My group is afraid of the Tome of Battle

[DrakePenn]

It's exactly what I said. I love the idea of The Tome of Battle. I think the classes are elegantly designed, and allow martial focused classes a job other than protect the wizard, BE A MEAT BAG SHIELD! The other players in my group however, do not. They view them as overpowerd and always try to compare them to, say, a fighter or barbarian. They refuse to realize that, other than the primary spellcasting classes, the core classes are rediculously weak. My rogue has a higher damage output than our warforged fighter with 32 strength. They honestly believe that a fighters real job is to keep the wizard alive. I've tried to get rid of their bias by implementing them in the campaign I run, but to no avail. My dm remains completely neutral on this however. I somewhat lack confidence in their ability to know a good class from a bad one however, they ALL have a hard on for the truenamer for SOME ungodly reason. How the hell can I convince them that its better to play a Warblade than a fighter, and that having something other than a full bab is fair?

[SiuiS]

It's exactly what I said. I love the idea of The Tome of Battle. I think the classes are elegantly designed, and allow martial focused classes a job other than protect the wizard, BE A MEAT BAG SHIELD! The other players in my group however, do not. They view them as overpowerd and always try to compare them to, say, a fighter or barbarian. They refuse to realize that, other than the primary spellcasting classes, the core classes are rediculously weak. My rogue has a higher damage output than our warforged fighter with 32 strength. They honestly believe that a fighters real job is to keep the wizard alive. I've tried to get rid of their bias by implementing them in the campaign I run, but to no avail. My dm remains completely neutral on this however. I somewhat lack confidence in their ability to know a good class from a bad one however, they ALL have a hard on for the truenamer for SOME ungodly reason. How the hell can I convince them that its better to play a Warblade than a fighter, and that having something other than a full bab is fair?

I have to ask, but why is this really a problem?

You have a group who plays well at a power level where fighters are relevant choices for them to pick. And you want to change that? Rather than optimize the group, I would advocate enjoying the laid back attitude of the game atmosphere.

In the end, playing a war blade is not better than playing a fighter.

[Sponson]

{Scrubbed}

[Urpriest]

As a reasonably respected Giantitp-er, I'm mildly ashamed to admit I started out really not liking ToB. Granted, I don't think I ever thought it was overpowered, but I did think it was silly and shlocky.

What changed my mind is when I realized that so many different character concepts that are really intuitive and desirable can be played with ToB. You don't appreciate it until you try to make, say, a TWFer who doesn't use Rogue, or a teleporty-assassin dude, or a Monk who throws people. I'd advise holding back and waiting for a player to come to you with a concept that's really dying to be represented with ToB. Show them the tools ToB gives for that particular concept, and they'll be hooked.

Basically, it has to feel like their idea at first, to show them that they really are missing something they would want.

[LanSlyde]

Being the only thing I have a clear answer for, have them do a comparison between the fighter and warblade.

HD: Fighter < Warblade
BAB: Fighter = Warblade
Skills: Fighter < Warblade
Class features: Fighter < Warblade
Bonus Feats: Fighter > Warblade
Stances: Fighter < Warblade
Maneuvers: Fighter < Warblade
Magic: ???

Point being, the Warblade is clearly a better fighter than the Fighter. Hell its the fighter should have been. The worst part is that you can use warblade levels to qualify for fighter bonus feats.

Hell at least this way if the wizard in the back turns on everyone and tries to murder the party the Warblade at least has a chance to do something besides sit their and take it.

[Laserlight]

My dm remains completely neutral on this however.

If you're not the DM, why not bring a ToB character for a couple of sessions, and show them what they're missing?

If I've misunderstood you and you're the DM...then if they're happy with their characters the way they are, why worry about it?

[Boci]

The problem is more than the group simply not liking ToB, its about their belief of the relationship between magic and martial, which they do not see as an equal relationship. Ask them how a fighter is meant to keep a wizard alieve, since intelligent monsters ignore the fighter and go for the wizard.

However, you may need to prepare yourself to not being able to change their minds.


I have to ask, but why is this really a problem?

You have a group who plays well at a power level where fighters are relevant choices for them to pick. And you want to change that? Rather than optimize the group, I would advocate enjoying the laid back attitude of the game atmosphere.

In the end, playing a war blade is not better than playing a fighter.

Not wanting to play a meat shield is wrong?

[TuggyNE]

They honestly believe that a fighters real job is to keep the wizard alive.

One possible route to help dispel this misconception is to build a wizard that neither needs nor wants protection from Fighters. For example, a gish build using Swiftblade is likely to be a good start, though for maximum punch a Wizard 20 that needs no one's help to stay alive is also great.

It also helps if, as mentioned, you demonstrate how ineffective most Fighter builds actually are at preventing damage to so-called "squishies".

Basically, if you can show that the Fighter doesn't actually do the job that doesn't actually need doing, that may shake things up enough for them to be more open to ToB.

[eggs]

If the whole group is playing poorly-built Fighters and Truenamers, there's a good chance ToB is overpowered.

[Lord_Gareth]

I have to ask, but why is this really a problem?

You have a group who plays well at a power level where fighters are relevant choices for them to pick. And you want to change that? Rather than optimize the group, I would advocate enjoying the laid back attitude of the game atmosphere.

In the end, playing a war blade is not better than playing a fighter.

I'd change it, because as a DM I want to run tactically diverse encounters both in and out of combat. If the group clings to fighters and barbarians, I cannot do that.

[Mithril Leaf]

While I personally don't like ToB that much because it's too much like mixing magic with fighting for me (I generally play mages, so when I play a martial it's for that easy feeling). It's fairly balanced when all players are of a decent optimization though. Make sure if you bring it in to spruce up the martials, you give the wizards and clerics some spell selection help to make sure they keep up. Blaster wizards and healbot clerics aren't that well balanced against ToB.

[Knaight]

But we recently found what makes the ToB stand out is the fact that it can take on as many encounters as it likes. Eventually the Barbarian will run out of rages, and eventually a wizard will run out of spells, but a class from ToB will always get their maneuvers back at the start/end of an encounter. But from what I've read they can't sustain an encounter as well as an uber charger or what have you.

The ToB classes have limits, and it's the same as that had by most martial classes. A Fighter never runs out of daily abilities, and a Ranger never runs out of daily martial abilities. However, they can run out of HP, as can the ToB classes. Arguably, Crusaders can bypass that one, but that involves either some questionable rules interpretation or being able to wade into a fight against a bunch of enemies who hurt you so slowly that the few hit points you gain back per round outpaces the damage dealt.

[BCOVertigo]

I have to say... as much as I love ToB and think it can expand options dramatically, balance is a relative thing.

If the wizards aren't actually capable of being self sufficient and the fighters ability to (ihavenoideawhat'sgoingoninthisgame???) is keeping their wizards alive, then the comparatively high optimization floor of ToB actually might throw off the balance of THEIR game. Not due to the classes inherent capabilities, but due to the actual optimization levels in play.

A ToB character IS stronger than a poorly built wizard, and while those players may get friggen pissed seeing this written about their characters, it's true.

In the end, if you implement ToB you should also hold a seminar on building not-sucky full casters. I think that maintaining the status quo (which seems to be fun for this group) is important here. And DO NOT FORCE THEM TO PLAY STRONGER IF THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED. On that path lies danger.

[ericgrau]

Meh even a fighter with a shield does more damage than a rogue. He must be overemphasizing tanking. Or optimizing less in general.

Anyhoo ToB is a bad idea to mix with fighters and barbarians. If all of them switch over then it could be okay, though it still depends on the optimization of everyone else.

If your group is already optimizing a lot then you could tell them ToB isn't so bad. Otherwise pushing for higher optimization isn't necessarily a good thing; it could be bad. Personally I lean towards a little lower op (but not bad) but the more important thing is equal op between players. If your group won't step up then you need to step down.

[ThiagoMartell]

If the whole group is playing poorly-built Fighters and Truenamers, there's a good chance ToB is overpowered.

Pretty much, yeah.

[Gavinfoxx]

They are a low-op group. They are happy in their range of low-power classes, and low-optimization.

Encourage more low-tier classes to be available if you want more variety.

Also. Read them my essay. It is a good essay. It is also a good introduction to the Tier system. You can leave bits out and stuff if you want.

My essay!


"D&D 3.5e is a very...interesting game system. At it's heart, it is a game which started with several assumptions: that fantastically wealthy, violent hobo land pirates go underground to the unrealistically-laid-out homes of things that look different than them, kick down the doors to these homes, kill the inhabitants, and take their stuff. Then they go back to town, sell most of the stuff, keep the useful bits, buy things that help them go to newer and different places where things that look MORE different then they, kill them, take their stuff, et cetera. It is a game where the stalwart fighter stands in the front and swings his sword, the rogue looks for and disables traps, or perhaps sneaks around to stab bad things with a dagger, the Wizard stands in the back and blasts things, and the Cleric keeps all of them healed while doing this. This is the 'heart' of the game because that was how the game was played in the past, in the editions before 3.5e, often because it was a competitive, team event played at tournaments where people wargame for points, and there is a single team which is the winner. Further, you might not know the people on your team, having just met them five minutes ago at a convention, and so everyone played a simple role that was easy to understand and pick up and go, and in the old rules, was actually generally a fairly solid way to get through modules in a short amount of time. This is also where the idea of an adversarial GM that is trying to kill the player characters comes from. Every assumption that is 'weird' or arbitrary in the game stems from things inherited from this idea (or similar ideas from 'back then') regarding how the old games used to work.

However, that's not often how the game is *played* these days, and for the most part, we aren't interested in playing that particular legacy game with it. It has been quite some time since 3.5e books started coming out, and people have had lots of time to look at them and think about them and tinker with them and figure things out. They've come up with several interesting conclusions. Namely, that if you look at the toolset represented by all these books, you essentially have a fantastic array of lego pieces to make characters to tell any sort of fantasy story you want, because Wizards of the Coast tried to be inclusive of a huge variety of fantasy gaming styles in their rules. People have also figured out that there is a dramatic and huge variation in the power level of the 'lego pieces' -- that is the classes and options tied to them -- when you start doing things with them other than the old edition legacy assumptions. So given that, the question is this: what sort of story do you want to tell with your characters, and what power level and complexity level do you want in the rules? Do you want to be people altering the fabric of reality to fit their very whims, or the gritty soldier for whom permanent death is a real possibility in any fight -- in other words, something lower power level like Lord of the Rings, or the wuxia swordsman who is somewhere in between the two examples? Any sort of Fantasy story is a possibility, but you have to know what you want, first!

Of course, just because anything is possible, doesn't mean that there isn't something close to a consensus amongst experts as to what the system is best at. What they say is something along these lines: the system is best for fantastic characters, fantasy superheroes of some sort (but not silver age uber-superheroes though), doing crazy, incredible things to the world around them, things which are overtly superhuman and heroic. While 3.5e is capable of much lower power and grittier things, it really starts to shine when you accept the power level of 'everyone has superpowers of some sort', provided you make choices of the correct legos appropriate to that power level. This is the case especially because of, if you are attempting to actually simulate reality with the game rather than simulate certain types of stories, things get 'wonky'. Of course, if you want to use rules based on D&D 3.5e to simulate actual reality, there are third party products such as Codex Martialis which do this admirably.

Also, there is a reason we aren't playing 4th edition. The reason is this: Wizards of the Coast realized that D&D 3.5e was laughably, ridiculously unbalanced. However, in their quest to make something manageable, they have reduced the game to only a miniatures tactical combat system where the scope of the sorts of things the characters can do which the actual rules can cover is very, very limited. This is intentional on their part, and is maybe what they had to do to balance the game. Unfortunately, it does greatly limit the sorts of stories that can be easily told with the rules in the system, even if you know your way around it backwards and forwards. This has been mitigated somewhat as 4e went on, but is still somewhat true. This is not the case with 3.5e -- if you know your way around it, you can make anything for any sort of Fantasy story.

Finally, I thought I should make a note about some of the continuations of 3.5e which you might have heard of, such as Pathfinder and it's lesser known cousin Trailblazer. Some folk may have claimed that these fix all of the balance problems in the game. This is not true; what they do is merely continue support for the game, though they do attempt to fix some balance problems that become issues for several groups, but they for the most part ignore the inherent power and versatility differences of the 'legos' themselves, though they have been gradually adding options that allow improvements in the capability of the lower performing classes, much like D&D 3.5e did in it's actual run. They do attempt to make changes so that everyone, especially those very low-optimization level players, has some interesting and fun things to do, and for the most part, they succeed in providing obvious options for lower power gamers. However, you should note that there is at least ONE D20 system which provides the breadth of possible abilities and feel of classes and customizability that 3.5e offers, and large parts of the 'feel' of 3.5e, while keeping balance intact between the classes. This system is Ruleofcool's Legend, and I encourage you to check it out."

[Deathkeeper]

"They're fools! You should eat them!"

No, seriously, if they're content to play low-powered characters, I can't say that you should stop them. But if they seriously think that the fighter's only job is to keep the wizard alive, you do have a bit of a problem. I mean, I fighter's PRIMARY job is to take and give hits to keep the squishier PCs alive, but that's certainly not the only thing they can do. Stuff from ToB is really good at expanding what a martial character can do. I'd encourage them to broaden their horizons a bit, as the expression goes, but you should never force other players into changing their playstyle if they're having fun as it is.

[Alienist]

If you like melee, but play 3.5 ... you're gonna have a bad time.

----

Here's an idea. People are always saying that Druid trumps fighter. Why not take a Druid and turn the melee dial up to 11?

[ThiagoMartell]

If you like melee, but play 3.5 ... you're gonna have a bad time.

:smallconfused:
I know plenty of people that like melee and play 3.5. Heck, I like melee and I play 3.5. I have a lot of fun with it.

[Devmaar]

If you like melee, but play 3.5 ... you're gonna have a bad time.

You can just easily have a great time in 3.5 playing melee as any other role, subject to your personal preferences and the playstyle and attitude of your group.

[Heatwizard]

For the most part, I don't think you'll convince them of anything. People don't go around looking to be told how incorrect they are, and unless your group is looking for a clinical, scholarly debate they'll probably just stick to their guns and assume you're trying to slip one past 'em. It doesn't help that ToB is scary; it features abilities like 'this swing gets +100 damage'. Things that look much more dangerous than they are in practice, especially if you're not fully aware of where real danger comes from.

That said, if you still want to continue, what you want to do is push the comparison away from Warblade vs Fighter - they've accepted the argument that Warblade is better then Fighter, and have decided that's a failing of Warblade, so the longer that association lingers, the worse off you are. The obvious argument that comes to mind is Warblade vs Bard; they're roughly level, and Bard's not scary.

