Stick.:smalltongue:

[Tyndmyr]

It wouldn't get you a class name in my game. "This person channels the will of the very gods", "this person bends the very fabric of magic to their whim", "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques that allow them to push their bodies beyond normal limits and perform feats that seem almost magical through discipline and intense training", maybe even "this person has trained in certain complicated martial techniques very similar to the ones you've studied in", that sort of thing maybe. But not "this character is a warblade".

There are both spells and class features for that, for those interested in getting this information in char...The Urbant Savant is my favorite method for this. Can basically get the entire build of someone. Also, fully progresses casting. Made of win.

[Helldog]

While I completely agree that a character doesn't need to self-identify by class name, I think it's equally ridiculous to claim that they mustn't identify that way. I've seen plenty of people who do so, on this board and elsewhere. Please do not presume to speak for us.
I didn't say you mustn't. I just find it silly.


See what you did there? Equating your personal experiences with common sense (whatever that is).
I'm not equating anything. If I would say that wearing shoes on your feet is common sense and then added that I never saw someone wearing them on their hands, would you consider it equating?


Yet Helldog seems to be saying that this is "silly" and he's "never seen anyone who does that". And that "the combined opinion from this and other boards" is against it.
Well yes, calling yourself a Warblade is silly to me, at least in a serious game.


and seemed to be heavily implying it was "badwrongfun"
That's what you think. But it's not correct. I have no right nor reason to call someone else's way of playing as "badwrongfun".


I'd have no problem with this assertion had you not posted it on the same site that also hosts The Order of the Stick.
The same Order of the Stick that introduced Miko, the Samurai without Samurai levels?

[Tyndmyr]

Well yes, calling yourself a Warblade is silly to me, at least in a serious game.

*shrug* It's a name. Taking a profession name from the type of weapon used is remarkably common. I don't see a problem.

[Gwendol]

But you are not speaking about shoes. You are speaking of in-game characters presenting themselves as their class being silly. And referring to "common sense", on top that. Now that can be considered silly.

I'd say you have no ground to stand on in that argument, and also fail to see its relevance to the OP. People have different point of views and values, what may seem silly to some makes perfect sense to others, especially when considering made-up fantasy worlds.

[Helldog]

But you are not speaking about shoes. You are speaking of in-game characters presenting themselves as their class being silly. And referring to "common sense", on top that. Now that can be considered silly.

I'd say you have no ground to stand on in that argument, and also fail to see its relevance to the OP. People have different point of views and values, what may seem silly to some makes perfect sense to others, especially when considering made-up fantasy worlds.
What's your point? Silly doesn't mean bad or wrong. :smallconfused:

[Gwendol]

That you are coming across as confrontational and disrespectful?

[Helldog]

That you are coming across as confrontational and disrespectful?
I do sometimes, I won't deny it. But not now.

[Tytalus]

My Cleric would identify himself as a Cleric, but that's just how he identified himself; "Cleric" functions both as an out-of-game character class, and as an in-game social construct, and he was making use of both. Yet Helldog seems to be saying that this is "silly" and he's "never seen anyone who does that". And that "the combined opinion from this and other boards" is against it.

It basically sounds like you did in fact not refer to the class Cleric (i.e., the metagame construct), but rather the role/occupation of the PC: cleric.

That's (presumably) Helldog's point: PC's (should) have no idea what mechanical representation they have and how it's called.

In case of the cleric (and other PHB classes), this can be confusing, as the name of the class and the name of the role/occupation can be identical, i.e., a Fighter (class) may well call himself a fighter (role/occupation), but won't know that he is actually just a set of rules collectively called "Fighter" (the class).

Of course, playstyles vary considerably, but I have to say that IMHO, too, the idea that a character knows about the rules that represent him and uses that to refer to himself doesn't make much sense.

[Thurbane]

My main point is that people sometimes make assumptions about play styles of groups they've never seen in action - it's very easy to assume that they way your group(s) play the game is the "default" way, but in the grand scheme of things, it's actually a very small sampling.

Personally, I would never play in a gestalt game, or an epic level game...but I wouldn't call people who do "silly".

Heck, back in AD&D, classes even had their own "level titles", which were in-game monikers that denoted class and level. It's not like the concept is without precedent.

