Tome of Battle homebrews

[theUnearther]

Two sorta related questions here. Does anybody have a list of homebrew martial disciplines? I just finished reading that book a while ago and I liked it, and I've got a number of ideas for such, but I'd like a chance to see what other people have done first, both for inspiration and to avoid stepping in other's toes.

Secondly, how exactly does one deal with the existance of more disciplines than the official? Should the 3 initiators just gain the new ones? Should they gain different ones? And the same number each, or trying to keep the proportion? Or should the new disciplines replace existing ones?
This is kind of moot because I don't actually have any game to run nor play, but I still think it's an interesting question. Also, yes I realize it's actually a bunch of questions, but still.

[Keld Denar]

The Libram of Battle (http://sorcererstudios.com/forumdisplay.php?3-Libram-of-Battle) is a pretty good spot to start looking.

There is also the Faxcyclopedia (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Fax_Encyclopedicus#Disciplines).

Also, check the Homebrew forum, particularly stuff by Demented One and ErrantX, but I think most of that stuff got reposted on the Libram site.

[Loki_42]

This has a pretty solid list of homebrew maneuvers in it. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134088) Not all of them, mind you, but a large number.

As to your second question, I usually allow my players to swap one of their other disciplines for the new one, and if there's nothing you're comfortable getting rid of, grab some martial studies.

[The-Mage-King]

As the other two have said, those are good lists.


Morph's set up a tiering list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245701), which includes several disciplines.

Basically, look at TDO's stuff (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7315805&postcount=52). It's all awesome.



For how to handle them, I'd let the player's swap out some, maybe add in some additional base classes like the ones used by W&W (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205213) to fill in gaps in the classes.

Toss in the ability to choose a style (read: collection of disciplines- I'd make it 3 per style) instead of the normal choices, and it should be simple.

[AmberVael]

Two sorta related questions here. Does anybody have a list of homebrew martial disciplines? I just finished reading that book a while ago and I liked it, and I've got a number of ideas for such, but I'd like a chance to see what other people have done first, both for inspiration and to avoid stepping in other's toes.

Secondly, how exactly does one deal with the existance of more disciplines than the official? Should the 3 initiators just gain the new ones? Should they gain different ones? And the same number each, or trying to keep the proportion? Or should the new disciplines replace existing ones?
This is kind of moot because I don't actually have any game to run nor play, but I still think it's an interesting question. Also, yes I realize it's actually a bunch of questions, but still.

A lot of people have answered the first question, so I'll target the second.

The general consensus on this site's homebrew has been to allow two options, which can coexist in play. The first option is to let an initiator class gain access to an additional discipline for an XP cost. The other is to allow the initiator class to swap out which disciplines they have at character creation (or when they pick up the class).

Really though, I think simply allowing initiator classes to choose from any disciplines (at least, those disciplines made for that class- no handing out shadow hand and devoted spirit to warblade) at no penalty won't break anything, and probably won't even be an increase in power. I've never heard anyone who had problems with the spell compendium, and it basically doubles the list of spells known for classes like the Cleric. Initiators, on the other hand, not only have to pick out a very specific list of maneuvers they know, but meet requirements to pick them. It doesn't matter how many disciplines you can pick from, in the end, you're only going to be good at a few. Effectively, it's no different than not having access to some of those disciplines in the first place.

[theUnearther]

That seems like a lot of reading material, thank you people. Also it makes it look ridiculously unlikely that I'll have anything original to add. Oh well.

And yes, I know that clerics and druids get more bloated with almost every book printed (not the Tome of Battle, funny enough), but I honestly feel that "they did it first" shouldn't be a defense. It was more a question of flavour/etiquette anyways; I cannot expect you to judge the balance of homebrews I have not posted, can I?

So thank you for informing me on the etiquette. I had actually thought of the "swap one discipline at level 1" option too; not sure why I didn't write it. Never thought of paying experience however, could you tell me what is the "standard" price?

[AmberVael]

And yes, I know that clerics and druids get more bloated with almost every book printed (not the Tome of Battle, funny enough), but I honestly feel that "they did it first" shouldn't be a defense. It was more a question of flavour/etiquette anyways; I cannot expect you to judge the balance of homebrews I have not posted, can I?

My point was more along the lines of "they did it first, they did it worse, and look- nothing bad really happened."

But even that aside, I think my other argument still stands strong. They can only learn so many maneuvers, and the good maneuvers have prerequisites of other maneuvers. It doesn't matter if a Warblade has accesses to 5 or 500 disciplines, with the limitations imposed on the maneuvers he can learn, he'll never be able to master more disciplines than his class was initially given (if that, really- my warblades seem to only manage being decent at 2 or 3 disciplines). There's effectively no difference between swapping disciplines at first level, and having all disciplines available.


So thank you for informing me on the etiquette. I had actually thought of the "swap one discipline at level 1" option too; not sure why I didn't write it. Never thought of paying experience however, could you tell me what is the "standard" price?

1,000xp is the price TDO uses, and I think others have adopted that price.

[dspeyer]

Most homebrew disciplines say which classes can use them. If you're also using homebrew classes, this may become more difficult.

There isn't a real consensus, but most people seem to allow swapping disciplines at first level and adding disciplines for a cost, usually xp, though I've seen a feat or 5 skill ranks. Many allow swapping later if you've never taken anything from the discipline you want to swap out.

Just making all the disciplines available isn't tremendously broken, but probably a little overpowered. A lot depends on how many prerequisites things have. There are a handful of nice maneuvers with no prereqs, making free schools appealing.