If you wind up back in the ToB vs Fighter/Barbarian back and forth again, your plan B argument is that melee players deserve better. Note how few options to do stuff Fighters actually get, versus the Wizard's untold multitudes of spells. (Don't say a word about how dominating Wizards are/can be. Detailing the Terrible Secret Of Casters is not something you do lightly, and it'll probably just earn you a derogatory label of some kind anyway. Focus on the options they get, their ability to choose stuff and engage in tactics beyond considering where they're standing, and compare it against the fighter's habit of "move, swing again, end turn".) Illustrate, if need be, how damn near impossible it is to actually protect a target when you don't have a bunch of map features and such on your side.

Man, I hope this stuff stays coherent in the morning. I have this fascinating ability to write a Good Post at 4 AM, and then when I fall asleep it suddenly turns into a rambling mess and I feel very embarrassed.

[danzibr]

they ALL have a hard on for the truenamer for SOME ungodly reason.
lulz

I'd suggest having them watch some anime and say, "These are high level fighters. Fighters in D&D can't do this stuff. ToB classes can."

Or maybe not, but hey.

[Rejakor]

Play a charger until they ban leap attack and shock trooper.

Play a Jack B Quick fighter until they ban Robilar's Gambit, Dual Strike, and whatever else.

Play a Druid with Natural Spell until they ban it.

Play a DMM cleric until they ban DMM.

Play a Gish wizard until they ban polymorph. And then until they ban bite of the X, incantatrix, and swiftblade.

Play a DFI bard until the DM bans it.

Play a Sorcerer who specializes in instant kill/super lockdown spells, and make it really obvious that you've won the encounter with your first DC 43 Phantasmal Killer or Cloudkill or Solid Fog + Evard's Black Tentacles by waiving all your turns after you win the fight. When the DM ups the ante on you, focus on personal defence and let the monsters cut the rest of the party to ribbons and then take the blame for the deaths by saying 'sorry guys, I should have taken them all out, I forgot about your AC/saving throws/whatever being so low'.



Then suggest that the answer to all these builds in easy form is in the ToB.

[Morty]

I agree that you probably shouldn't try to force them to like it. If they don't like it, they don't like it. They appear to have a much lower preferred optimization level than you.

[Psyren]

You can try introducing them to it slowly. Say, instead of being a full-on initiator, play a Fighter with some Martial Study/Stance feats. Pick maneuvers that give you cool options rather than just rolling a ton of damage (that won't help convince them ToB isn't broken), and that help the group. For instance, Iron Guard's Glare will get the party on your side quickly, or Douse the Flames to help a teammate retreat, or Wall of Blades against a tougher monster. Avoid the more "magical" maneuvers to start with (e.g. Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit and Shadow Hand) focusing instead on the more mundane yet still cool toys from Iron Heart, Diamond Mind, White Raven and Stone Dragon.

Once they gain an appreciation for your "Fighter with tricks" they should be more amenable to you playing an actual initiator.

[RoyVG]

You can try introducing them to it slowly. Say, instead of being a full-on initiator, play a Fighter with some Martial Study/Stance feats.

^This, basically

Present the options to the players, see if they might be interested. give them one special trick they can pull off every encounter, nothing wrong with that. Martial Study is quite a usefull feat if you knwo which maneuvers to take. Having a 50ft. teleport with only 1 feat at level 6 is pretty dang useful for dungeoncrawling (Shadow Jaunt <3). Have the Rogue become invisible with Cloak of Deception and ta-dah, Sneak attack without flanking. There are hundreds of small things you can do with only 1 Martial Study feat taken at the right level.

My first introduction to this system was basically the same. I took Martial Study and Martial Stance (Foe Hammer and Martial Spirit respectively, Devoted Spirit ftw) and because back then I didn't know really how to 'optimize for damage', I just took things I thought were cool, and because we were missing healing in that group, a little bit of selfsufficiency was always nice.

But the most important part is to have fun at the table, and if they dont want to learn any new mechanics, or feel that it is too strong, you've done all you could. except force it down someone's throat and hope the rest follows

[Menteith]

Here's an idea. People are always saying that Druid trumps fighter. Why not take a Druid and turn the melee dial up to 11?

Because it would risk wrecking a campaign for no real reason?

I'll second the Martial Study suggestions. If they work out, then openly talk about it with your group and see if they're interested in playing a higher power game for the next campaign. Have everyone try out more powerful characters, make sure the DM is comfortable handling everything, and maybe you'll end up in a place where Tome of Battle is the average, instead of high power. If the DM is neutral, and the other players trust you, I think that this is the best solution for your issue.

[Novawurmson]

You can try introducing them to it slowly. Say, instead of being a full-on initiator, play a Fighter with some Martial Study/Stance feats.

Yup. The Rogue in my party loves Island of Blades. It got one of my party members looking at the Swordsage for his next character.

Same thing with any content your players are iffy on; give it to them and to NPCs in small amounts until their interest is piqued.

[Squidfist]

Personally, I think TOB is silly as all hell. That's probably because no one in my entire city uses it. It's pretty well barred from the local comic shops.

Without getting into the whole power-balance deal, I find excluding it is just like excluding Wu-Jen/Samurai/Oriental content. The classes are sorta silly and don't to fit in archetypal fantasy settings a lot of DM's have in mind. I mean, sword sage, what? You're a ninja-fighter. With psychic/magical powers. Pretty cool as a stand alone concept I guess, but I can totally understand why ToB would be disallowed from any campaign.

[Aegis013]

Personally, I think TOB is silly as all hell. That's probably because no one in my entire city uses it. It's pretty well barred from the local comic shops.

Without getting into the whole power-balance deal, I find excluding it is just like excluding Wu-Jen/Samurai/Oriental content. The classes are sorta silly and don't to fit in archetypal fantasy settings a lot of DM's have in mind. I mean, sword sage, what? You're a ninja-fighter. With psychic/magical powers. Pretty cool as a stand alone concept I guess, but I can totally understand why ToB would be disallowed from any campaign.

But you can be almost any gish and still fill the mystical ninja-fighter archetype...
As far as the other two, Crusader and Warblade, fit just as well as Paladin and Fighter respectively, although there's certainly some settings where Paladin and Fighter don't fit, but I've yet to encounter such a thing.

[Tectonic Robot]

Being the only thing I have a clear answer for, have them do a comparison between the fighter and warblade.

HD: Fighter < Warblade
BAB: Fighter = Warblade
Skills: Fighter < Warblade
Class features: Fighter < Warblade
Bonus Feats: Fighter > Warblade
Stances: Fighter < Warblade
Maneuvers: Fighter < Warblade
Magic: ???

Point being, the Warblade is clearly a better fighter than the Fighter. Hell its the fighter should have been. The worst part is that you can use warblade levels to qualify for fighter bonus feats.

Hell at least this way if the wizard in the back turns on everyone and tries to murder the party the Warblade at least has a chance to do something besides sit their and take it.
Aren't they saying the ToB is overpowered compared to the base classes?

They are a low-op group. They are happy in their range of low-power classes, and low-optimization.

Encourage more low-tier classes to be available if you want more variety.

Also. Read them my essay. It is a good essay. It is also a good introduction to the Tier system. You can leave bits out and stuff if you want.

My essay!


"D&D 3.5e is a very...interesting game system. At it's heart, it is a game which started with several assumptions: that fantastically wealthy, violent hobo land pirates go underground to the unrealistically-laid-out homes of things that look different than them, kick down the doors to these homes, kill the inhabitants, and take their stuff. Then they go back to town, sell most of the stuff, keep the useful bits, buy things that help them go to newer and different places where things that look MORE different then they, kill them, take their stuff, et cetera. It is a game where the stalwart fighter stands in the front and swings his sword, the rogue looks for and disables traps, or perhaps sneaks around to stab bad things with a dagger, the Wizard stands in the back and blasts things, and the Cleric keeps all of them healed while doing this. This is the 'heart' of the game because that was how the game was played in the past, in the editions before 3.5e, often because it was a competitive, team event played at tournaments where people wargame for points, and there is a single team which is the winner. Further, you might not know the people on your team, having just met them five minutes ago at a convention, and so everyone played a simple role that was easy to understand and pick up and go, and in the old rules, was actually generally a fairly solid way to get through modules in a short amount of time. This is also where the idea of an adversarial GM that is trying to kill the player characters comes from. Every assumption that is 'weird' or arbitrary in the game stems from things inherited from this idea (or similar ideas from 'back then') regarding how the old games used to work.

However, that's not often how the game is *played* these days, and for the most part, we aren't interested in playing that particular legacy game with it. It has been quite some time since 3.5e books started coming out, and people have had lots of time to look at them and think about them and tinker with them and figure things out. They've come up with several interesting conclusions. Namely, that if you look at the toolset represented by all these books, you essentially have a fantastic array of lego pieces to make characters to tell any sort of fantasy story you want, because Wizards of the Coast tried to be inclusive of a huge variety of fantasy gaming styles in their rules. People have also figured out that there is a dramatic and huge variation in the power level of the 'lego pieces' -- that is the classes and options tied to them -- when you start doing things with them other than the old edition legacy assumptions. So given that, the question is this: what sort of story do you want to tell with your characters, and what power level and complexity level do you want in the rules? Do you want to be people altering the fabric of reality to fit their very whims, or the gritty soldier for whom permanent death is a real possibility in any fight -- in other words, something lower power level like Lord of the Rings, or the wuxia swordsman who is somewhere in between the two examples? Any sort of Fantasy story is a possibility, but you have to know what you want, first!

Of course, just because anything is possible, doesn't mean that there isn't something close to a consensus amongst experts as to what the system is best at. What they say is something along these lines: the system is best for fantastic characters, fantasy superheroes of some sort (but not silver age uber-superheroes though), doing crazy, incredible things to the world around them, things which are overtly superhuman and heroic. While 3.5e is capable of much lower power and grittier things, it really starts to shine when you accept the power level of 'everyone has superpowers of some sort', provided you make choices of the correct legos appropriate to that power level. This is the case especially because of, if you are attempting to actually simulate reality with the game rather than simulate certain types of stories, things get 'wonky'. Of course, if you want to use rules based on D&D 3.5e to simulate actual reality, there are third party products such as Codex Martialis which do this admirably.

Also, there is a reason we aren't playing 4th edition. The reason is this: Wizards of the Coast realized that D&D 3.5e was laughably, ridiculously unbalanced. However, in their quest to make something manageable, they have reduced the game to only a miniatures tactical combat system where the scope of the sorts of things the characters can do which the actual rules can cover is very, very limited. This is intentional on their part, and is maybe what they had to do to balance the game. Unfortunately, it does greatly limit the sorts of stories that can be easily told with the rules in the system, even if you know your way around it backwards and forwards. This has been mitigated somewhat as 4e went on, but is still somewhat true. This is not the case with 3.5e -- if you know your way around it, you can make anything for any sort of Fantasy story.

Finally, I thought I should make a note about some of the continuations of 3.5e which you might have heard of, such as Pathfinder and it's lesser known cousin Trailblazer. Some folk may have claimed that these fix all of the balance problems in the game. This is not true; what they do is merely continue support for the game, though they do attempt to fix some balance problems that become issues for several groups, but they for the most part ignore the inherent power and versatility differences of the 'legos' themselves, though they have been gradually adding options that allow improvements in the capability of the lower performing classes, much like D&D 3.5e did in it's actual run. They do attempt to make changes so that everyone, especially those very low-optimization level players, has some interesting and fun things to do, and for the most part, they succeed in providing obvious options for lower power gamers. However, you should note that there is at least ONE D20 system which provides the breadth of possible abilities and feel of classes and customizability that 3.5e offers, and large parts of the 'feel' of 3.5e, while keeping balance intact between the classes. This system is Ruleofcool's Legend, and I encourage you to check it out."

That's a very nice essay! And yeah, if they don't want to play optimized, let them not play optimized.

Play a charger until they ban leap attack and shock trooper.

Play a Jack B Quick fighter until they ban Robilar's Gambit, Dual Strike, and whatever else.

Play a Druid with Natural Spell until they ban it.

Play a DMM cleric until they ban DMM.

Play a Gish wizard until they ban polymorph. And then until they ban bite of the X, incantatrix, and swiftblade.

Play a DFI bard until the DM bans it.

Play a Sorcerer who specializes in instant kill/super lockdown spells, and make it really obvious that you've won the encounter with your first DC 43 Phantasmal Killer or Cloudkill or Solid Fog + Evard's Black Tentacles by waiving all your turns after you win the fight. When the DM ups the ante on you, focus on personal defence and let the monsters cut the rest of the party to ribbons and then take the blame for the deaths by saying 'sorry guys, I should have taken them all out, I forgot about your AC/saving throws/whatever being so low'.



Then suggest that the answer to all these builds in easy form is in the ToB.
Sounds kind of jerkish to me. I don't think one should ruin everyone elses fun just to get a point across.

Because it would risk wrecking a campaign for no real reason?

I'll second the Martial Study suggestions. If they work out, then openly talk about it with your group and see if they're interested in playing a higher power game for the next campaign. Have everyone try out more powerful characters, make sure the DM is comfortable handling everything, and maybe you'll end up in a place where Tome of Battle is the average, instead of high power. If the DM is neutral, and the other players trust you, I think that this is the best solution for your issue.

This sounds pretty good, too.

[Squidfist]

But you can be almost any gish and still fill the mystical ninja-fighter archetype...
As far as the other two, Crusader and Warblade, fit just as well as Paladin and Fighter respectively, although there's certainly some settings where Paladin and Fighter don't fit, but I've yet to encounter such a thing.

Not really. A battle sorcerer or even dusk blade handle that build in a far more sensible way, imo-- Armored caster who will hit you with a beat stick. Nothing too crazy there. You will be worse at regular ass attacks than the barb (and have less longevity), and you'll be a worse caster than the wizard. Sword sages wear no armor, get 6 fuggin skill points, and are versatile as all hell, which I personally think takes away from the current idea of a "gishy character" who I feel should be extremely specialized, and somewhat limited.

Once again, this is all about flavor. So opinion, really.

[Gavinfoxx]

"Yes, Tome of Battle is more powerful than Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Paladin. So? It is weaker than Druid, Cleric, Wizard. The thing is, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, and Paladin are really really underpowered classes. It is solidly in the middle ground of potential power level of classes. What it does is raise the minimum floor of competency for the classes it contains; the classes are at roughly the same potential power level as Bard, but are harder to mess up."

Then show them the Tier list.

[eggs]

The best luck I've had on selling other people on using ToB has been DMing a game that strongly encouraged ToB/psionics as its basic classes.

If you're trying to pitch the classes as fun and still balanced enough not to break the game on contact, getting them to play Warblades, etc. is probably the easiest way. Just be sure not to let them breeze through encounters - throw in the occasional encounter to make them aware of the classes' deficiencies with things like flying/incorporeal/otherwise difficult-to-affect enemies, battlefield control effects and creatures/tactics that can out-spam the initiators' defenses (eg. if the Warblade shrugs off an attack or will save with Wall of Blades or MoPM, hit them in the same defense by the next round at latest).