[arguskos]

Heck, back in AD&D, classes even had their own "level titles", which were in-game monikers that denoted class and level. It's not like the concept is without precedent.
Fun Fact: This goes at LEAST as far back as third printing OD&D (1974-1977, baby). It's as old as the game itself.

[Helldog]

Personally, I would never play in a gestalt game, or an epic level game...but I wouldn't call people who do "silly".
Good that I didn't do that then.

[Thurbane]

Good that I didn't do that then.
You're very defensive - I wasn't even replying directly to your comments. :smallconfused:

[Helldog]

You're very defensive - I wasn't even replying directly to your comments. :smallconfused:
I was the only poster who said "silly", so obviously you meant me.
As for being defensive - I'm just making sure that we're clear.

[Coidzor]

thirdly: you say that 3.5 "rewards" smart, creative and researched character creation. as opposed from making a singleclass monk i assume? since you can roleplay better with a swordsage then with a monk? (or any other low tier class vs high tier) your not making sense

Well, there is something to consistency stating that characters without skills or magic don't really have a whole lot of ways to interact with the world even in the realm of roleplay.

[IP Proofing]

Well, there is something to consistency stating that characters without skills or magic don't really have a whole lot of ways to interact with the world even in the realm of roleplay.

I hear that bleeding on things makes a great first impression that is sure to last.

[Rubik]

Well, there is something to consistency stating that characters without skills or magic don't really have a whole lot of ways to interact with the world even in the realm of roleplay.It makes sense from a logical point of view, as well. Why would a group of people risking their lives for whatever reason (fortune, fame, status, power, saving the world, etc) tote along someone incapable of dealing with the challenges they face? If someone is a *LITTLE* more or less capable than you, that's okay, since they're pulling their weight and helping to support yours, just as you support theirs.

But unless it's an escort or bodyguard mission, where the whole point is that Ally A is non-capable and you're supposed to protect them, why would anyone drag someone along who is likely to get themselves killed first thing, and thereby put the entire group in danger?

That's half the point behind the tier system.

[onemorelurker]

Well, there is something to consistency stating that characters without skills or magic don't really have a whole lot of ways to interact with the world even in the realm of roleplay.

Also, being a monk (or other low-tier class) can make it much more difficult to roleplay competence. Most players--though not everybody--wants to roleplay a character who's good at what they do, and that's a problem if the character's build is seriously lacking. One could roleplay an incompetent Swordsage, but it would be very difficult to roleplay a straight Monk who actually fulfills the "Zen master of unarmed combat" archetype, because the class can't back up the characterization.

[jaybird]

Except for the fact that they call it "chambara" in Japanese, "wuxia" is an established genre in Japanese pop culture.

No, you're wrong.

Wuxia and anime are...considerably different genres. Sort of like how westerns and noir are considerably different genres.

[Manateee]

It basically sounds like you did in fact not refer to the class Cleric (i.e., the metagame construct), but rather the role/occupation of the PC: cleric.
Given that WotC treats them as the same thing (see: the PHB's definition of the metagame construct as a character's "profession or vocation," the class relations sections in earlier books, the Class Lore sections in the later books that give characters explicit knowledge of classes' [in a metagame sense] titles and characteristics [in an in-fiction sense] and the otherwise nonsensical reflections of game fiction into mechanical underpinnings like the Assassin class prereqs), it's understandable.

But it's still silly.

[gkathellar]

On class name metagame knowledge debates: this is a question of doing what works for your group. I know beer & pretzels type groups that would much prefer to tell and be told outright. I know roleplay-heavy groups that wouldn't. You do what works for minutiae like this.


No, you're wrong.

No, he's not. He's pointing out that wuxia has a Japanese equivalent, which is fair. Still doesn't make chambara necessarily equivalent to anime, but anyway.


Wuxia and anime are...considerably different genres.

:smallsigh: That would be a much more convincing argument if anime were a genre. Alas, it is a medium.

[Drathmar]

On class name metagame knowledge debates: this is a question of doing what works for your group. I know beer & pretzels type groups that would much prefer to tell and be told outright. I know roleplay-heavy groups that wouldn't. You do what works for minutiae like this.



