Tome of Battle questions

[DarkEternal]

Hello. This is the first time we're using Tome Of Battle for some of our characters and I have a few questions that might grow into a few more with time.

Basically, there is the question of executing a manuever. One of our characters, a barbarian, took a level in warblade and the Tiger Claw school. There is a maneuver there called Claw at the moon. Basically, you need to make a jump check and jump at your opponent to deal damage. All good so far. My question is. If you jumped from a distance at the opponent, and your jump takes you through threatening areas of other opponents, does this provoke an attack of opportunity? For instance, you initiated the maneuver which does not by itself provoke an attack of opportunity while standing to one opponent to leap across the battlefield to the other opponent who is low on health or something.

Does the one you leaped away from have an attack of opportunity, considering you were basically moving away from him, even if it was in mid jump?

The second question comes from our DM who argues about the usage of stances. To him, the Leaping Dragon Stance that grants +10 on Jump is somewhat overpowered if, judging from the one who plays the character, the stance is always active and as long as you don't say it explicity, you always remain in a stance of your choice for as long as you want. He says that you need like 2 feats(Skill focus and skill mastery) to get half of that to last indefinetely like the stance itself. So did we get the rules right? Is the stance pretty much permanent until he decides to change it(and then only needs like 10 minutes of rest-training to recharge it again)?

[danzibr]

Unless it says otherwise, moving through threatened squares provokes AoO's. So yeah, jumping away and through threatened squares is going to provoke AoO's.

I don't have the book handy, but if the stance says you get +10 to jump checks, then yes, you get +10 to jump checks.

[Sucrose]

The Jump check for Claw at the Moon does not represent enough movement to provoke AoOs, or change the square that you are in. It's a sudden jump forward, to strike high while the enemy's guard is still where it would be if you were on the ground. Thus, rather than going for distance, you're trying to break through their guard with the efficacy of your athletic ability, to do additional damage.

And yes, Leaping Dragon Stance gives you an always-active +10 to Jump checks. Its costs are that you cannot be in another stance (barring some class ability that lets you do that), and either a delayed maneuver progression or a feat (unless you're a Swordsage), given that normal progression for a Warblade does not give you a level 3 stance.

And yes, it's stronger than feats that exist for similar purposes (though arguably weaker than Leap of the Heavens (PHB II), which cancels out the penalty for standing jumps). However, have you seen people that actually want to take those feats, because Jumping is that important to their character? For that matter, have you considered that Wizards can just Fly at the level when you're getting better at Jumping? It's those feats that are weak, not the stance that is overpowered.

[Cog]

He says that you need like 2 feats(Skill focus and skill mastery) to get half of that to last indefinetely like the stance itself.
Ask him how many characters he's seen who take that combination, and ask him how common he thinks it is in other games. Jump doesn't get you anything good enough to really be worth that alternative investment, so it's really not a good point of comparison.

[Essence_of_War]

I'm pretty sure that stances only take a swift action to enter, and they don't explicitly "wear off" ever. Some of them seem deliberately made to be used before or outside of combat (see Hearing the Air, Hunter's Sense) while others are basically only useful in combat (Thicket of Blades, Iron Guard's Glare).

If you don't like that they "stay on", it might be pretty reasonable to rule that the ones that are VERY combat centric "turn off" whenever the characters can take a short rest (5+ minutes) unless the player wants to use them to do something outside of combat.

Also, note that skill focus and skill mastery, especially taken with jump, is an awfully low bar to cross for ways to use 2 feats. Especially if your game ever makes it past level 10 where everyone needs to be able to fly to stay competitive...

Edit:
Swordsages got me on the jumping issue. How appropriate :smalltongue:

[The-Mage-King]

For the first, as Danzibr says, it provokes unless it says otherwise.


For the second, it's active until he decides to change it. And then he can change back to it as a swift action, since stances are separate from maneuvers readied. While it's active, he gets all the benefits of it.

As for it being overpowered, the barbarian has to be at least level 17 to have picked up the stance
, due to it needing an Initiator level of 9(IIRC), and non-ToB classes counting for half- the wizard has been Extending Overland Flight for a couple of levels, and HE isn't getting hassled over it. Hell, he also has 9th level spells!

Getting +10 to jump is... Not overpowered at those levels.