[kitcik]

Just make a warblade NPC and see what happens.

[pwykersotz]

"Yes, Tome of Battle is more powerful than Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Paladin. So? It is weaker than Druid, Cleric, Wizard. The thing is, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, and Paladin are really really underpowered classes. It is solidly in the middle ground of potential power level of classes. What it does is raise the minimum floor of competency for the classes it contains; the classes are at roughly the same potential power level as Bard, but are harder to mess up."

Then show them the Tier list.

Yeah, but that's the problem. A lot of people I game with dislike ToB too, but it's because it trivializes the Fighter, Monk, Barbarian, etc. They aren't comparing it to casters, they're comparing it to melee. It would be like Wizards being trivialized because a new class came out that was a Wizard++. Why would you ever play a full caster besides that one? What does that mean for your Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Psion who you put all that love and effort into? It feels like you've been cheated.

Now, that is not my opinion, just that of some gamers who have complained to me, but I can understand where people who dislike ToB come from. Perhaps it makes no sense from a total game balance perspective, but from a purely melee perspective it fits. If it were a "fix" for melee, maybe they should have upgraded the melee system as a whole and not released super classes for it.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Personally, I think TOB is silly as all hell. That's probably because no one in my entire city uses it. It's pretty well barred from the local comic shops.

Without getting into the whole power-balance deal, I find excluding it is just like excluding Wu-Jen/Samurai/Oriental content. The classes are sorta silly and don't to fit in archetypal fantasy settings a lot of DM's have in mind. I mean, sword sage, what? You're a ninja-fighter. With psychic/magical powers. Pretty cool as a stand alone concept I guess, but I can totally understand why ToB would be disallowed from any campaign.

One thing to note is that even in western texts, different styles and attacks had incredibly flower names. In German swordfighting, there's the Vom Tag (from day) strike with a zweihander. Look to French and Italian fencing styles and you could pull up even more elaborate maneuvers.

[ahenobarbi]

Yeah, but that's the problem. A lot of people I game with dislike ToB too, but it's because it trivializes the Fighter, Monk, Barbarian, etc.

If that's the case (and it bothers you) couldn't you simply show them that the classes are already trivialized (Cleric + Divine Powah)?

[pwykersotz]

If that's the case (and it bothers you) couldn't you simply show them that the classes are already trivialized (Cleric + Divine Powah)?

Not really, because they have a different view of the game. Kind of like the OP's group, they have their own style and their own ideas about what is good and what isn't. It's probably because of the GM, who is well practiced (30+ years) at destroying player characters whenever he wants without making it feel like he's being a jerk. There's a very laid back and relaxed 'que sera, sera' sort of vibe going on, making higher numbers feel a bit useless.

With that being the case, ToB comes along and explicitly uses higher numbers to trivialize the 'intended roll' of the other melee classes, and they just laugh and say no.

It doesn't really bother me though. I play an Erudite in that game.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

If that's the case (and it bothers you) couldn't you simply show them that the classes are already trivialized (Cleric + Divine Powah)?

This is one thing that bugs me, but multiclassing is your friend with ToB! You need not go Caster Edition on people to show how the core classes are still useful, albeit in a much narrower design, level wise.

Also, this gets thrown out a lot, but Fighter 2-4/Warblade Y is still rather viable. The fighter levels get you feats that would otherwise take an extra 3 to 6 levels to gain while the Warblade is there to give you actual defenses outside of "I full-attack the monster again."

Barbarian works in the same vein as Fighter for Warblades, and you could dip into Paladin to help "fix" the timing issues on Crusader's and their stance progression.

Swordsage is probably the strongest for out-and-out replacement in regards to rogues (heavy Shadow Hand focus) and Monks (Unarmed ACF/Setting Sun focus). You could probably justify starting off with Rogue or Monk 2 for evasion and either trapfinding or bonus feats, respectively, though.

[Rubik]

Not really, because they have a different view of the game. Kind of like the OP's group, they have their own style and their own ideas about what is good and what isn't. It's probably because of the GM, who is well practiced (30+ years) at destroying player characters whenever he wants without making it feel like he's being a jerk. There's a very laid back and relaxed 'que sera, sera' sort of vibe going on, making higher numbers feel a bit useless.

With that being the case, ToB comes along and explicitly uses higher numbers to trivialize the 'intended roll' of the other melee classes, and they just laugh and say no.

It doesn't really bother me though. I play an Erudite in that game.This is explicitly wrong. A decently optimized Fighter or barbarian gets higher numbers than anything in ToB.

What ToB does is give options. All a fighter or barbarian can do is move and hit. A monk can't even do that. Everything in ToB grants so much more than that it's not even funny.

[ahenobarbi]

Not really, because they have a different view of the game. Kind of like the OP's group, they have their own style and their own ideas about what is good and what isn't. It's probably because of the GM, who is well practiced (30+ years) at destroying player characters whenever he wants without making it feel like he's being a jerk. There's a very laid back and relaxed 'que sera, sera' sort of vibe going on, making higher numbers feel a bit useless.

With that being the case, ToB comes along and explicitly uses higher numbers to trivialize the 'intended roll' of the other melee classes, and they just laugh and say no.

It doesn't really bother me though. I play an Erudite in that game.

Well I didn't bother to get accepted ToB in my group because I play cleric, so I understand :smallbiggrin:


This is one thing that bugs me, but multiclassing is your friend with ToB! You need not go Caster Edition on people to show how the core classes are still useful, albeit in a much narrower design, level wise.

Also, this gets thrown out a lot, but Fighter 2-4/Warblade Y is still rather viable. The fighter levels get you feats that would otherwise take an extra 3 to 6 levels to gain while the Warblade is there to give you actual defenses outside of "I full-attack the monster again."

Barbarian works in the same vein as Fighter for Warblades, and you could dip into Paladin to help "fix" the timing issues on Crusader's and their stance progression.

Swordsage is probably the strongest for out-and-out replacement in regards to rogues (heavy Shadow Hand focus) and Monks (Unarmed ACF/Setting Sun focus). You could probably justify starting off with Rogue or Monk 2 for evasion and either trapfinding or bonus feats, respectively, though.

Are you saying "PHB melee classes are good for dipping" :smallconfused:

[pyromanser244]

Not really. A battle sorcerer or even dusk blade handle that build in a far more sensible way, imo-- Armored caster who will hit you with a beat stick. Nothing too crazy there. You will be worse at regular ass attacks than the barb (and have less longevity), and you'll be a worse caster than the wizard. Sword sages wear no armor, get 6 fuggin skill points, and are versatile as all hell, which I personally think takes away from the current idea of a "gishy character" who I feel should be extremely specialized, and somewhat limited.

Once again, this is all about flavor. So opinion, really.

I'm sorry what are you on about?:smallconfused:

spells aren't the only valid things in the game. we've got SLAs, supernatural abilities, and extraordinary abilities as well. are they "too much"? we've got giant lizards that can spit fire, ice, lightning, and paralysis with no physically justifiable reason but a guy pulling off pseudo magic is too much?

the worlds of D&D are similar to ours in many respects, but they all differ from ours in that they have magic. and if the inhabitants of these worlds are learning to use magic, then why wouldn't their fighter types eventually get their own brand of magic?

I'm trying to not be mean but this just makes no sense.

[Psyren]

Yeah, but that's the problem. A lot of people I game with dislike ToB too, but it's because it trivializes the Fighter, Monk, Barbarian, etc. They aren't comparing it to casters, they're comparing it to melee. It would be like Wizards being trivialized because a new class came out that was a Wizard++. Why would you ever play a full caster besides that one? What does that mean for your Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Psion who you put all that love and effort into? It feels like you've been cheated.

That's the fault of the core melee being weak, not of ToB being strong. Remember that no matter what classes the designers actually make, we always have an appropriate yardstick for judging them all objectively - CR-appropriate encounters. An Alchemist may be weaker than a Wizard, but they can both deal with a dragon that someone of their level should be able to deal with. So using your example - it would be like if the Alchemist was made first and then the Wizard was made in a splatbook - obviously everyone would agree that the Wizard was stronger in most situations, but since the Alchemist is perfectly capable on his own it wouldn't be a big deal.

The phenomenon you observe, where people are willing to dump Fighter in favor of Warblade/Monk in favor of Unarmed Swordsage etc., - tends to only be realized below T3, possibly even only below T4. It is only at that point that classes need extra help (whether from the DM or their party) to effectively contribute to challenges that more powerful classes don't.

Now, that is not my opinion, just that of some gamers who have complained to me, but I can understand where people who dislike ToB come from. Perhaps it makes no sense from a total game balance perspective, but from a purely melee perspective it fits. If it were a "fix" for melee, maybe they should have upgraded the melee system as a whole and not released super classes for it.[/QUOTE]

[Talionis]

Well, I would agree that you should attempt to get all your characters at roughly the same power level so that everyone feels like they contribute.

If ToB is too strong for your group, maybe you don't want to play ToB.

My suggestion is to do what I have done at some of my early games with ToB, give your melee classes a one level dip and see if it makes the characters they already have more interesting. This worked for my play group. The Rogue, Paladin, and Barbarian all felt a lot stronger, but they still felt like a Rogue, Paladin and Barbarian. The dip didn't change their real class, it just provided more options.

I love ToB. I think it brings melee to an optimization level that is fun granting several options closer to casters spell list. Generally speaking larger options from ToB makes playing a melee class more fun to me.

A fighter charger can do more damage than any ToB maneuver, but they spend several feats to get to that level of damage and they don't have any other tricks up their sleeve.

Melee should not be boring.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Are you saying "PHB melee classes are good for dipping" :smallconfused:

Very much so. Some may call it a "dang dirty munchkin" move, but they still have their use, largely because of how they still add .5*IL per level. This is especially true for Crusaders, due to the designers mucking up the levels when they gain a new stance compared to the levels where stances actually show up.

Looking at Devoted Spirit's list, for example, you have Thicket of Blades at 3rd level (IL 5) then a large gap to your alignment-based stances at 6th (IL 11). To get these, you'd have to spend a feat to get Thicket of Blades online at 6th level (earliest single classing), dip into another class for 2 levels to gain an extra 1 IL and slowing the stance progression down (also 6th level), or wait until 8th level to gain it "naturally" without feats. The various alignment based ones at 6th level won't come online until Crusader 14 unless you take Martial Stance as a 12th level feat, but that both excludes you from taking Martial Stance at 6th and prevents you from ever gaining Immortal Fortitude when it shows up at IL 15.

Jumping into Eternal Blade or any of the other Initiator prestige classes could solve the problem, too, but that both requires finagling when you take those PrC levels to fix a problem inherent in the base class's progression.:smallsigh:

Comparatively, you could start with 2 levels in Fighter for extra feats (say, Power Attack at 1st level and Martial Study [some non-Crusader school maneuver at 2nd level) to help match the stances gained with crusader levels to when new stance-levels show up, IL-wise. Paladin 4 is another option for adding some more holy fire power with Turn Undead and the various [divine] feats that the class feature fuels.

Then there's the Song of the White Raven Bard/Warblade or Bard/Crusader options on top of all of the above.

The core mundane classes may be underpowered past about level 5 (save for highly optimized damage output via Power Attack and friends), but their various abilities are still something to consider for the ToB 3.

[Darius Kane]

I find excluding it is just like excluding Wu-Jen/Samurai/Oriental content.
What about Monk?

[Morbis Meh]

With all honesty, the ToB isn't for everyone, I personally adore it because I now and always lived in the 'Melee deserve nice things' camp. With that said, I have shown it to many people and they too have grown to love it. Honestly if they're having issues with fluff then that's a very easy issue to fix because you can make the fluff whatever you want. Heck, every western sword style has it's own school and combat maneuvers that they use so why not interegrate it?

If they're uncomfortable with high optimization then that's fine, everyone will have their own playstyle and should be respected for it. I have only one friend who greatly dislikes the ToB because it trivializes the fighter completely (though in my opinion his argument is null because he likes to play optimized casters). He also is of the opinion that the Warblade gets 'everything': Full BAB (not very important late game), Good fort saves, bonus to ref (not important), a maneuver tha swaps his sad will save for a much better concetration check (this is good but you are limited in its use), he can wear armor (I really scratched my head at this because AC becomes pointless at higher levels) and other maneuvers. In truth yes a Warblade get much more than a fighter and that just bothers people, I personally don't mind because all you need is an eraser to fix the problem (erase warblade and write fighter).

If you want the group to play it then use the slow and steady approach via feats and dipping like many have already suggested. If you make OP'd casters and ToB characters you will only annoy your fellow group and your DM.

[Rejakor]

I'm sorry what are you on about?:smallconfused:

spells aren't the only valid things in the game. we've got SLAs, supernatural abilities, and extraordinary abilities as well. are they "too much"? we've got giant lizards that can spit fire, ice, lightning, and paralysis with no physically justifiable reason but a guy pulling off pseudo magic is too much?

the worlds of D&D are similar to ours in many respects, but they all differ from ours in that they have magic. and if the inhabitants of these worlds are learning to use magic, then why wouldn't their fighter types eventually get their own brand of magic?

I'm trying to not be mean but this just makes no sense.

This is essentially why I can't deal with the 'fighters are meant to be normal but wizards can win forever cause THEY ARE MAGIC DURR' crowd. Evolution says hi.

[kitcik]

Well, I would agree that you should attempt to get all your characters at roughly the same power level so that everyone feels like they contribute.

If ToB is too strong for your group, maybe you don't want to play ToB.

My suggestion is to do what I have done at some of my early games with ToB, give your melee classes a one level dip and see if it makes the characters they already have more interesting. This worked for my play group. The Rogue, Paladin, and Barbarian all felt a lot stronger, but they still felt like a Rogue, Paladin and Barbarian. The dip didn't change their real class, it just provided more options.

I love ToB. I think it brings melee to an optimization level that is fun granting several options closer to casters spell list. Generally speaking larger options from ToB makes playing a melee class more fun to me.

A fighter charger can do more damage than any ToB maneuver, but they spend several feats to get to that level of damage and they don't have any other tricks up their sleeve.

Melee should not be boring.

Building on this - let them meet a warblade (you don't even have to say what(s)he is) who offers to give them some free training - and let them gestalt warblade with their melee class for one level.

[Libertad]

To the OP:

Lots of people already described why the Tome of Battle's not overpowered.

I am more concerned about the idea that the "Fighter" classes solely consist of keeping spellcasters alive, meaning that your Fighters have to serve the whims of the spellcaster players.

This comes off as mean and selfish, especially if the people making the arguments the spellcasters in the party.

[Terazul]

You will be worse at regular ass attacks than the barb (and have less longevity), and you'll be a worse caster than the wizard. Sword sages wear no armor, get 6 fuggin skill points, and are versatile as all hell, which I personally think takes away from the current idea of a "gishy character" who I feel should be extremely specialized, and somewhat limited.