No, he's not. He's pointing out that wuxia has a Japanese equivalent, which is fair. Still doesn't make chambara necessarily equivalent to anime, but anyway.



:smallsigh: That would be a much more convincing argument if anime were a genre. Alas, it is a medium.

Also... there are probably more actual genres of anime than most other commonly used mediums (I can think of at leas 7 off the top of my head, and there's a lot more...)

[Metahuman1]

Sucrose, Coidzor,Navar100:

I'm inclined to cut the guy some slack. I mean to clarify this in my previous post, but looking back I somehow seem to have missed doing so, my bad.

Anyway, as I said, it was his first time DMing. Period. And Yes, Oriental games can be more of a challenge. I'm aware of those things. And yes, part of it WAS my fault cause I went in thinking fighter with EWP: Katana, the TWF line, and building for Tempest would work well enough in a group of another fighter (Sword and Board, A Gijin Mercenary who's commander had loaned him to the Magistrate.), A Scout (mostly an Archer with A Samurai Title.) a Fire Shugenja, A mostly blaster Sorcerer, and an elf druid.

Yeah, the druid player picked it cause he was new coming back the the group (Had gamed with the guys years ago, stopped do to family obligations and work obligations, but now with a change to career and his kids off at collage he had come back.), and had no idea how to optimize (Course neither did I, I just though I did at the time. It was early in my gaming career still, very early.) and he was still rocking. The other two casters did solid, and the Archer did pretty awesome. Even the Gijen Managed to hold his own for the most part. But these were all very experienced players, except the druid, and, well, druid, in his case.

I'm not saying I think I'd have been able to kick 20th lvl bad guys butt solo, (and I agree he had no business actually being present at that attack in person, let alone opting to come out, dressed as a lord with clear Samurai lineage and title, when my character demanded of the ninja in everything except that name (Cause they were working for a guy who wasn't form the one clan that could have both ninja and honor, so no, these guys were rogues. Hence me having to apologize to the would be child murderer later.), that they release the damn net he was tangled in and the ninja leader come out and face him. (I figured every other bad guy we'd fought up to that point that we'd had a numbers advantage on had done that to decent effect, so my turn.). ), but I think I could have taken at least one of the guys in the artifact armor. (There was a whole little group of them that had these suits, only two of whom were high level, the ring leaders. What was making them over powered was having living suits of Artifact armor that we never got to keep at the end of the fights.) The weakest among them, who was a jerk that tried to stab my character in the back, literally, while he was being questioned after first meeting him.


Again, Most of this I can wright off too a combo of being used to a different play style, problems with running an OA game that are par for the course, new DM learning curve (Again, first campaign with him in that chair, and the party only got to lvl 3 before I had to leave them.), in my case player learning curve (If I knew half of what I know now back then, believe me, that would have been a very different game.). But what burns me was telling me and the whole group, of whom the DM and I were the only one's with ToB, that it was broken and he wouldn't have it in the game, after planning 20th lvl recurring villains for a party starting lvl 1 and Artifact armors and Social repercussions when he knew had had classes that had no social skills going into the game.


I ran into that dm at my new local gaming store a couple of weeks ago. Touched on the old group during a civil and friendly conversation of several events that happened when we were both players and other were DMing, and I asked if he still held that opinion, cause I'd read it and learned the system in the mean time, and I didn't anything near as broke as core casting as a whole. He told me with a straight face he just thought that in an OA game with no Wizards it was OP. The the magic: the gathering tournament he'd come out for started and he had to get to his table.


Presently, I'm SERIOUSLY entertaining the idea of trying to catch him up there again and asking if he still has the NPC stats and setting info for that particular home brew setting, and if he does if I could score a copy to have my current IRL DM run. Cause my Current IRL DM is better about allowing players options, and likes ToB, though the three people in the group using it for the first time are starting to grind his nerves with Mountain Hammer. But I personally think that that can be resolved with a bit of "Ok guys, I know it's a cool trick, but let's be nice to the DM and try playing with the other nice things now some, so that he doesn't decided to nerf it and take the tool away." before next session starts.