[danzibr]

The Jump check for Claw at the Moon does not represent enough movement to provoke AoOs, or change the square that you are in.
While I agree with the rest of your post, I'm not sure what this is about. If you're not actually moving out of/through any squares you might be okay, but it doesn't seem that's what the OP was talking about.

From the OP: "For instance, you initiated the maneuver which does not by itself provoke an attack of opportunity while standing to one opponent to leap across the battlefield to the other opponent who is low on health or something."

While the maneuver itself doesn't trigger the AoO, the movement does.

[DarkEternal]

The Jump check for Claw at the Moon does not represent enough movement to provoke AoOs, or change the square that you are in. It's a sudden jump forward, to strike high while the enemy's guard is still where it would be if you were on the ground. Thus, rather than going for distance, you're trying to break through their guard with the efficacy of your athletic ability, to do additional damage.

And yes, Leaping Dragon Stance gives you an always-active +10 to Jump checks. Its costs are that you cannot be in another stance (barring some class ability that lets you do that), and either a delayed maneuver progression or a feat (unless you're a Swordsage), given that normal progression for a Warblade does not give you a level 3 stance.

And yes, it's stronger than feats that exist for similar purposes (though arguably weaker than Leap of the Heavens (PHB II), which cancels out the penalty for standing jumps). However, have you seen people that actually want to take those feats, because Jumping is that important to their character? For that matter, have you considered that Wizards can just Fly at the level when you're getting better at Jumping? It's those feats that are weak, not the stance that is overpowered.

I did tell him that exact thing, his response was that the wizard or whoever casts spells(tongues, fly, and so on and so on) still does so for a limited amount of time and has to rest for 8 hours before he can cast it again while these classes can do it in 5 minutes.

Anyway, that answered these questions, and of course, as usual in DnD opened a whole can of new ones for instance the one about the initiator level. I thought you could take a class of ToB whenever you wanted, and all you needed to look was that you are considered half the level of the warblade-swordsage whatever. So if the barbarian was level 10 when he took a warblade he would get the manuevers as a level 5 warblade or something like that?

[DeltaEmil]

Leaping Dragon stance gives you a +10 foot enhancement bonus to your jump check. This actually means that it adds 10 foot to the total result of feet you can jump. If you tried to jump horizontaly and rolled a 30 with your jump check, jumping 30 feet wide, you'd jump a total distance of 40 feet, and if you tried a vertical jump and rolled a 28, jumping 7 feet high, you'd jump 17 feet up with Leaping Dragon stance.
The same thing can be achieved by taking the Extreme Leap-skill trick from Complete Scoundrel.

[Lonely Tylenol]

The second question comes from our DM who argues about the usage of stances. To him, the Leaping Dragon Stance that grants +10 on Jump is somewhat overpowered if, judging from the one who plays the character, the stance is always active and as long as you don't say it explicity, you always remain in a stance of your choice for as long as you want. He says that you need like 2 feats(Skill focus and skill mastery) to get half of that to last indefinetely like the stance itself.

Or a 10,000 gp magic item in core (Ring of Improved Jumping). Or, presumably, something even cheaper outside of Core (Boots of Jumping, MiC p. 77, give you +10 to Jump checks as daily-use charges and half the distance you need to make a running jump for 2,500 gp; Sandals of Springing give you the same +10 bonus as the Ring of Improved Jumping, but on a feet slot).

As for being treated as running for all jumps, a 3,600 gp magic item in the Magic Item Compendium (Belt of Ultimate Athleticism, p. 75) lets you treat all your checks as 10s (as per Skill Mastery) plus it allows you to treat a check result as a rolled 20 once per day, and it also applies to Balance, Climb, Swim and Tumble, which makes it strictly superior in many aspects; or, you could go with the Boots of Jumping listed above. Both offer a comparable improvement.

Or, you could get a wand of Jump, Caster Level 1 (+10 for 1 minute), for 750 gp; Caster Level 5 (+20 for 5 minutes) for 3,750 gp; or Caster Level 9 (+30 for 9 minutes) for 6,750 gp, and jump your way out with a +30 enhancement bonus for a total of 450 minutes off a single wand! Of course, the Wizard could have just been casting Jump from level 1 anyway, and by level 9 (when the Barbarian could first get +10 as a stance by dipping Warblade), not only could the Wizard get a +30 off the same level 1 spell slot, but he could also just cast Overland Flight and fly for 9 straight hours as he chooses (rendering the need for legs, and their various uses, totally irrelevant).