The class with an AC bonus that explicitly only works in light armor doesn't wear armor? :smallconfused:

[ThiagoMartell]

Man, I was so very proud the playground seemed to accept different playstyles.
Then page 2 came along.

[LordBlades]

Not really. A battle sorcerer or even dusk blade handle that build in a far more sensible way, imo-- Armored caster who will hit you with a beat stick.

No offense, but have you ever seen a good gish (aka armored caster who hits you with a beat stick)?


Nothing too crazy there. You will be worse at regular ass attacks than the barb (and have less longevity), and you'll be a worse caster than the wizard.

Wraithstrike, Polymorph, Mirror Image, Displacement and a ton of other buffs want a word with you. A decent gish blows any non caster out of the water surivability-wise, and can still dish out enough damage to one-shot stuff(at much higher chances to hit).
Yes, you are a worse caster than wizard, but you're more than enough caster to solo most CR approporiate encounters.



Sword sages wear no armor, get 6 fuggin skill points, and are versatile as all hell, which I personally think takes away from the current idea of a "gishy character" who I feel should be extremely specialized, and somewhat limited.

2+int sp/level are a symptom of early 3.5 I'm AFB atm but I think all classes made past a certain point had 4+int or better. Also, the swordsage might have 6 sp, but is mainly Wis focused, whereas most gishes (apart from sorc builds) are Int focused and also posses a ton of spells that make skill use redundant.

Regarding versatility, even battle sorcs have more spells than martial adepts have maneuvers, and there are spells like Polymorph or Planar Binding who alone are more versatile than the whole ToB.

I really don't get why so many ppl see magic(aka break any rule of reality because I feel like it) as 'normal', but frown at the sight of other, less magical subsystems (ToB, Incarnum, Bindiers etc.)

[Remmirath]

Actually being afraid of the book would of course be silly, but it sounds more like you think everyone should use it and they don't really want to. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to use a particular book. Of course, I don't see any reason why if you want to play a class from it they should have a problem with that. If your group is otherwise happy, you should probably not try to convince them to do something different (although if you really want to play a specific class, you might try to convince them to let you play it).

Also, if your rogue is doing more damage than the other guy's fighter, chances are that no matter what class he plays his character will not be very good. Try teaching him how to build a decent fighter first if you're concerned about his characters' lack of optimisation or usefulness.


Then show them the Tier list.

And explain to them that it is based on versatility, not power. They are two different things. They may not actually be looking for versatility, in which case they will not care about it. Or they may be, in which case it will help your argument.


One thing to note is that even in western texts, different styles and attacks had incredibly flower names. In German swordfighting, there's the Vom Tag (from day) strike with a zweihander. Look to French and Italian fencing styles and you could pull up even more elaborate maneuvers.

This is true, but those are mostly variations on basic strikes - I think it is assumed that every time you attack, you are using an appropriate maneuver, because nobody would just use the same cut over and over again no matter what.

Personally, I think that a melee system that actually took everything in fighting into account would be cumbersome in D&D (though possibly interesting in a different system). You would have to know what your opponent was doing to you, decide how to block it and what to retaliate with, et cetera. It would drag, compared to other classes who would not have to go over exactly what gestures they are making for the spells and what words they are saying. I don't like the oversimplification of maneuvers either, and the way they are done feels to me odd and a bit magical, and so I just go with normal old fighters and barbarians and paladins which work just fine for what I want to do with them.


This is explicitly wrong. A decently optimized Fighter or barbarian gets higher numbers than anything in ToB.

What ToB does is give options. All a fighter or barbarian can do is move and hit. A monk can't even do that. Everything in ToB grants so much more than that it's not even funny.

Yes. Exactly. It's really a different thing. Nobody, I would think, will argue that Tome of Battle classes have more options than fighters. Fighters and barbarians get more power; the Tome of Battle classes get more versatility. It is a question of which way you enjoy playing the game and what you want to do with playing a fighting class, and neither way is better.


I really don't get why so many ppl see magic(aka break any rule of reality because I feel like it) as 'normal', but frown at the sight of other, less magical subsystems (ToB, Incarnum, Bindiers etc.)

I don't think it's so much that they frown at the subsystems simply because they are magical, but because that's not what they want out of them. Speaking for myself, I've no inherent problem with any of them - but when I play a fighter, I specifically want to play a non-magical melee class, and the Tome of Battle classes don't feel that way any more to me.

Again, there's nothing wrong with Tome of Battle. It's great for those who enjoy that style of play. However, if your group doesn't, then they don't. If they are unsure, perhaps you could arrange a very short one-shot sort of session for them to try it out and see if they like it? And, if the DM doesn't want to deal with it, that's up to him. He presumably has his reasons.

[huttj509]

Here's the thing. There are good reasons ToB content won't fit some groups, such as the floor power level being significantly above the level the rest of the group plays at (whether they realize that's what they're doing or not).

There are also some 'not so good' reasons to think ToB content won't work. These include things like global statements of power level (ToB is not OP, but it may be too powerful for where the group's playing), assumptions that every class is as magical as the Swordsage, and such.

A lot of the vehemence about the ToB I see generally gets sparked when someone makes a specific statement, and it gets interpreted as global, or makes a global statement when they mean something more specific. "Swordsage is too magical" vs. "ToB is too magical," as an example.

After that, it often turns into people thinking they need to defend their preference from absolute statements "ToB should always be available" or "ToB should never be available."

Now, ToB can add a lot of great options for melee characters, which many feel melee characters sorely need. The content does not fit in every game, but it can probably fit well in more games than some may think (scratch out the Swordsage, or just look at the Warblade, and see if your issues with flavor and such still apply, for example).

The Swordsage is generally considered an analogue to the monk, who is already an eastern-inspired mystical class. Part of the issue there is that the Swordsage also fills a similar archetype to the rogue, but does so by emphasizing the "ninja" parts of the archetype. It really doesn't fill in for the rogue archetype as well as it does for the monk. The Swordsage is EASILY the most prominent class in terms of magical effects, flashy names, "Anime" (I hate that descriptor, useless to anime fans who know the variety), or Wuxia feel. Many of the complaints I've seen about the flavor of ToB seem to only be talking about the Swordsage, or Swordsage specific schools. Not all, but many of them.

Crusader is a defensive class with some magical healing-type abilities. Sounds like the paladin archetype. Nothing stands out as overly separate from the Paladin idea in-game, last I saw. (Edit: I'll admit to not being all that familiar with the crusader specific schools, as it's not my preferred archetype)

Warblade is the generic warrior type. With choice of schools, you can make a Warblade who has great internal fortitude, allowing him to shrug off even magical effects at times ("BY CROM!"). You can also make an inspiring tactical leader, helping maneuver his allies by spotting openings and opportunities. Or you can go for the wild crazy dual wielding barbarian who literally scales his large foes to strike them in the face, leaping off before unleashing a blood-curdling yell.

[Alienist]

Maybe they don't like ToB because it is too much like 4th edition? The designers state explicitly that they were testing out the mechanics for what became 4th eds encounter powers and at-will powers.

[Rubik]

Maybe they don't like ToB because it is too much like 4th edition? The designers state explicitly that they were testing out the mechanics for what became 4th eds encounter powers and at-will powers.Except it really isn't anything like 4th edition.

[LordBlades]

Speaking for myself, I've no inherent problem with any of them - but when I play a fighter, I specifically want to play a non-magical melee class, and the Tome of Battle classes don't feel that way any more to me.



Just out of curiosity: what exactly in the warblade do you see as unfitting for a non-magical melee class?

[nyjastul69]

I introduced ToB to my group through scripts. No one had to multi-class and no books were hurt in the process. They are now considering multi-classing or 'feating' into ToB classes. It could work for you too.

[Alienist]

Except it really isn't anything like 4th edition.

You're right, except that the guys who designed it say that it is.

I've always found it deeply ironic how the staunchest defenders of 3.5, who loathe and despise 4th ed with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, love ToB yet are in complete denial over how it is a beta version of 4th ed.

If I sat down with a group of new players and talked about what they wanted to do, and they said they wanted to heroically whack things with swords, I'd poimt them at 4th ed. If they said they wanted to blow **** up and/or achieve ultimate magical power, I'd steer them towards 3.5

[lord_khaine]

You're right, except that the guys who designed it say that it is.

Yeah, because the designers at WotC are known for actualy having any idea whatsoever about what they are doing..... :smallamused:


I've always found it deeply ironic how the staunchest defenders of 3.5, who loathe and despise 4th ed with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, love ToB yet are in complete denial over how it is a beta version of 4th ed.

Thats quite simple, its because ToB with the load of build options it brings is the bright and shinning symbol of whats best in 3.5.
Unfortunately in the creation of 4th they then managet to miss the part about having meaningfull options, and instead created the railroad system known as 4th edition.

[ThiagoMartell]

Yeah, because the designers at WotC are known for actualy having any idea whatsoever about what they are doing..... :smallamused:
Man, I'm so sick and tired of so many people bashing the designers for no reason.
Yes, they knew what they were doing. Just because after 10 years looking at stuff they did some people noticed some inconsistencies, mistakes and power discrepancies it does not mean in any way that they 'did not know what they were doing'. That is nonsense! Their intent was creating a commercially successful fun game. They succeeded.

[lord_khaine]

Man, I'm so sick and tired of so many people bashing the designers for no reason.
Yes, they knew what they were doing. Just because after 10 years looking at stuff they did some people noticed some inconsistencies, mistakes and power discrepancies it does not mean in any way that they 'did not know what they were doing'. That is nonsense! Their intent was creating a commercially successful fun game. They succeeded.

But im not bashing them for no reason, im bashing them because the completely and utterly failed at maintaining even the illusion of class balance, and as a counter-argument to why we should assign any special weight to the word of an unknown designer like Alienist want to.
Ohh, thats 2 reasons, guess there isnt a problem here then.

And no, they either didnt know or didnt care, but the stuff im bashing them for is not the clever TO tricks that people with to much creativity came up with, but the simpler things people noticed almost as soon as they got their hands on a new book.

[eggs]

But im not bashing them for no reason, im bashing them because the completely and utterly failed at maintaining even the illusion of class balance, and as a counter-argument to why we should assign any special weight to the word of an unknown designer like Alienist want to.
The fact that people, yourself included, have taken stances like "Monk trounces casters" or "Monk is a viable frontliner" kind of undermines the notion that there's not even an illusion of class balance.

[Menteith]

Man, I'm so sick and tired of so many people bashing the designers for no reason.
Yes, they knew what they were doing. Just because after 10 years looking at stuff they did some people noticed some inconsistencies, mistakes and power discrepancies it does not mean in any way that they 'did not know what they were doing'. That is nonsense! Their intent was creating a commercially successful fun game. They succeeded.

This, basically. Here's a dirty little secret - most groups that I've seen or heard about don't have any balance issues, outside of someone looking up a named build and using it in their low op group. Sometimes it comes up when someone discovers a trick the DM hadn't considered, but those incidents are relatively easy to deal with. My two favorite classes are Paladin and Monk, and my group is mid-op. A balanced game isn't the pinnacle of game design - the good part of 3.5 is its ability to be played by just about every group, from the very low power to the borderline TO games.

@ Alienist - I actually like 4E just fine, I simply like it less than 3.5E. I would have loved to have seen a big further update to 4E instead of D&D Next. Additionally, even though ToB classes are similar to 4E classes, it's just a single facet of character's available in 3.5; instead of being what many characters look like, it's just one option among many.

@ OP - Seriously, this is something you should be talking about with your group openly. Just say "I really, really want to play a class from Tome of Battle. I agree that they're more powerful than the melee classes in the PHB - if everyone got a power boost, would it be ok for me to run a ToB class?" Whether its through gestalt, higher point buys, bonus feats, or something else entirely (like having them run inherently more powerful classes), it's not that hard to give a power boost to other classes. Your group is absolutely right that ToB classes are heads and shoulders above non-oped PHB melee, and it's entirely possible that they're right, and ToB classes would be too powerful for the games you guys run. Just because a T1 from the PHB can be optimized to an insane degree doesn't mean that it's actually happening in your group, and a ToB class may be way over the power level for you guys. Alternately, try out Martial Study, and letting them and you see maneuvers in action - if you're able to use Maneuvers in your game without being overly disruptive, then start to consider asking to use a ToB class, as maneuvers are their most powerful class features.

[The Succubus]

I'm afraid of my Tome of Battle. I dropped it on top of an absolutely massive spider and I can still hear scratching sounds coming from underneath it. :smalleek:

[Starbuck_II]

You're right, except that the guys who designed it say that it is.


Then the designers are delusional:
a. ToB classes can regain their Encounter battles in the same encounter at 1st level!
Can 4E do that? No.

b. ToB classes largely are devoid of Daily powers.
Can 4E do that (Essential classes can I guess).

c. ToB classes have no at will active abilities (yes Crusader has a passive one that buffs him when he takes damage, but no active ones)
Can 4E do that? No.

So 4E was not started even close to ToB, but eventually Slayer, Thief, etc Essential classes are similar.

So it took 4E a long time to even be close to ToB in design, strangely 4E built backwards to ToB.

[2xMachina]

Man, I'm so sick and tired of so many people bashing the designers for no reason.
Yes, they knew what they were doing. Just because after 10 years looking at stuff they did some people noticed some inconsistencies, mistakes and power discrepancies it does not mean in any way that they 'did not know what they were doing'. That is nonsense! Their intent was creating a commercially successful fun game. They succeeded.

I'm pretty sure I saw quite a few articles from the devs that read like they're Trolling us. Except they really believe it. Or are the best troll ever.

[LordBlades]

I'm pretty sure I saw quite a few articles from the devs that read like they're Trolling us. Except they really believe it. Or are the best troll ever.

Pretty much.

Take this (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html) for example. I don't think a guy who rates Weapon Focus higher than Spell Focus and as high as Power Attack or Natural Spell lower than Animal Affinity of Acrobatic deserves the credit of assuming he knows what he's doing as far as mechanics and relative power level goes.

3.5 designers might have succeeded in designing a game that sold well, but quite a few of them demonstrated a startling lack of understanding regarding how the mechanics they designed actually work in practice.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Pretty much.

Take this (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html) for example. I don't think a guy who rates Weapon Focus higher than Spell Focus and as high as Power Attack or Natural Spell lower than Animal Affinity of Acrobatic deserves the credit of assuming he knows what he's doing as far as mechanics and relative power level goes.

Probably the worst part is that Leadership is rated less than Great Fortitude and co. Or any of his ratings on metamagic feats. Oi.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just out of curiosity: what exactly in the warblade do you see as unfitting for a non-magical melee class?

Not to put words in his mouth, but I think what he was saying is that martial adepts have too similar a mechanical feel to casters, not that they feel too similar fluff wise or too magical.

[Squidfist]

No offense, but have you ever seen a good gish (aka armored caster who hits you with a beat stick)?