And if the Dm does give us the info and my DM will run it for me, I will roll a TWF form the same clan I ran the last character form, with the same name, with the right class and build this time, and I will Kill that one particular NPC. I HATED that bugger. But I digress.

[Thurbane]

I was the only poster who said "silly", so obviously you meant me.
As for being defensive - I'm just making sure that we're clear.
It was meant as a general comment, even if you were the one who mentioned "silly". If it had been a specific reply to what you had said, I would have quoted your text. :smallwink:

:smallsigh: That would be a much more convincing argument if anime were a genre. Alas, it is a medium.
It's also a genre, in the somewhat corrupted Westernized translation of the term. In it's original/pure form, you are 100% correct.

[Drathmar]

It was meant as a general comment, even if you were the one who mentioned "silly". If it had been a specific reply to what you had said, I would have quoted your text. :smallwink:

It's also a genre, in the somewhat corrupted Westernized translation of the term. In it's original/pure form, you are 100% correct.

No, it's still a medium by the western definition, which is that anime is a japanese animated cartoon (roughly). That isn't a genre, it's a medium .

A genre would be Shounen Anime, or Yaoi Anime, or Ecchi Anime, or Sienen Anime.

And why most western places don't use those names exactly, a lot of western anime is still put into genres such as Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Giant Robot, Romance, Slice of Life, Comedy, etc.

[Thurbane]

No, it's still a medium by the western definition, which is that anime is a japanese animated cartoon (roughly). That isn't a genre, it's a medium .

A genre would be Shounen Anime, or Yaoi Anime, or Ecchi Anime, or Sienen Anime.
Sorry, but the usage of anime generally isn't precise, especially in various English speaking nations. It gets used interchangeably as both a genre, and a medium. I know this greatly annoys the purists, but there you go.

This is often the most emotional and vigorously debated part of any ToB thread. :smalltongue:

[sonofzeal]

Sorry, but the usage of anime generally isn't precise, especially in various English speaking nations. It gets used interchangeably as both a genre, and a medium. I know this greatly annoys the purists, but there you go.

This is often the most emotional and vigorously debated part of any ToB thread. :smalltongue:
Agreed (on both).

Consider: someone Japanese could animate in the style of (say) The Simpsons and it wouldn't be called "anime", and someone in America could animate int he style of (say) Naruto and it would be called anime.

This proves it's not just short for "japanese animation".

Personally, I'd consider it an artistic style (like "impressionism" or "chiaroscuro"), with various related narrative genres. Given this, it becomes impossible to describe any verbal or written source as "anime", because the term refers purely to the visual element of those shows.

[Ashtagon]

No, you're wrong.

Wuxia and anime are...considerably different genres. Sort of like how westerns and noir are considerably different genres.

I was responding to someone who said that wuxia had nothing to do with Japan.

[ranger557]

I came real late to this thread, but here is my opinion about ToB. I like it because it give variety to your characters. However, what I think why people banned it is because of a couple of reasons. One, they don't know about the book that much and are not aware of its potential. Two, they feel adding a new system is too much work to add in a campaign, so they don't want to learn a new system. Another one is some people think of it as pre 4th, which is weird to me (its still 3.5 in the end).

Also on the wuxia and anime discussion. I agree on what people say that you can reflavor it, but also it can fit western and eastern settings easily. Not sure who brought the point up but many cultures used names for their fighting techniques. Also check this out, I posted my spear and shield character with TOB and he looks very western :smallwink: lol.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224399

[Ravellion]

As noted, a warrior is a warrior; they just do their things in different ways, similarly to how clerics and psions both "cast spells" in completely different manners.

Any of those three can play meatshield (druids can do it multiple times at the same time), and all three can easily be trapfinders if they have the right options available to them (any summons can trapfind, and wizards get reserve feats for that; clerics can get trapfinding with the right domains).Reserve feats? Not in Core/Trailblazer they don't. Those domains aren't available in Core either. I'd ban them if they were.

Natural spell isn't in Trailblazer, so the Druid has to make a choice: cast spells or be meatshield.