That should put this in perspective.

As far as the Claw at the Moon issue is concerned, it follows the usual movement rules (the jump, barring flavor, is part of the standard action to attack, not the move action), so if your Barbarian wants to leap across the room, his needs might be better fulfilled with cross-class ranks in Tumble.


I did tell him that exact thing, his response was that the wizard or whoever casts spells(tongues, fly, and so on and so on) still does so for a limited amount of time and has to rest for 8 hours before he can cast it again while these classes can do it in 5 minutes.

:smallconfused:

A Barbarian who takes 8 levels of Barbarian/non-Initiator and then dips Warblade gets a permanent +10 to his Jump checks--which, by the way, is emulated by no less than five different items in core and the MiC in some way or other, none of which are that expensive--gets his stance at level 9, the same level that the Wizard gets Overland Flight. Yeah, the Wizard has to cast it, and he has to sleep in order to cast it again the next day, but it's still nine uninterrupted hours of flight per day. Compare that with a skill bonus that WBL could buy you three of (each for different slots), or more if you're willing to cheap out and get charges (just how often do you Jump?), and... Actually, forget it, there just isn't any comparison.


Anyway, that answered these questions, and of course, as usual in DnD opened a whole can of new ones for instance the one about the initiator level. I thought you could take a class of ToB whenever you wanted, and all you needed to look was that you are considered half the level of the warblade-swordsage whatever. So if the barbarian was level 10 when he took a warblade he would get the manuevers as a level 5 warblade or something like that?

That is sort of correct. A Barbarian 10 who takes a level of Warblade (effectively, a Barbarian 10/Warblade 1) has an Initiator Level of 6 (1/2 of his Barbarian levels, plus his Warblade level). Essentially, the Barbarian who dips Warblade at 11th level has an upper limit on maneuvers he can know of a level 6 Warblade, which is to say third-level maneuvers; however, he only has the number of maneuvers known and prepared of a first-level Warblade. This is the same as saying your caster level isn't your class level for determining spell slots; if you have Practiced Spellcaster and a Wizard dip, you don't get the spells per day of a 5th-level Wizard. The only difference is that the level-dependent effect of initiators is what different maneuvers they have the capacity to learn.

In sum:
Barbarian 10 + Warblade 1 = Warblade 6 (for determining the highest-level maneuvers known) or Warblade 1 (for determining the number of maneuvers and stances known, and maneuvers prepared each day).

[DeltaEmil]

So if the barbarian was level 10 when he took a warblade he would get the manuevers as a level 5 warblade or something like that?Yes. The answers you seek are on page 39 in the Tome of Battle. The non-initiator-classes only count as half. The ten levels of Barbarian are only worth as 5 warblade levels, and with the first warblade level, he is considered to be a level 6 initiator, making the highest-level maneuver that can be selected a level 3 maneuver (keep in mind that you must still fullfill the other requirement of the selected maneuver).

Also, your gm has no clue about balance. At level 11, your wizard can easily cast overland flight and fly around for 11 hours, and only another spellcaster can threaten the wizard. Heck, even if the wizard could only cast fly at the minimum level (caster level 5), that would still be 5 minutes. There aren't any situations where mundane sumperjumping abilities can ever beat flying around for 5 minutes with good maneuverability.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I did tell him that exact thing, his response was that the wizard or whoever casts spells(tongues, fly, and so on and so on) still does so for a limited amount of time and has to rest for 8 hours before he can cast it again while these classes can do it in 5 minutes.

Two of those last the length of a typical dungeon, if not just one, as long as you're quick and efficient. And you can FLY, not just jump decent.

At level 7, clerics and druids get Air Walk, and at level 9, wizards get Overland Flight. All bets are off.

And like Delta said, it's +10 feet, which is very different for the purposes of vertical jump.

[eggs]

I thought you could take a class of ToB whenever you wanted, and all you needed to look was that you are considered half the level of the warblade-swordsage whatever. So if the barbarian was level 10 when he took a warblade he would get the manuevers as a level 5 warblade or something like that?
A Barbarian 9/Warblade 1 would count as a level 5 Warblade for Initiator Level-based effects (like Leading the Charge) and determining the maximum level of maneuvers known (though the first level stance is debatably capped at level 1). It would still count as a level 1 Warblade with regard to the number of maneuvers known and readied, and the advancement of Warblade class features.