Wraithstrike, Polymorph, Mirror Image, Displacement and a ton of other buffs want a word with you. A decent gish blows any non caster out of the water surivability-wise, and can still dish out enough damage to one-shot stuff(at much higher chances to hit).
Yes, you are a worse caster than wizard, but you're more than enough caster to solo most CR approporiate encounters.




2+int sp/level are a symptom of early 3.5 I'm AFB atm but I think all classes made past a certain point had 4+int or better. Also, the swordsage might have 6 sp, but is mainly Wis focused, whereas most gishes (apart from sorc builds) are Int focused and also posses a ton of spells that make skill use redundant.

Regarding versatility, even battle sorcs have more spells than martial adepts have maneuvers, and there are spells like Polymorph or Planar Binding who alone are more versatile than the whole ToB.

I really don't get why so many ppl see magic(aka break any rule of reality because I feel like it) as 'normal', but frown at the sight of other, less magical subsystems (ToB, Incarnum, Bindiers etc.)
To the first point, yes- I have. I've seen many a gishy characters explode people with their gishy styles. Does beating someone with a stick excluding applying spells / feats like arcane strike to the attack? of course not. That's kind of the entire point. By doing that, you're sacrificing spells known that are the "utility" you're talking about. Unless you are a battle sorcer with an array of spells like Swift fly, and Dispell magic, chances are you have very limited "utility" you're talking about. If you do have those spells, then you're not going to be gishing it up very effectively. Chances are, you will have a couple utility spells. A couple. Those are then your tricks. You can't change them to fit any situation that arises.

Keep in mind at exactly how few spells known Battle sorcs know.

"Great, you can cast fly 12 times... the wizard can cast it twice, and fireball a whole bunch."

Second point- speculation at best. I'd argue that a barbarian could out-last a battle sorc, by having a real amount of hit points and remaining effective past a couple large encounters. This of course changes by level, builds of the classes, and the encounters themselves. But it's certainly not an absolute.

And to the last point, it's all about flavor, which I've said. I have a problem with "magical special abilities" because the "reality altering magic" as you call it is well established in D&D. There is divine and arcane magic everywhere all the time. It's accepted that clerics can channel energy through their deities, and wizards can harness arcane energy through intensive training. Applying that same magicalness to classes that aren't holy or invested in intense arcane training like a wizard seems silly to me.

Sorcerers of course break the "intensive training" for arcane, but aren't rewarded for it. They are actually hindered- by a slower spell progression and not learning to scribe scrolls.


Also, I can think of at least a couple classes that still get 2 skill points outside of 3.5's beginning. Knights and Duskblades come to mind immediately. I'm sure there are others.

[Kelb_Panthera]

To the first point, yes- I have. I've seen many a gishy characters explode people with their gishy styles. Does beating someone with a stick excluding applying spells / feats like arcane strike to the attack? of course not. That's kind of the entire point. By doing that, you're sacrificing spells known that are the "utility" you're talking about. Unless you are a battle sorcer with an array of spells like Swift fly, and Dispell magic, you not only are missing out on the utility you're talking about, but you'll be worse than the wizard in the group, and the barbarian.

"Great, you can cast fly 12 times... the wizard can cast it twice, and fireball a whole bunch."

Second point- speculation at best. I'd argue that a barbarian could out-last a battle sorc, by having a real amount of hit points and remaining effective past a couple large encounters. This of course changes by level, builds of the classes, and the encounters themselves. But it's certainly not an absolute.

And to the last point, it's all about flavor, which I've said. I have a problem with "magical special abilities" because the "reality altering magic" as you call it is well established in D&D. There is divine and arcane magic everywhere all the time. It's accepted that clerics can channel energy through their deities, and wizards can harness arcane energy through intensive training. Applying that same magicalness to classes that aren't holy or invested in intense arcane training like a wizard seems silly to me.

Sorcerers of course break the "intensive training" for arcane, but aren't rewarded for it. They are actually hindered- by a slower spell progression and not learning to scribe scrolls.


Also, I can think of at least a couple classes that still get 2 skill points outside of 3.5's beginning. Knights and Duskblades come to mind immediately. I'm sure there are others.

If I'm reading you right, ToB sucks because it's redundant? :smallconfused:

[Squidfist]

If I'm reading you right, ToB sucks because it's redundant? :smallconfused:
No, if you were reading me right you'd realize that I'm not saying TOB sucks. I'm saying that I personally find the flavor silly and counter-intuitive to the structure of "magic" and "melee" created by D&D.

I just don't think it's hard to justify not using.

To each their own in the end, of course.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

And to the last point, it's all about flavor, which I've said. I have a problem with "magical special abilities" because the "reality altering magic" as you call it is well established in D&D. There is divine and arcane magic everywhere all the time. It's accepted that clerics can channel energy through their deities, and wizards can harness arcane energy through intensive training. Applying that same magicalness to classes that aren't holy or invested in intense arcane training like a wizard seems silly to me.

So if you don't like ToB's supernatural disciplines because they aren't arcane or divine casting, I assume you have the same issues with shadowcasting, binding, truenaming, infusions, incarnum, psionics, and invocations? If you don't allow any alternate systems, that's one thing, and that's understandable. It's something else to complain about ToB specifically when D&D has a long and rich history of non-arcane/non-divine magic systems and 3e has tons of them just by itself.

[Gavinfoxx]

Lemme quote myself...



Actually, if you want to explicitly simulate non supernatural martial arts in D&D, the Warblade is possibly the closest class you can use for that purpose before going to 3rd party sources to simulate the sorts of things that happen in real fighting. Now, that doesn't mean that it is always realistic, just that you can build the most realistic fighter with that class if you put your mind to it! For example, I've always wanted to play a Warblade who is a Federfechter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federfechter), who used to be a Zweihänder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zweih%C3%A4nder) wielding Doppelsöldner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppels%C3%B6ldner) in the Landsknechts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsknechts), who focuses on Iron Heart (with a bit of Stone Dragon), and I would just rename the stances and strikes and counters and stuff with terms from German longsword fencing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_school_of_fencing). He'd wear a Breastplate and fight with a Greatsword. It totally fits!

To this I would like to add some links with some fancy sounding terms for you to rename the Stone Dragon and Iron Heart stuff for:

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_arms_gls.php
http://www.arsgladii.com/fechtbuch/index.php?title=Glossary
http://www.higginssword.org/guild/study/glossary/
http://www.thearma.org/terms2.htm
http://www.thearma.org/essays/StancesIntro.htm

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Then the designers are delusional:
a. ToB classes can regain their Encounter battles in the same encounter at 1st level!
Can 4E do that? No.

b. ToB classes largely are devoid of Daily powers.
Can 4E do that (Essential classes can I guess).

c. ToB classes have no at will active abilities (yes Crusader has a passive one that buffs him when he takes damage, but no active ones)
Can 4E do that? No.

So 4E was not started even close to ToB, but eventually Slayer, Thief, etc Essential classes are similar.

So it took 4E a long time to even be close to ToB in design, strangely 4E built backwards to ToB.First of all, I hadn't noticed it, but later 4e does look more like ToB. I guess D&D eventually converges to Tome of Battle. Heh. The last 4e campaign I played in used all pre-Essentials material, and it was much more interesting mechanically than the core game I had previously played. Goes to show what subsystems/"ToBness" can offer, I guess.

Second, I just want to expand upon your main point. If you drew a Venn diagram of ToB and early 4e (i.e., the product that would have actually been based off a ToB beta test), you have the following in the middle:

1. Relevant melee classes.
2. Essentially, "encounter powers"*
3. Finite, discrete abilities that fit on/go well with cards**

That leaves a lot of mechanics on the "ToB only" and "4e only" part of the Venn Diagram. They changed/added/removed quite a bit for it to be a full beta test.

*Difference, as you said, being ToB actually lets you refresh them mid-combat as well, built-in to the core class without customization, starting at level 1.
** Some of these are admittedly quite similar between ToB and 4e, looking at Warlord and White Raven for instance.

[Squidfist]

So if you don't like ToB's supernatural disciplines because they aren't arcane or divine casting, I assume you have the same issues with shadowcasting, binding, truenaming, infusions, incarnum, psionics, and invocations? If you don't allow any alternate systems, that's one thing, and that's understandable. It's something else to complain about ToB specifically when D&D has a long and rich history of non-arcane/non-divine magic systems and 3e has tons of them just by itself.I don't understand why I am still debating- I've said this is entirely flavor related, and hence opinion. Are you trying to convince me my opinion is invalid in some way? Am I not allowed to find Swordsage to be entirely silly, while finding Warlocks interesting?

[Medic!]

I wouldn't take it personally, this is a very extreme/black-and-white/absolutes type of community.


Everyone here is a sith.

[Remmirath]

Not to put words in his mouth, but I think what he was saying is that martial adepts have too similar a mechanical feel to casters, not that they feel too similar fluff wise or too magical.

Yes, that is what I meant.


So if you don't like ToB's supernatural disciplines because they aren't arcane or divine casting, I assume you have the same issues with shadowcasting, binding, truenaming, infusions, incarnum, psionics, and invocations? If you don't allow any alternate systems, that's one thing, and that's understandable. It's something else to complain about ToB specifically when D&D has a long and rich history of non-arcane/non-divine magic systems and 3e has tons of them just by itself.

I don't think there's anything wrong with liking some of those and disliking others. I like psionics but I don't like incarnum, for instance. I see no reason that, just because all of those options are there, they should be used or must be liked equally.

Also, this thread was about Tome of Battle, so it seems likely that people wouldn't bring up the other things even if they did dislike them. I'm sure, if the thread title was instead "My group is afraid of Incarnum", the discussion would've been about that and almost certainly wouldn't've mentioned the Tome of Battle.


To this I would like to add some links with some fancy sounding terms for you to rename the Stone Dragon and Iron Heart stuff for:

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_arms_gls.php
http://www.arsgladii.com/fechtbuch/index.php?title=Glossary
http://www.higginssword.org/guild/study/glossary/
http://www.thearma.org/terms2.htm
http://www.thearma.org/essays/StancesIntro.htm

Perhaps I'm misremembering or misunderstanding somewhat how Tome of Battle works - I don't own a copy and it has been some time since I played in a game which was using it - but wouldn't the maneuvers still have a limited number of uses per encounter or day? That there is my main problem with the Tome, really. One advantage fighters have over spellcasting classes currently is that they never run out of their tricks (yes, I realise that some groups rest frequently enough that it doesn't come up, but at least most that I've played in tend to regain spells only once a day). It also just seems odd that you could only do maneuvers so many times. There's no reason someone can't use the Ochs guard every time they enter combat, for example - it surely wouldn't be a good idea for every situation, but there is not a limited number of times that you can use that particular guard, and it doesn't make sense for there to be. Heck, you could try to block with it every time if you wanted. You'd die, but there wouldn't be anything preventing you from getting yourself killed in that manner.

It also, as far as I know, doesn't address some other fairly serious problems - such as shields not being able to be used for shield bashing and generally being fairly useless.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I really like what I think that Tome of Battle was trying to do - come up with a more complex system for melee combat - but I don't like the mechanics of how it ended up, and would've wanted a more complex and realistic system for melee combat.

Which generally leads me to my attitude that, if I'm playing D&D, I accept "I attack, does it hit?" as an abstraction of melee combat, and if I'm not feeling like accepting that abstraction I find a different game. Somewhat all or nothing, I suppose. Clearly other people don't have a problem with taking a partial solution, or it happens to be a solution they would like anyhow, and that's cool.

[The-Mage-King]

Perhaps I'm misremembering or misunderstanding somewhat how Tome of Battle works - I don't own a copy and it has been some time since I played in a game which was using it - but wouldn't the maneuvers still have a limited number of uses per encounter or day? That there is my main problem with the Tome, really. One advantage fighters have over spellcasting classes currently is that they never run out of their tricks (yes, I realise that some groups rest frequently enough that it doesn't come up, but at least most that I've played in tend to regain spells only once a day). It also just seems odd that you could only do maneuvers so many times. There's no reason someone can't use the Ochs guard every time they enter combat, for example - it surely wouldn't be a good idea for every situation, but there is not a limited number of times that you can use that particular guard, and it doesn't make sense for there to be. Heck, you could try to block with it every time if you wanted. You'd die, but there wouldn't be anything preventing you from getting yourself killed in that manner.

It also, as far as I know, doesn't address some other fairly serious problems - such as shields not being able to be used for shield bashing and generally being fairly useless.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I really like what I think that Tome of Battle was trying to do - come up with a more complex system for melee combat - but I don't like the mechanics of how it ended up, and would've wanted a more complex and realistic system for melee combat.


You're misremembering it, actually.


Maneuvers are available 1/encounter... And can be refreshed in different ways, based on your class. And, if you think about it as each requiring different footwork, you can see why.


I mean, if you go straight to a lunge, you probably won't be able to make another lunge immediately, and will need to return to a neutral stance to do so. Which is what refreshing basically is, since it gives you back your maneuvers. Return to a neutral stance, and then start the routine again. .


Shields... Yeah, no. They're still mostly useless. There is a homebrew discipline for that, though.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I don't understand why I am still debating- I've said this is entirely flavor related, and hence opinion. Are you trying to convince me my opinion is invalid in some way? Am I not allowed to find Swordsage to be entirely silly, while finding Warlocks interesting?


I don't think there's anything wrong with liking some of those and disliking others. I like psionics but I don't like incarnum, for instance. I see no reason that, just because all of those options are there, they should be used or must be liked equally.

Also, this thread was about Tome of Battle, so it seems likely that people wouldn't bring up the other things even if they did dislike them. I'm sure, if the thread title was instead "My group is afraid of Incarnum", the discussion would've been about that and almost certainly wouldn't've mentioned the Tome of Battle.

I didn't say objecting to ToB flavor was a bad thing at all, or that you can't like some systems but dislike others. I was specifically responding to the following point: "It's accepted that clerics can channel energy through their deities, and wizards can harness arcane energy through intensive training. Applying that same magicalness to classes that aren't holy or invested in intense arcane training like a wizard seems silly to me."

Anyone is perfectly free to "find Swordsage to be entirely silly, while finding Warlocks interesting," but someone giving as their justification for not liking the swordsage's flavor that it's not arcane or divine doesn't make much sense when the same objection applies to the warlock, and to every other alternate system in D&D. That's why I was asking the question, because they were comparing a gish to a swordsage and I wanted to know whether they disliked all magic-plus-martial types that weren't arcane or divine casters (in which case the stated objection makes sense) or whether they liked some alternate systems but not ToB (in which case the stated objection doesn't support that point).

[Gavinfoxx]

You're misremembering it, actually.


Maneuvers are available 1/encounter... And can be refreshed in different ways, based on your class. And, if you think about it as each requiring different footwork, you can see why.


I mean, if you go straight to a lunge, you probably won't be able to make another lunge immediately, and will need to return to a neutral stance to do so. Which is what refreshing basically is, since it gives you back your maneuvers. Return to a neutral stance, and then start the routine again. .