Note that trailblazer set out to fix many of the balance problems in 3.5. I don't need ToB anymore because my spellcasters have been nerfed slightly and my warrior classes have been boosted (rogues get d8 Hd, fighters can gain extra qualities/tricks with their specialized weapon etc.). The fact that one got boosted and the others nerfed means I can more or less run published adventures without major redesigning, and play without too much role usurpal by the spellcasters.

[gkathellar]

I was responding to someone who said that wuxia had nothing to do with Japan.

And you were correct to point that out.


It's also a genre, in the somewhat corrupted Westernized translation of the term. In it's original/pure form, you are 100% correct.

And what exactly does that genre constitute? Can anyone tell me? Because I've watched a lot of anime and I'm at a loss for answers there.


Consider: someone Japanese could animate in the style of (say) The Simpsons and it wouldn't be called "anime", and someone in America could animate int he style of (say) Naruto and it would be called anime.

It would be called that (as we know from A:tLA), and the people calling it that would be just as wrong as they were right because that's just a word in another language. Not even really that, since in the first place it's a corruption of the English word animation. There are several common styles in the Japanese animation industry, some of which are very strongly associated with the medium as it's produced there (most ultimately have to do with the much larger budgets of Japanese animation studios). That doesn't make Japanese cartoons a genre any more than it makes cartoons in general a genre, though there are distinct genres within Japanese cartoons.

Now, if ToB has stylistic similarities to "Japanese fighting man cartoons," that I will buy into, because it does. Hell, there's even some clearly wuxia- or chambara- or whatever-based Japanese fighting man cartoons out there, which look almost exactly like what you could envision Tome of Battle looking like.

[Coidzor]

Reserve feats? Not in Core/Trailblazer they don't. Those domains aren't available in Core either. I'd ban them if they were.

Natural spell isn't in Trailblazer, so the Druid has to make a choice: cast spells or be meatshield.

Eh? If this is a retranslation of a translation for Pathfinder, I hate to disappoint you, but it appears to be in Pathfinder. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/natural-spell---final)

Otherwise, please elaborate on what this Trailblazer is, as Google is being reticent about offering up its dead. I'm always curious to take a gander at permutations of 3.X.

[Ungoded]

Otherwise, please elaborate on what this Trailblazer is, as Google is being reticent about offering up its dead. I'm always curious to take a gander at permutations of 3.X.

I am guessing that he means this: Trailblazer (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=64009)

[huttj509]

At this point I feel the need to reference Record of Lodoss War. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_of_Lodoss_War) Which until today I was only aware of as the anime (and manga), and didn't know that it had been novels before that, or explicitly a gaming transcript style piece before that (though I did know it was based on a DnD campaign, as is rather obvious).

[Helldog]

Record of Lodoss War... One of the first anime I watched, ever. Oh the memories. :smallcool:
If I think about it, it's possible that I got into D&D thanks to RoLW, lol.

[Coidzor]

Record of Lodoss War... One of the first anime I watched, ever. Oh the memories. :smallcool:
If I think about it, it's possible that I got into D&D thanks to RoLW, lol.

It was definitely a factor for me, and I didn't even watch the whole thing.

[nocker]

Back in my time, they used to say Record of Lodoss War was the campaign you dreamed about playing, while Slayers were the the game you actually ended up playing.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing, in fact.

[Manateee]

Trailblazer's a variant system that's pretty much focused on streamlining gameplay. Its most interesting features are its multiclassing - which gives spellcasting a ToB-like mechanism and which unifies certain character features (save progression is based on character level, rather than class choices; a character progresses a single set of spells per rest, no matter how many casting classes he has) - and its AoO mechanics (extra AoOs as a character gains BA; AoOs per round may alternatively be used to Aid Another without using an action).

There are the standard stock of Wild Shape/Polymorph fixes, minor class ability additions to mundanes and a mixed bag of weird changes like a modified full attack mechanic and redesigning summons as astral construct-type spells.

And if we're talking Trailblazer, Fighter builds might get better from their easy casting dips, but the class balance goes absolutely to hell from the Full Attack nerf and generally improved casting mechanics (everyone casts like a Spirit Shaman, but without the metamagic difficulties). So it's a bit disingenuous to treat it as a fix to class balance problems.

[Coidzor]

Hmm, still seems like it might be worth taking a gander at, thanks for that bit of exposition, Manateee.