[The-Mage-King]

So if the barbarian was level 10 when he took a warblade he would get the manuevers as a level 5 warblade or something like that?

Right.


All ToB base classes count as one level in themselves for Initiator level. However, all other classes count as HALF an Initiator level for each ToB class.

So, let's use something for an example.


Fighter 8/Ranger2/Warblade 2.

Now, Fighter counts as 4 IL for Warblade, and Ranger counts as another 1 IL.

So he has a Warblade IL of 7 (5 from other classes, 2 from Warblade level), but he only has the maneuvers known, class features, and stances known of a second level Warblade.

So 4 maneuvers known, 3 readied, and a stance.

Now, depending on the order of levels, he can choose higher level maneuvers. Since his IL is 6 at the first level of warblade, he can choose up to level 3 maneuvers. Same for stances- he could get a third level stance. He still needs to meet non-IL prerequisites, though.

When he takes his second level of Warblade, he learns another maneuver- since his IL is now 7, he can learn a 4th level maneuver, which he STILL needs to meet the prereqs of.


So, in the Barbarian's case, assuming you mean his 10th level was Warblade, his IL in Warblade would be 4 from Barbarian levels, and 1 from Warblade level, for a total of 5. He could choose up to third level maneuvers, which he needs to meet the prereqs for.

[Malachei]

Tome of Battle was one of the later releases of Wizard's of the Coast and unfortunately, while being a wonderful product, did not receive an official errata (well, it did, but there was a copy/paste error in it which made it mostly useless).

A few people have contributed to an unofficial errata. Personally, I don't agree with everything they have compiled, but it is better than having nothing. You can find it here, (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=13292.0) also as a PDF.

Regarding the questions in the OP:

I absolutely would rule that this maneuver does not trigger AoO for moving. It does not explicitly say so, but that is a common issue with RAW. Claw at the Moon is on par with or weaker than other 2nd-level maneuvers that deal an additional 2d6 damage.

I'd also rule that Death From Above (4th level) does not trigger AoO for moving.

I think it is really common sense, as well: Both maneuvers would be not worth taking if they'd provoke AoO.

Regarding the Stance: It has been discussed many times. By RAW, it is a 10-ft. enhancement, which means you always leap +10 ft. of your check result. Yes, this is incredible when making vertical (high) jumps, and I'd rather houserule it to provide a +10 jump check bonus.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Regarding the Stance: It has been discussed many times. By RAW, it is a 10-ft. enhancement, which means you always leap +10 ft. of your check result. Yes, this is incredible when making vertical (high) jumps, and I'd rather houserule it to provide a +10 jump check bonus.

It's not incredible. It just means you actually have a shot at using your melee weapon against something with Flyby Attack. And it's something you should actually be doing, because at this level, wizards and druids have true flight (druid's lasts for 5 hours, but he can't cast spells while using it until next level).

Leaping Dragon Stance is the mundane way for melee to deal with flyers.

[Malachei]

I'd say it is incredible, because a flat 10 ft. does not make much sense to me.

When you get a bonus distance to jump, IMO, your bonus on long jumps should be greater than your bonus on high jumps.

The rules are specific in pointing out the difference, and make achieving high jump distances much harder than achieving long jump distances.

I have no issues that in your game, this stance is poor man's flight, but I'd want a difference between high and long jumps. After all, we're still talking about jump.

[navar100]

I'd say it is incredible, because a flat 10 ft. does not make much sense to me.

When you get a bonus distance to jump, IMO, your bonus on long jumps should be greater than your bonus on high jumps.

The rules are specific in pointing out the difference, and make achieving high jump distances much harder than achieving long jump distances.

I have no issues that in your game, this stance is poor man's flight, but I'd want a difference between high and long jumps. After all, we're still talking about jump.

Does burning people alive using bat poo while flying invisibly over 400 ft in the air make sense to you?

[Malachei]

Does burning people alive using bat poo while flying invisibly over 400 ft in the air make sense to you?

in D&D? Sure.

But this is on another level. It is not about what someone can do, but about how the jump rules have been designed.

Do you know about the term rules consistency?

Do you think having more of it is a good thing?

[eggs]

It does look like either a typo in "+10 enhancement to Jump" or a mistype of something along the lines of "effective +10 ft enhancement to land speed when calculating Jump."