Shields... Yeah, no. They're still mostly useless. There is a homebrew discipline for that, though.


Agreed, here. A maneuver that is available once an encounter is a particular strike or series of movements or something like that, which you have to reset your stance (ie, regain the maneuvers) to use. This mirrors real life melee combat where you can't always use a particular set of moves at any given moment, because you aren't in the correct position to use them, and where people often clash, go back, and clash again in a series of exchanges. Thus, Tome of Battle's maneuver and refresh system mirrors real life melee combat.

[LordBlades]

To the first point, yes- I have. I've seen many a gishy characters explode people with their gishy styles. Does beating someone with a stick excluding applying spells / feats like arcane strike to the attack? of course not. That's kind of the entire point. By doing that, you're sacrificing spells known that are the "utility" you're talking about. Unless you are a battle sorcer with an array of spells like Swift fly, and Dispell magic, chances are you have very limited "utility" you're talking about. If you do have those spells, then you're not going to be gishing it up very effectively. Chances are, you will have a couple utility spells. A couple. Those are then your tricks. You can't change them to fit any situation that arises.

Keep in mind at exactly how few spells known Battle sorcs know.

"Great, you can cast fly 12 times... the wizard can cast it twice, and fireball a whole bunch."

First of all, you can build a gish from a wizard just fine(it's actually better until you go into kobold shenanigans due to faster casting progression). It doesn't have to be a battle sorc. Which gives you the liberty of picking all the utility spells you ever want. And burning spell slots for damage with Arcane Strike is a rather bad idea anyway (usually anything you do with spells apart from casting them ends up less powerful than the alternative).

Secondly, even if you are a battle sorc, you still have more spells known than a swordsage has maneuvers (33 vs. 25 at level 20). Add to that the fact that usually maneuvers have little out-of-combat uses and I really don't see how a martial adept would be more versatile than a caster.


Second point- speculation at best. I'd argue that a barbarian could out-last a battle sorc, by having a real amount of hit points and remaining effective past a couple large encounters. This of course changes by level, builds of the classes, and the encounters themselves. But it's certainly not an absolute.

In the most extreme scenario you can just slap Incantatrix and Persistent Spell on a Gish build and proceed on being a better barbarian than the barbarian 24/7, but I see your point. It does depend a bit on the build and level. My experience is that a decent (or better) gish build will dominate anything non-caster, but it's rather hard to prove without lengthy debate (which would derail the tread too much).


And to the last point, it's all about flavor, which I've said. I have a problem with "magical special abilities" because the "reality altering magic" as you call it is well established in D&D. There is divine and arcane magic everywhere all the time. It's accepted that clerics can channel energy through their deities, and wizards can harness arcane energy through intensive training. Applying that same magicalness to classes that aren't holy or invested in intense arcane training like a wizard seems silly to me.

Sorcerers of course break the "intensive training" for arcane, but aren't rewarded for it. They are actually hindered- by a slower spell progression and not learning to scribe scrolls.

Fair enough. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. And one of the more awesome things about 3.5 is that you can toss aside what you don't like and still have plenty to work with.



Also, I can think of at least a couple classes that still get 2 skill points outside of 3.5's beginning. Knights and Duskblades come to mind immediately. I'm sure there are others.

Fair point, although Duskblade is Int focused and ends up with quite a few sp anyway. As for Knight, it's probably a design failure IMO (mid-late 3.5 was storngly gravitating toward tier 3-ish range, but the occasional underpowered class still slipped through)

[Squidfist]

I didn't say objecting to ToB flavor was a bad thing at all, or that you can't like some systems but dislike others. I was specifically responding to the following point: "It's accepted that clerics can channel energy through their deities, and wizards can harness arcane energy through intensive training. Applying that same magicalness to classes that aren't holy or invested in intense arcane training like a wizard seems silly to me."

Anyone is perfectly free to "find Swordsage to be entirely silly, while finding Warlocks interesting," but someone giving as their justification for not liking the swordsage's flavor that it's not arcane or divine doesn't make much sense when the same objection applies to the warlock, and to every other alternate system in D&D. That's why I was asking the question, because they were comparing a gish to a swordsage and I wanted to know whether they disliked all magic-plus-martial types that weren't arcane or divine casters (in which case the stated objection makes sense) or whether they liked some alternate systems but not ToB (in which case the stated objection doesn't support that point).

Ah I see, that's fair.

My comment about arcane and divine wasn't directed directly at gish type characters, just magic in general. It's well established. So I just meant a typical gish character opposed to a swordsage does a better job justifying it's power.

ToB, like psionics or incarnum classes, are all sort of self contained additions to the core. Which is fine-- if you're interested in exploring these mechanics go nuts,-- I just personally find the ToB does a worse job justifying the things it allows characters to do.

[ThiagoMartell]

Pretty much.

Take this (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html) for example. I don't think a guy who rates Weapon Focus higher than Spell Focus and as high as Power Attack or Natural Spell lower than Animal Affinity of Acrobatic deserves the credit of assuming he knows what he's doing as far as mechanics and relative power level goes.

3.5 designers might have succeeded in designing a game that sold well, but quite a few of them demonstrated a startling lack of understanding regarding how the mechanics they designed actually work in practice.

You're using SKR (one person) to enforce the notion that all 3.5 designers 'didn't know what they were doing'. You're using a game style focused on optimizing as the default. This is not exactly correct, is it?
SKR is only one of many designers. He wrote, what, 4 books for 3rd edition? And hadn't he already jumped ship by 3.5?
Also, most groups don't optimize at all. Most people don't have the time or the will to become more and more powerful. they just want to play the damn game. Which is what the designers intended - that people has options to play the game.

Also, IMHO balance is WAY overrated around here. They didn't know what they were doing because it's not balanced? Really? Plenty of good games are unbalanced. I mean, have you played any fighting game? They are pretty much all unbalanced, except for those where all the characters are the same, and those are boring as hell. By saying designers don't know what they are doing because the game is not balanced, you're saying the designers of Street Fighter did not know what they were doing. You're saying the designers of the Game of Thrones LCG did not know what they were doing. You're saying the designers of Mutants & Masterminds did not know what they were doing. Please, tell me - who knows what they are doing, then?

D&D 3.5 is a pretty good game. Balance reeks of stagnation and repetition - that's one of the reasons I dislike 4e. Yeah, it's balanced (more due to errata than due to it's core, I might add). It's also a lot less diverse than 3.5. So the game breaks down if you spend 10 years trying to break it down. So what? :smallconfused:

Give me a fun unbalanced game over an unfun balanced game any day of the week.

[Gavinfoxx]

I just personally find the ToB does a worse job justifying the things it allows characters to do.

Did you not read my post where, if you are a Warblade and focus on two (maybe three) schools, and choose the right options, ToB enables you to make the most historically plausible sword martial artist of, well, any rules in 3.5e?

[LordBlades]

You're using SKR (one person) to enforce the notion that all 3.5 designers 'didn't know what they were doing'. You're using a game style focused on optimizing as the default. This is not exactly correct, is it?
SKR is only one of many designers. He wrote, what, 4 books for 3rd edition? And hadn't he already jumped ship by 3.5?
Also, most groups don't optimize at all. Most people don't have the time or the will to become more and more powerful. they just want to play the damn game. Which is what the designers intended - that people has options to play the game.

It was one of the most obvious examples that came to mind regarding people working for WotC design team talking nonsense. Others have said retarded stuff, others have designed retarded stuff (like Candle of Invocation or Thought Bottle, broken out of the box, no optimization needed).It's not me that's bringing up optimization, SKR himself attempts to rate the relative power of PHB feats. And I honestly can't imagine a scenario (even the bottom of the power curve where hafling monks with negative str and no weapon finesse are perfectly viable) where a feat that gives you another character (Leadership) is less valuable than a feat that gives you +2 to Ref saves (Lightning Reflexes).


Also, IMHO balance is WAY overrated around here. They didn't know what they were doing because it's not balanced? Really? Plenty of good games are unbalanced. I mean, have you played any fighting game? They are pretty much all unbalanced, except for those where all the characters are the same, and those are boring as hell. By saying designers don't know what they are doing because the game is not balanced, you're saying the designers of Street Fighter did not know what they were doing. You're saying the designers of the Game of Thrones LCG did not know what they were doing. You're saying the designers of Mutants & Masterminds did not know what they were doing. Please, tell me - who knows what they are doing, then?

Balance is more important to competitive games rather than cooperative games, I give you that, and even there it's pretty impossible to achieve perfect balance, they usually gravitate towards a meta where a large enough subset of options are viable in order to make people happy.

I'm not saying 3.5 designers didn't know what they were doing because they designed an imbalanced game(honestly I've got no clue how high balance rated on their list of priorities), I'm saying they didn't know what they were doing because they often showed a lack of understanding of how 3.5 mechanics actually work in practice and (personal opinion) they seemed to hint through the books and other media that 3.5 was at least decently balanced.


So the game breaks down if you spend 10 years minutes trying to break it down. So what? :smallconfused:

FTFY. Try a core Druid alongside a core Monk.



Give me a fun unbalanced game over an unfun balanced game any day of the week.

Completely agree on this one. In a perfect world, we'd have both fun, diverse and balanced games, or at least over/under-powered options added for the sake of variety labeled as such.

However, having to choose between an unbalanced game with lots of options like 3.5 and a somewhat balanced but restrictive game like 4E, I'd go with the unbalanced one as well, even if simply for the reason that it's much easier to gain balance by limiting a particular campaign to a subset of options that it is to add diversity by homebrewing more options and keeping them in line with the existing balance.

[TuggyNE]

Also, IMHO balance is WAY overrated around here. They didn't know what they were doing because it's not balanced? Really? Plenty of good games are unbalanced. I mean, have you played any fighting game? They are pretty much all unbalanced, except for those where all the characters are the same, and those are boring as hell. By saying designers don't know what they are doing because the game is not balanced, you're saying the designers of Street Fighter did not know what they were doing. You're saying the designers of the Game of Thrones LCG did not know what they were doing. You're saying the designers of Mutants & Masterminds did not know what they were doing. Please, tell me - who knows what they are doing, then?

A simple (or even simplistic, perhaps) answer is that market-wise, worse is often better (http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html).

[Kelb_Panthera]

I wouldn't take it personally, this is a very extreme/black-and-white/absolutes type of community.


Everyone here is a sith.I take umbrage to this. :smallannoyed:


No, if you were reading me right you'd realize that I'm not saying TOB sucks. I'm saying that I personally find the flavor silly and counter-intuitive to the structure of "magic" and "melee" created by D&D.

I just don't think it's hard to justify not using.

To each their own in the end, of course.

I've partially misread you then. "X sucks" is very rarely an objective statement in my experience. It usually means something more along the line of "I don't like X," which is what you're saying. I should've phrased it better.

I personally find your justification, which I now understand to be something to the effect of "it's magic but not magic. The hell?" kinda flimsy, but since we're talking opinion now, you're entitled to yours and really don't need to justify it anyway.

I agree that dismissing ToB because you don't like the way it's fluffed or the way it "feels" is perfectly legit. I only have a problem with people dismissing it for being "overpowered*" or for "making the core classes obsolete.*"

I do apologize for the miscommunication on my part. :smallredface:

*I don't see either of these being objectively true. I've been holding my piece because I'm a bit mentally tired from defending the alignment system for the past few days. I'll probably chime in with something a bit stronger in a few days.

[ThiagoMartell]

It was one of the most obvious examples that came to mind regarding people working for WotC design team talking nonsense.
And that makes little to no difference. One guy had some weird throughts on feats. So?

Others have said retarded stuff,
Please, tell us when. Give us links.


others have designed retarded stuff (like Candle of Invocation or Thought Bottle, broken out of the box, no optimization needed).
Candle of Invocation is simply a pricing issue, everyone knows that. Someone forgot to consider the XP cost in the formula. Again, that means very little. Two items don't prove that they 'didn't know what they were doing'. It just proves they got 2 items wrong.


It's not me that's bringing up optimization, SKR himself attempts to rate the relative power of PHB feats.
And that does not matter, because it's again about SKR, not about all 3.5 designers, like you claimed it was.

And I honestly can't imagine a scenario (even the bottom of the power curve where hafling monks with negative str and no weapon finesse are perfectly viable) where a feat that gives you another character (Leadership) is less valuable than a feat that gives you +2 to Ref saves (Lightning Reflexes).
Again, irrelevant. You're clinging to SKR's feat point system (only one of tens of things he did) like it proves your point. It doesn't. SKR does not represent all of 3.5 designers and the feat point system does not represent everything he did.
By your reasoning, Victor Belford would be a terrible fighter, because Jon Jones kicked his ass last week. But he has plenty of victories in his career - a single mistake does not mean he 'does not know what he is doing'.


Balance is more important to competitive games rather than cooperative games, I give you that, and even there it's pretty impossible to achieve perfect balance, they usually gravitate towards a meta where a large enough subset of options are viable in order to make people happy.
That describes 3.5 pretty well (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11714.0), doesn't it?


I'm not saying 3.5 designers didn't know what they were doing because they designed an imbalanced game(honestly I've got no clue how high balance rated on their list of priorities), I'm saying they didn't know what they were doing because they often showed a lack of understanding of how 3.5 mechanics actually work in practice and (personal opinion) they seemed to hint through the books and other media that 3.5 was at least decently balanced.
3.5 is reasonably balanced out of the box and following the designer's expectations.
About they not understanding how mechanics works, you're gonna have to be clearer on that. For all I've seen, aside from a few mistakes here and there, things are pretty consistent.




FTFY. Try a core Druid alongside a core Monk.
I did. We had a druid in our very first 3.0 campaign. It sucked oh so very hard.
Everone knows Druids are so powerful today because of so much data gathered from thousands of games throughout the years. When it came out, you would remember AD&D, shudder and play something else.
Sidenote: Druids were specially popular here in Brazil when 3.0 came out because we had a comic with a druid protagonist, so young girls would usually play druids and try to play like that protagonist.


Completely agree on this one. In a perfect world, we'd have both fun, diverse and balanced games, or at least over/under-powered options added for the sake of variety labeled as such.
I'm glad we can agree on something. :smallwink:

[Mystic Muse]

Give me a fun unbalanced game over an unfun balanced game any day of the week.

While I agree, I have to ask.

In this particular scenario, why can't one have their cake and eat it too? Why can't a game be both balanced and fun? Sure, if you take it to an extreme, balance is bad, but if you take anything to an extreme it's bad. You can have a options be mostly balanced and still be fun to play with each other.

As I believe somebody mentioned, D&D 3.5 designers didn't fail solely because they created unbalanced options, they failed because they failed to see how these options would work in practice. I don't think anybody wants a game to be so airtight there's absolutely no way to break it, because if it is, it's almost* certainly also boring, like you said. I think want people want is a game where you can't make another player feel entirely useless without intentionally trying to do so.