[Ravellion]

And if we're talking Trailblazer, Fighter builds might get better from their easy casting dips, but the class balance goes absolutely to hell from the Full Attack nerf and generally improved casting mechanics (everyone casts like a Spirit Shaman, but without the metamagic difficulties). So it's a bit disingenuous to treat it as a fix to class balance problems.The full attack nerf isn't a nerf until 11th level, and the math seems to put it ahead over core still even then - you do get significant to hit bonusses for giving up that 3rd attack. By 16th you might have a point, because you'd basically lose out on that one attack at -15 that core would give you, with trailblazer giving little to show for it in return. The fact that you gain more AoO with level and can make any one two handed weapon into a reach weapon as early as 3rd level should help a bit as well.

I wouldn't call a d8 hitdie for rogues, removing all crit/sneak attack immunities from monsters, and giving attack bonuses to Monks and Rogues to put them at full BAB equivalent when Flurrying/Flanking "minor", by the way. The free action aid another mechanic helps melee classes hit way more often as well. Paladins and Rangers get spells earlier and eventually gain 5th level spells (they basically gain 1 cleric/druid level every 2nd level). You do have a point with the spirit shaman like casting improving the casters, but there are some nerfs for the casters as well (no natural spell being a major one).

I think the trailblazer book is worth a look (heck, I made it my preferred system!). It isn't as polished as Pathfinder, but it set out to change and balance more - a goal which I think was achieved. The chapter that spells out the math is an interesting read even if you never play it.

[Manateee]

I like Trailblazer, so I don't want to seem like I'm attacking it too vehemently.

One thing that makes it fall apart a bit is that its math is based on a low optimization environment, and its conclusions don't hold in a scenario where a character's hitting with the 3rd or 4th attacks in a round. Or where a Haste effect (a pretty common buff/enhancement/ability) comes into play. The Monk and Rogues' full attack bonuses do essentially put them at full BA, but the full attack change still hurts more than the attack bonuses help.

So the interclass balance does get hurt, even with all the shiny bonus damage and attack boosts that the system throws around.

But like I mentioned, inter-class balance isn't so important, because inter-character balance gets a bit of a boost from the dippability of previously undippable classes. The Fighter just needs to dip a couple levels into Wizard to fly around shooting lightning out of his face, and the Monk can be dropping quivering palms alongside righteous mights.

And to wrap this back into the conversation on why ToB is more awesome than the default game, Trailblazer's analog of its multiclass system is amazing, and totally upends the need for the ugly "patch" classes that 3e relied on, like the Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster - a paradigm shift that might have also turned some groups off to Warblades, et al.

(What do you mean that was a stretch? <_< >_>)

If I play 3e again, those and the slick AoO rules are definitely getting shipped in (as well as translated for psionics and meldshaping).

[Ravellion]

One thing that makes it fall apart a bit is that its math is based on a low optimization environment,I think that statement (which holds true for my game), in combination with the fact that ToB comes almost "pre-optimized", best sums up why I don't allow ToB.

[Coidzor]

I think that statement (which holds true for my game), in combination with the fact that ToB comes almost "pre-optimized", best sums up why I don't allow ToB.

Should try it out sometime with some of the more respectable ToBization homebrews, they might even learn a thing or two then.:smallbiggrin:

[falkathebat]

Well, I've been DMing for about ten years now, and in that time I have come to the conclusion that if a player decided he or she is going to behave like a munchkin, no about of source restriction is going to stop them. Honestly, there is a lot in 3.5 that is ripe for abuse, and one really needs to understand that going in. So, on that level, ToB does not bother me.

Having said that, I do not allow it when I am running a game. I will freely admit that this is due to my own philosophies about the game and my own experiences, but there it is. My primary problem with it is actually the way that a lot of the abilities work. I am the sort of person who likes to run games without a grid, and...well, my experience has been that a lot of the ToB techniques really require one.

Past that, my only complaints are purely personal. By the third time a warblade stuck a sword in everyone who disagreed with him (NPC's and players alike) and then accused me of railroading when such actions attracted bounty hunters with higher levels then him, my love for the Seven Swords rules was very atrophied. Granted, a wizard, druid or even monk could behave similarly, but the sheer number of times this has happened with ToB has soured my tolerance for it.