The latter seems more likely, but a +10ft enhancement to jump distances is just so much more fun.

[Hiro Protagonest]

in D&D? Sure.

But this is on another level. It is not about what someone can do, but about how the jump rules have been designed.

Do you know about the term rules consistency?

Do you think having more of it is a good thing?

No, not if the rules are broken from the start. Where's the rule consistency for spellcasters? They have wildly different power levels even if they do the same things (blaster sorc vs warmage, cleric with Heal Domain vs healer). Where's the rules consistency in that a level 1 fighter is a skilled veteran who's survived many battles?

[Boci]

Without the supernatural tag the flat +10ft to high jumps is a bit problomatic. You can justify it (emphasis on a technique more integral to high jumps than long jumps) and it certainly wouldn't be the wierdest thing to keep it as is, but at the same time I can see why it would be problomatic. Still I wouldn't call it a poor man's flight, that's stretching it.

[Malachei]

No, not if the rules are broken from the start. Where's the rule consistency for spellcasters? They have wildly different power levels even if they do the same things (blaster sorc vs warmage, cleric with Heal Domain vs healer). Where's the rules consistency in that a level 1 fighter is a skilled veteran who's survived many battles?

I was not talking about balance, I was talking about consistency.

[Boci]

I was not talking about balance, I was talking about consistency.

You could argue that it isn't good rules consistency that sorcerors are better warmages than warmages are.

[Malachei]

You could argue that it isn't good rules consistency that sorcerors are better warmages than warmages are.

You are referring to balance again.

[Boci]

You are referring to balance again.

And in this case they are one and the same, unless you think the problem of people who studued specifically to apply their magic to the battlefield being worse at it than general mages is a purely mechanical one and not a fluff one as well.

[Big Fau]

Do you know about the term rules consistency?

Do you think having more of it is a good thing?

Try telling that to WotC. Go ahead, I'll wait.

[prufock]

Do you know about the term rules consistency?

Do you think having more of it is a good thing?

Not to butt in here (even though I am), but "rules consistency" is a poor term to use here. There is nothing inconsistent about the rules in this case. What you're arguing seems to be more like "concept-to-rules" consistency.

Personally I don't think that's necessary. High jumps are more difficult - this is already covered in the jump rules. The +10 feet just gives you a minimum distance, regardless of your direction. It might be more elegant if it was a flat +10 bonus to the check, but I don't see any in-game flaw with it as is.

[Malachei]

And in this case they are one and the same

We disagree here. The problem of rules consistency is that one aspect of a rule, mechanically, is not in conflict with another aspect of the same rule (on the level of the individual rule) and that one rule is not in contradicting another rule (on the level of sets of rules).

Example

For instance, mirror image is a fine example of a rules consistency issue, because it states that the images spread out over an area, but call for rolling randomly when making an attack. Normally, a character would have to choose a square first, and if the images are spread out, a character would hit (and not roll randomly). This is inconsistent.


The problem of balance is much more subjective. It deals with effectiveness. For more on balance, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_(game_design)

Example

If a wizard can be a better fighter than a fighter, both the wizard and the fighter can be consistent, but they are not balanced.

[Boci]

We disagree here. The problem of rules consistency is that one aspect of a rule, mechanically

And I wouldn't limit the subject of rules consistency to purely mechanical matters. I get your point apoint LDS though.

[sonofzeal]

I did tell him that exact thing, his response was that the wizard or whoever casts spells(tongues, fly, and so on and so on) still does so for a limited amount of time and has to rest for 8 hours before he can cast it again while these classes can do it in 5 minutes.
Heaven forbid that any non-magical class should ever be better than any mage class at anything!

Er, yeah. Jumping high isn't a quarter as useful as Flight anyway.

[Prime32]

A few people have contributed to an unofficial errata. Personally, I don't agree with everything they have compiled, but it is better than having nothing. You can find it here, (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=13292.0) also as a PDF.Why do people keep linking to the old boards anyway? (www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?board=25)

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why do people keep linking to the old boards anyway? (www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?board=25)

Because it's what they have bookmarked.

[Malachei]

Why do people keep linking to the old boards anyway? (www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?board=25)

Why didn't you link it?

If you'd look for information, would you prefer an old link or none at all?

Will you please spend the rest of the day commenting to google to link to the new boards?