I believe somebody also brought up the example of the Druid and the Monk. It's not too hard to make a monk feel entirely worthless in core 3.5 entirely by accident. I would also say this is a design failure, because it's not fun. If you're playing a game to have fun, you should never be in a position where you question why you're even there.

Now, it's possible a designer intends something like this. I for example design all my homebrew with Tome Of Battle, Bard, Warlock, Rogue, ETC. as the balance level in mind. I very much do not expect my homebrew to be compatible with an unoptimized fighter, and I've tried to make this explicit several times throughout the thread.

If the designers for D&D 3.5 intended it to be the way it turned out, I don't know what to say. Intentionally designing traps into a non-competitive game is the kind of attitude I would expect from a bully, not somebody who knew what they were doing and were trying to make a game fun.**

If they had made it clear at the start this was their intent, or D&D was intended to primarily be a competitive game, I could maybe see a justification. As-is I can't see any way for somebody to say the designers intended for the game to be how it turned out and have it be something positive.

Note: As a whole, I do like 3.5 a lot, which is why I design homebrew for it, but there is a lot of pyrite splattered amongst the gold.




I did. We had a druid in our very first 3.0 campaign. It sucked oh so very hard.
Everone knows Druids are so powerful today because of so much data gathered from thousands of games throughout the years. When it came out, you would remember AD&D, shudder and play something else. When I got into D&D, I got into 3.5 and 4th edition. I had never even heard of the previous editions before then, and have not played a single one to this day. While maybe it wasn't a problem with you, I've heard horror stories of the tier one classes tearing through their campaigns and such from friends, so this clearly does happen sometimes.

*Not guaranteed of course.

**Does not apply to games where it is competitive, or the designers make it very clear from the start.

[TuggyNE]

I wouldn't take it personally, this is a very extreme/black-and-white/absolutes type of community.


Everyone here is a sith.

I didn't notice the strong hypocritical humor here on the first read-through. Maybe shoulda called it out more? :smalltongue: (I thought you were serious at first and was a little annoyed.)

[LordBlades]

Please, tell us when. Give us links.


There's some of it in their web articles (especially sage advice) like providing and other places. Simply don't have the time to reread all of it to provide convenient quotes. Then there's Monte Cook's Ivory Tower Game Design (http://montecook.mulehill.com/line-of-sight/ivory-tower-game-design) article, which IMO can only be interpreted in 2 ways: 'I was a jerk deliberately designing traps in a cooperative game' or 'I was clueless but don't want to admit it so I'd rather come out as a jerk rather than clueless'.



Candle of Invocation is simply a pricing issue, everyone knows that. Someone forgot to consider the XP cost in the formula. Again, that means very little. Two items don't prove that they 'didn't know what they were doing'. It just proves they got 2 items wrong.

They got 2 items wrong or they didn't know what they were doing on 2 occasions. Somebody deliberately thought that 8400 gp is a fair price for a one use item of Gate. He actually believed that being able to cast Gate once was an appropriate ability for a mid level char.




Again, irrelevant. You're clinging to SKR's feat point system (only one of tens of things he did) like it proves your point. It doesn't. SKR does not represent all of 3.5 designers and the feat point system does not represent everything he did.
By your reasoning, Victor Belford would be a terrible fighter, because Jon Jones kicked his ass last week. But he has plenty of victories in his career - a single mistake does not mean he 'does not know what he is doing'.

If SKR had designed a bad (over or underpowered) feat (oh wait he does that for a living in PF) I'd agree with you, it was a mistake. But that article encompasses SKR's opinion on the relative power level of feats, opinion which I assume wasn't formed on the spot. I highly doubt SKR had a good understanding of game balance, woke up one morning without it, wrote that article, then woke up next morning with his good understanding of game balance back.






I did. We had a druid in our very first 3.0 campaign. It sucked oh so very hard.
Everone knows Druids are so powerful today because of so much data gathered from thousands of games throughout the years. When it came out, you would remember AD&D, shudder and play something else.
Sidenote: Druids were specially popular here in Brazil when 3.0 came out because we had a comic with a druid protagonist, so young girls would usually play druids and try to play like that protagonist.

My anecdotal evidence differs from your anecdotal evidence. All of the below was with completely new people (DM had played a couple of sessions in a summer camp, all players had never heard of D&D before).

In my first campaign ever I played a cleric in a classical fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue party One session our fighter couldn't show up, and since I was the only one with some armor and HP I had to do frontline. Read a bit on core only buff spells, and to everybody's surprise I managed to pull out better stats literally everywhere than the fighter.Campaign ended soon with the 'why should I hang back and heal the fighter if I can fight better?' question on most people's minds.

Second campaign, we had a half-giant psiwar and a human paladin. Psiwar was both more durable and had significantly higher to hit and damage. Difference was high enough to make the paladin player ask for a character change 6-7 sessions in because he felt outmatched (and the general direction of the party was ill-suited for a paladin anyway).

Third campaign, we had a human monk in a very mixed group (fighter, sorc, bard, healbot cleric, knight). He literally did nothing. Hit rarely, did little damage, went down like a wet rag every time a monster actually targeted him(roughly spent 40-50% of the fighting done in that campaign in the negatives).

[ThiagoMartell]

There's some of it in their web articles (especially sage advice) like providing and other places. Simply don't have the time to reread all of it to provide convenient quotes. Then there's Monte Cook's Ivory Tower Game Design (http://montecook.mulehill.com/line-of-sight/ivory-tower-game-design) article, which IMO can only be interpreted in 2 ways: 'I was a jerk deliberately designing traps in a cooperative game' or 'I was clueless but don't want to admit it so I'd rather come out as a jerk rather than clueless'.
Again, that's specifically about Monte. He is a big base breaker not only among gamers, but designers as well.


They got 2 items wrong or they didn't know what they were doing on 2 occasions.
So? Tolkien forgot about the eagles. Does that make Lord of the Rings bad?

Somebody deliberately thought that 8400 gp is a fair price for a one use item of Gate. He actually believed that being able to cast Gate once was an appropriate ability for a mid level char.
No, someone miscalculated the cost on that item.


If SKR had designed a bad (over or underpowered) feat (oh wait he does that for a living in PF) I'd agree with you, it was a mistake. But that article encompasses SKR's opinion on the relative power level of feats, opinion which I assume wasn't formed on the spot. I highly doubt SKR had a good understanding of game balance, woke up one morning without it, wrote that article, then woke up next morning with his good understanding of game balance back.
You don't seem to be exactly up to date on who writes stuff for Pathfinder. SKR is not a writer, he is a design manager. He only worked as a designer on Core PF. I'm not even saying he knows anything about game balance, that is a strawman you built yourself.


My anecdotal evidence differs from your anecdotal evidence.
That tends to happen with anecdotal evidence.
I noticed all your examples were only about combat. Maybe that's why we disagree. I tend to be in games with a lot more going one than just combat.

[Darius Kane]

I noticed all your examples were only about combat. Maybe that's why we disagree. I tend to be in games with a lot more going one than just combat.
Lol. I was just about to make a sarcastic post about them not roleplaying enough. You've spoiled my fun.

[LordBlades]

stuff


Let's just agree to disagree on 3.5 designer competence, shall we?:smallwink:



That tends to happen with anecdotal evidence.
I noticed all your examples were only about combat. Maybe that's why we disagree. I tend to be in games with a lot more going one than just combat.

We were all completely new, a huge chunk of the book dealt with combat, and we were running published adventures (again, big part was combat). So naturally, a big chunk of what we did involved combat.

I now am aware that you can somewhat compensate with out-of-combat spotlight and good RP for a mechanically underwhelming character, but I strongly feel you shouldn't need to. The fact that you do is a system flaw in my book.

In the first case (cleric vs. fighter), any spotlight going on the fighter would have been through pure DM fiat, since there was simply nothing he did better than my cleric (we both had no skills to speak of due to 8-9 int, and all he had the mechanical skill to do was swing a sword). However, the fighter player didn't actually mind my cleric had become a better fighter than him and seemed content to play secondary melee, as we all came from a somewhat competitive DotA background, and the fact that an ally was 'owning' so to say was a reason of joy, not frustration. Still, it got us thinking: if a class can perform a role better than the class intended for it, maybe there's more than meets the eye to this game.

In the second case, there was little a DM could do, as the player simply felt his expectations had been deceived by the system. He had tried his best to build his character as a holy warrior, a great champion of good and competent fighter, and he saw his 'great warrior' significantly outperformed by a random dude with fancy powers we literally picked off the side of a road.

In the third case, the monk had a niche the DM failed to exploit: he was the only stealthy guy in the party (he had maxed Hide and Move silently IIRC). MAybe with more stealth action, he would have been remembered as less useless.

[Rejakor]

Fact of the matter is, 3e and 3.5e sold so amazingly well that they shortcircuited the gains various other systems were making on the DnD monopoly - and if you ever visit a shadowrun or cthulhutech or v:tm whatever forum, you find mostly people swapping build advice or adventure ideas - only 3.5 seems to spawn the kind of conflict, arguments, points of view, and ridiculous homebrew 'fixes' that cause ever-churning discussion in places like this so long after it came out.

Even most of the discussion about 4e was in comparison to 3.5, and carried on as part of the culture.


It has accessible math and design. It plays fast and understandably. It allows a huge range of options while still feeling specific (i.e. not wushu or something else that doesn't really care if you're a swordfighter or a gunslinger in terms of mechanics). It can simulate/run nearly any kind of game, again, while being quite specific in terms of what you can and can't do with your set of mechanical abilities.

And that appears to be the magical flavah button.




Also the answer to people who think ToB = Magic is to rename all the strikes stances etc as more boring sounding things. That will make them think of them as weaker, and mundane, and they'll be okay with it. People will read the same ability called 'Overhand Strike' and be okay with it and turn over the table snorting mountain dew and gasping with indignation if it's called 'Mithril Tornado'.

[Squidfist]

Did you not read my post where, if you are a Warblade and focus on two (maybe three) schools, and choose the right options, ToB enables you to make the most historically plausible sword martial artist of, well, any rules in 3.5e?I don't think that compensates for the fact they can, if they choose to, do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "being a total badass".

[Boci]

I don't think that compensates for the fact they can, if they choose to, do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "being a total badass".

And fighters can take feats to grant them SLA. Or fire a sling shot through multiple targets. Or become immune to things. Or defelct touch attacks with their shield.

[Psyren]

I don't think that compensates for the fact they can, if they choose to, do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "being a total badass".

So just don't take/allow those maneuvers. I agree that Desert Wind, Shadow Hand and Devoted Spirit contain more mystical stuff than some groups may be comfortable with, but the rest I think should be broadly if not universally fine.

[RFLS]

I don't think that compensates for the fact they can, if they choose to, do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "being a total badass".

You can quite literally accuse any class in the game of being able to do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap. Going down the core melee list, we've got Barbarians that can turn into a bear while raging, Fighters having access to all the combat feats, of which I'm sure many are quasi-magical crap, Rangers who have a magical bond with an animal, cast spells, and get to hide right in front of your face, Rogues doing all sorts of stuff with their sneak attacks that they shouldn't be able to and understanding magical traps, Paladins throwing healing magic and other spells around, and Monks slipping through dimensions, shrugging off poison and disease, turning into Outsiders, and generally throwing away the rules of reality (they still suck, though). The only class I'm going to have to go check in that list is the fighter, and I sincerely doubt that over 70+ books I won't find some quasi-magical crap combat feats for the fighter. The thing is, you can choose not to build in such a way for any class, including ToB. Going to repeat that so that the point's not lost. You can choose not to build that way, which also strikes me as worth pointing out to the OP's group. Throw a Warblade at them who has taken literally no abilities that are physically inexplicable.

[2xMachina]

I don't think that compensates for the fact they can, if they choose to, do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "being a total badass".

And wizards can do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "wearing a bathrobe and a party hat and carrying a heavy book with squiggles around".

[RFLS]

And wizards can do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "wearing a bathrobe and a party hat and carrying a heavy book with squiggles around".

That's....uhm. So, his point is that supposedly mundane classes shouldn't be throwing fire or turning invisible under their own power. I'm not entirely sure what you said has any actual bearing on the discussion.

[Roderick_BR]

One possible route to help dispel this misconception is to build a wizard that neither needs nor wants protection from Fighters. For example, a gish build using Swiftblade is likely to be a good start, though for maximum punch a Wizard 20 that needs no one's help to stay alive is also great.

It also helps if, as mentioned, you demonstrate how ineffective most Fighter builds actually are at preventing damage to so-called "squishies".

Basically, if you can show that the Fighter doesn't actually do the job that doesn't actually need doing, that may shake things up enough for them to be more open to ToB.
This. Just show in-game. You don't even need ridiculously build. Monsters just need to ignore the fighter (AoO: 1d10+10 points of damage? Ok, done, I'm forgetting about you and STILL going for the wizard). And the wizard will either win combats by himself, or when the monster (that the fighter was supposed to hold), escapes unscrached by his own merits (flying, windwall, stoneskin, blink, ...).

A suggestion is to add the maneuvers as feats at first, so you at least has options in combat, to show your friends how you can be effective with creative actions, not just raw damage.

[Starbuck_II]

So? Tolkien forgot about the eagles. Does that make Lord of the Rings bad?


Actually, you know how elves are seen as haughty and not caring about other races? (read Complete Book of elves for 2E Elves being racist)

Giant Eagles were worst. True Neutral. Old School Style.
So the eagles just didn't care. Why should they? This was a Man problem.

[Psyren]

And wizards can do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "wearing a bathrobe and a party hat and carrying a heavy book with squiggles around".

This is a rather poor analogy, since the Wizard himself isn't the source of that power - it's the world (as evidenced by the existence of Dead Magic areas.) The Wizard merely knows the source code, through intensive study and innate talent.

Martial classes can - maybe, with the right training - access snippets of that code on an instinctive level. But the depth and breadth of training available to the wizard class eludes them.

I know you're trying to argue in ToB's favor here but examples like this aren't really helping.

[2xMachina]

That's....uhm. So, his point is that supposedly mundane classes shouldn't be throwing fire or turning invisible under their own power. I'm not entirely sure what you said has any actual bearing on the discussion.

I'm saying... it's rather arbitrary that A can't use magic, when B can.

In our world, sure, people can't do quasi magic crap. But people can't do magic crap either. Who's to say D&D world's physics doesn't have a bit where you get effects from moving and grunting in a certain way? After all, wizards cast spell by moving their hands a certain way and making certain sounds.


This is a rather poor analogy, since the Wizard himself isn't the source of that power - it's the world (as evidenced by the existence of Dead Magic areas.) The Wizard merely knows the source code, through intensive study and innate talent.

Martial classes can - maybe, with the right training - access snippets of that code on an instinctive level. But the depth and breadth of training available to the wizard class eludes them.

I know you're trying to argue in ToB's favor here but examples like this aren't really helping.