I am not trying to tell anyone they are wrong, simply explaining why I do not allow this book. It is selfish, biased, and close minded, but there it is.

[Killer Angel]

I am the sort of person who likes to run games without a grid, and...well, my experience has been that a lot of the ToB techniques really require one.


Even playing core only, with the various threatening ranges and AoO, i find very difficult to play without a grid.

[Coidzor]

Even playing core only, with the various threatening ranges and AoO, i find very difficult to play without a grid.

Spells seem like they'd be the biggest source of demand for grids to me.

[Killer Angel]

Spells seem like they'd be the biggest source of demand for grids to me.

Personally speaking, when we played AD&D (without grid), AoEs of fireballs, webs and so on, were adjudicated "on the run". The caster explained its intenction and asked who was out.
We introduced the grid with 3.0, and the main reasons were probably reach and AoO... then, we realized how much it was an improvement also for the spells' AoEs. So yeah, you're right.

[Thurbane]

I would have to agree with Killer Angel, as far as my personal experience goes. We use grids more for AoO, flanking, reach and related mechanics than for spell areas, although we also use it for them.

In our 1E and 2E games, we only used fairly loosely drawn maps, and guesstimated whether enemies were caught in spell areas or not.

[falkathebat]

Heh, yeah. Not one of my better reasons.

Perhaps you can help me with this...why do players feel entitled to ToB? Odd question, I suppose, but I cannot help but notice that players I have worked with are fine with splat bans...unless they are tome of battle, in which case they treat you as if they are being betrayed.

[Zaranthan]

Because splats make awesome classes more awesome, while ToB makes crappy classes competitive. Banning ToB is basically telling your players "you will play spellcasters, or you will suck," because that's how the PHB classes work.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Perhaps you can help me with this...why do players feel entitled to ToB? Odd question, I suppose, but I cannot help but notice that players I have worked with are fine with splat bans...unless they are tome of battle, in which case they treat you as if they are being betrayed.

Because ToB classes are good. You ever seen a fighter try to leap across a 20 ft chasm at level 5? Not pretty. What about when you fight a dragonne or manticore? Fighter has to take out his backup bow and plink away for minor damage, which slightly contributes, swordsage can teleport or jump, warblade can jump. Also, fighter can't use swift actions, which means they're not getting full mileage out of their round. And a warblade or crusader can actually hold his own in melee against a giant of his CR without needing a bard song, or Haste, or Displacement.

[falkathebat]

Because splats make awesome classes more awesome, while ToB makes crappy classes competitive. Banning ToB is basically telling your players "you will play spellcasters, or you will suck," because that's how the PHB classes work.

Well, that's....fatalistic. i have to say, I'm beginning to suspect I've been doing something wrong all this time. With a few exceptions (monks) I haven't really encountered most of these horrifying class balance problems DMing or playing.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, that's....fatalistic. i have to say, I'm beginning to suspect I've been doing something wrong all this time. With a few exceptions (monks) I haven't really encountered most of these horrifying class balance problems DMing or playing.

Oh, mundanes can be fine. I'd just much rather be able to hold my own in high level combat without a Haste, Displacement, or Inspire Courage necessary. And I'd prefer not to become near useless past level... oh, about 7, when there's not a caster around to cast Fly on me.

[sonofzeal]

Well, that's....fatalistic. i have to say, I'm beginning to suspect I've been doing something wrong all this time. With a few exceptions (monks) I haven't really encountered most of these horrifying class balance problems DMing or playing.
It depends on the level. Take a Fighter, a Rogue, a Wizard, and a Cleric in a lvl 15-ish game. To make the difference obscene, you could also limit magical swag to basics.

That said, at low levels the difference isn't pronounced unless the caster really knows what they're doing (Abrupt Jaunt, etc). And at high level, appropriate wealth is so huge it can wash out a lot of distinctions. Test of Spite proved this when it started seeing Commoners abusing recommended wealth guidelines to dominate heavily optimized characters of their same level.

Anything's winable with sufficient Op-fu. But yes, as soon as you're up in double digits it's going to start being increasingly obvious who's the boss.