ToB martial Su can be powered by the world. (Probably is too). And the source code for this effect is known by ToB classes.

[Psyren]

ToB martial Su can be powered by the world. (Probably is too). And the source code for this effect is known by ToB classes.

Su is. After all, they won't work in a dead magic/AMF either. So I'm perfectly fine with those.

However, Ex is not. And there are maneuvers which are Ex by RAW (e.g. the healing ones from Devoted Spirit) that should really be Su.

[Squidfist]

And wizards can do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "wearing a bathrobe and a party hat and carrying a heavy book with squiggles around".Ugh, no. As I've said, arcane powers are well established. Wizards are harassing arcane power through years of intensive training and study. Which is why the wizard starting age is high.

That is the area of their study.

You could argue this for Swordsages as well, but they train in combat. So they study combat so hard that they gain supernatural abilities from an unspecified source? Cool.

[Psyren]

So they study combat so hard that they gain supernatural abilities from an unspecified source? Cool.

Well, Monks do the same. They might be weak, but being able to turn ethereal or teleport short distances is still pretty extranormal.

I think the idea behind Swordsages and Monks is to reward classes that are very spiritual. And I support extending that to cover Crusaders as well; I just think that some of their more magical abilities should be treated as magic (i.e. Su rather than Ex.) But I do agree with said abilities existing.

[Devmaar]

Squidfist, I'm intrigued, other than Earthstrike Quake and Lightning Throw, what does a Warblade do that you consider 'quasi-magical crap'?

[Menteith]

Ugh, no. As I've said, arcane powers are well established. Wizards are harassing arcane power through years of intensive training and study. Which is why the wizard starting age is high.

That is the area of their study.

You could argue this for Swordsages as well, but they train in combat. So they study combat so hard that they gain supernatural abilities from an unspecified source? Cool.

Could you please distinguish precisely why you feel that the Monk is acceptable (with regard to clearly supernatural abilities) while the Swordsage is not?

[Squidfist]

Could you please distinguish precisely why you feel that the Monk is acceptable (with regard to clearly supernatural abilities) while the Swordsage is not?Monks are the romanticized vision of martial masters, like the Shaolin. Their abilities reflect the ideas and myth of these martial legends, which aren't exclusive to DnD. Monks describe a concept that's well established, all be it exaggerated. There is something to relate to, I find, with the monk, while Swordsages seem quite arbitrary to me.

Mechanically, I feel the monk does a better job of justifying this life style as well. The alignment restriction, the bottle neck they experience when choosing weapons if any, the lack of armor training, the 4 SP-- these have all left them limited in some respects, where a Swordsage gains the privileges of this sort of training while also having time to learn light armor, get more skill points, wield all sorts of weapons, and then change how they function fairly drastically on a whim. The idea they get their power in the same way as a monk doesn't fly with me, because all of their power is directed at combat- where monks spiritual nature is apparent with their still mind, and perfect body and all that. It's a better outlet for the "mind body and soul" type thing than just being a brutal warrior.

[kitcik]

Monks are the romanticized vision of martial masters, like the Shaolin. Their abilities reflect the ideas and myth of these martial legends, which aren't exclusive to DnD. Monks describe a concept that's well established, all be it exaggerated. There is something to relate to, I find, with the monk, while Swordsages seem quite arbitrary to me.

Mechanically, I feel the monk does a better job of justifying this life style as well. The alignment restriction, the bottle neck they experience when choosing weapons if any, the lack of armor training, the 4 SP-- these have all left them limited in some respects, where a Swordsage gains the privileges of this sort of training while also having time to learn light armor, get more skill points, wield all sorts of weapons, and then change how they function fairly drastically on a whim.

The monk can teleport. Nuff said.

[Squidfist]

The monk can teleport. Nuff said.Yeah, and still manages to be more believable than the Swordsage. Nuff said.

[Big Fau]

Monks are the romanticized vision of martial masters, like the Shaolin. Their abilities reflect the ideas and myth of these martial legends, which aren't exclusive to DnD. Monks describe a concept that's well established, all be it exaggerated.

Where exactly in ToB do you see the Swordsage saying anything other than that?


The only difference between a Monk's fluff and a Swordsage's fluff is the amount of exaggeration involved.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Monks are the romanticized vision of martial masters, like the Shaolin. Their abilities reflect the ideas and myth of these martial legends, which aren't exclusive to DnD. Monks describe a concept that's well established, all be it exaggerated. There is something to relate to, I find, with the monk, while Swordsages seem quite arbitrary to me.

Mechanically, I feel the monk does a better job of justifying this life style as well. The alignment restriction, the bottle neck they experience when choosing weapons if any, the lack of armor training, the 4 SP-- these have all left them limited in some respects, where a Swordsage gains the privileges of this sort of training while also having time to learn light armor, get more skill points, wield all sorts of weapons, and then change how they function fairly drastically on a whim. The idea they get their power in the same way as a monk doesn't fly with me, because all of their power is directed at combat- where monks spiritual nature is apparent with their still mind, and perfect body and all that. It's a better outlet for the "mind body and soul" type thing than just being a brutal warrior.

You're not a martial artist, are you?

IRL, every martial art I have ever encountered, and I've encountered quite a few, have a spiritual aspect woven into their teachings. The shaolin and similar groups, which the monk is indeed clearly a model for, are an exception in that they're a spiritual group that adopted the martial arts, rather than the reverse. They are also, coincidentally, RL people that can indeed do "quasi-magical crap." Watch a tibetan monk put his arms between two half-ton stone rollers and tell me how physics is okay with it, without doing the research.

If you have a background in, or at least a healthy understanding of, the martial arts the swordsage makes as much sense as anything else in 3.5. Nevermind the fact that eastern martial arts legends are absolutely replete with stories of master martial artists doing the outright impossible; ninja turning invisible before your eyes, kung fu masters that fight in the tops of bamboo groves and walk on water, samurai being executed by being burned alive and still having the fortitude to sit-up and drag the verifying official to hell with him or cutting off their own head and burying it so the enemy can't collect it as a trophy, etc.

[Squidfist]

Where exactly in ToB do you see the Swordsage saying anything other than that?


The only difference between a Monk's fluff and a Swordsage's fluff is the amount of exaggeration involved.

"The idea they get their power in the same way as a monk doesn't fly with me, because all of their power is directed at combat- where monks spiritual nature is apparent with their still mind, and perfect body and all that. It's a better outlet for the "mind body and soul" type thing than just being a brutal warrior."

[Boci]

It's a better outlet for the "mind body and soul" type thing than just being a brutal warrior.

Swordsages aren't just brutal warriors. They get an ability to identify magic items and diamond mind, which is still mind, only the mechanics actually live up the fluff. You said the swordsage seemed arbetary. Well to me, your distinction between the two does.

[Squidfist]

You're not a martial artist, are you?

IRL, every martial art I have ever encountered, and I've encountered quite a few, have a spiritual aspect woven into their teachings. The shaolin and similar groups, which the monk is indeed clearly a model for, are an exception in that they're a spiritual group that adopted the martial arts, rather than the reverse. They are also, coincidentally, RL people that can indeed do "quasi-magical crap." Watch a tibetan monk put his arms between two half-ton stone rollers and tell me how physics is okay with it, without doing the research.

If you have a background in, or at least a healthy understanding of, the martial arts the swordsage makes as much sense as anything else in 3.5. Nevermind the fact that eastern martial arts legends are absolutely replete with stories of master martial artists doing the outright impossible; ninja turning invisible before your eyes, kung fu masters that fight in the tops of bamboo groves and walk on water, samurai being executed by being burned alive and still having the fortitude to sit-up and drag the verifying official to hell with him or cutting off their own head and burying it so the enemy can't collect it as a trophy, etc.

Dude, that's exactly my point. D&D monks are based on the most typical structure of the "mystical monk". The monks that do crazy feats through their spiritual nature. Once again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I feel monks do a better job reflecting this, opposed to having that power manifest solely as brutal combat prowess.

If I understand your argument, it's essentially "what about the martial masters who forgo spirituality in part or entirely to become brutal warriors?"

Why are they granted power through their spirituality if it's not an integral part of their schtick?

It's all opinion about fluff, so it's very subjective, but I just don't like that.

I simply find monks are a better reflection of that type of character than a swordsage-- who seem to me, to have traded the aspects of monastic training / spirituality. They aren't even limited by a weapon set to suggest their monastary is specialized in any way. You could be a martial master with a greatsword, and that just seems kinda silly.

I just find constraints serve to solidify a character's theme. And with swordsages being pretty well entirely open, you really can build a character that doesn't evoke visions of that "mystical master", or even "martial master", which they are supposed to be... imo. Like a mithril breastplate wearing, greatsword weilding ninja-knight.

Anyways, I'm kinda tired of justifying my disliking Swordsages, I could go on and on- I am fueled by an endless supply of biased distaste. But in the end, the entire issue boils down to 3.5 being a modular system, rending this a non issue. I add books I like, remove ones I don't, which is kinda how the system was developed.

Sorry for typos in advance.

[Squidfist]

Swordsages aren't just brutal warriors. They get an ability to identify magic items and diamond mind, which is still mind, only the mechanics actually live up the fluff. You said the swordsage seemed arbetary. Well to me, your distinction between the two does.

Your avatar is a drow, so i can't take things you type seriously.

[kitcik]

Yeah, and still manages to be more believable than the Swordsage. Nuff said.

Really? What can the Swordsage do that you find less believable than magical teleportation?

I never saw Kwai Chang Caine teleport... and I am not sure how the mastery over mind and soul grants you a magical ability to pop in and out of existence.

D&D is a fantasy game and no fantastical class is "bad" because you find the source of their power unbelievable. Who cares?

[Lord_Gareth]

Dude, that's exactly my point. D&D monks are based on the most typical structure of the "mystical monk". The monks that do crazy feats through their spiritual nature. Once again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I feel monks do a better job reflecting this, opposed to having that power manifest solely as brutal combat prowess.

If I understand your argument, it's essentially "what about the martial masters who forgo spirituality in part or entirely to become brutal warriors?"

Why are they granted power through their spirituality if it's not an integral part of their schtick?

It's all opinion about fluff, so it's very subjective, but I just don't like that.

I simply find monks are a better reflection of that type of character than a swordsage-- who seem to me, to have traded the aspects of monastic training / spirituality. They aren't even limited by a weapon set to suggest their monastary is specialized in any way. You could be a martial master with a greatsword, and that just seems kinda silly.

I just find constraints serve to solidify a character's theme. And with swordsages being pretty well entirely open, you really can build a character that doesn't evoke visions of that "mystical master", or even "martial master", which they are supposed to be... imo. Like a mithril breastplate wearing, greatsword weilding ninja-knight.

Anyways, I'm kinda tired of justifying my disliking Swordsages, I could go on and on- I am fueled by an endless supply of biased distaste. But in the end, the entire issue boils down to 3.5 being a modular system, rending this a non issue. I add books I like, remove ones I don't, which is kinda how the system was developed.

Sorry for typos in advance.

You really are skipping over many of the features of the Swordsage that do exactly what you're looking for. The entire flavor of the Swordsage's schtick revolves around Ki (or Qi, or Chi) and they get more than just 'brutal combat prowess', though you can certainly build them that way. Are they so balanced they can walk on walls? Yes they are. Are they so serene that they can stride on the very air? Why yes they are. Can they realize that all space is an illusion and thus appear instantaenously in another location? Certainly they can. Do they commune deep with the primal force of Fire and thus call one of its children, the Elementals? Yes they do.

And in any event many extremely real schools of martial arts mirror techniques used by Swordsages. Setting Sun is Judo (oh, and by the way, focuses on the idea of using an enemy's strength against them). Tiger Claw has similarities to many Asian styles; I've used techniques that echo Stone Dragon in real life. Diamond Mind draws elements from Kendo and other forms of fencing, et cetera, so forth. Everything a Monk is supposed to represent, a Swordsage can also represent. Admittedly, the Swordsage can also represent much more, but since when was that a weakness in the class? Classes are groupings of mechanics that you use to bring your character to life, not millstones to be placed around their necks.

[Boci]

Your avatar is a drow, so i can't take things you type seriously.

Mature. Were you trying to imitate what I was saying? Because it didn't work too well. I said your distinction was arbitary, and explained why. Your post was missing the "explain why" bit.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Dude, that's exactly my point. D&D monks are based on the most typical structure of the "mystical monk". The monks that do crazy feats through their spiritual nature. Once again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I feel monks do a better job reflecting this, opposed to having that power manifest solely as brutal combat prowess.

If I understand your argument, it's essentially "what about the martial masters who forgo spirituality in part or entirely to become brutal warriors?"
No, you've missed my point entirely. The martial arts masters of legend are almost never monks, at least not until they retire. They and virtually all other martial artists do, in fact, have a powerful spiritual side that they credit for their power.


Why are they granted power through their spirituality if it's not an integral part of their schtick?
That's just it, the spiritual aspect is a central part of their schtick.


It's all opinion about fluff, so it's very subjective, but I just don't like that.
That's a point I can't argue. You don't have to like it. I'm just trying to help you understand where the at least I, if not most of us, am coming from.

I simply find monks are a better reflection of that type of character than a swordsage-- who seem to me, to have traded the aspects of monastic training / spirituality. They aren't even limited by a weapon set to suggest their monastary is specialized in any way. You could be a martial master with a greatsword, and that just seems kinda silly. The monks of certain temples in china did train in use of their iteration of the greatsword. Specialization is represented by the weapon focus line, which swordsages get the first of as a class feature.


I just find constraints serve to solidify a character's theme. And with swordsages being pretty well entirely open, you really can build a character that doesn't evoke visions of that "mystical master", or even "martial master", which they are supposed to be... imo. Like a mithril breastplate wearing, greatsword weilding ninja-knight. If I'm reading you right, that's because you're taking a very narrow view of what a mystical or martial master is supposed to look like. Nevermind a mystical, martial master.


Anyways, I'm kinda tired of justifying my disliking Swordsages, I could go on and on- I am fueled by an endless supply of biased distaste. But in the end, the entire issue boils down to 3.5 being a modular system, rending this a non issue. I add books I like, remove ones I don't, which is kinda how the system was developed.

Sorry for typos in advance.

This last is something against which there is no argument. It's also the only legitimate, IMO, reason to ban ToB or any other book.

No worries on the typos. We all do it from time to time.:smalltongue:

[navar100]

You're right, except that the guys who designed it say that it is.

I've always found it deeply ironic how the staunchest defenders of 3.5, who loathe and despise 4th ed with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, love ToB yet are in complete denial over how it is a beta version of 4th ed.

If I sat down with a group of new players and talked about what they wanted to do, and they said they wanted to heroically whack things with swords, I'd poimt them at 4th ed. If they said they wanted to blow **** up and/or achieve ultimate magical power, I'd steer them towards 3.5

Because Tome of Battle did not get rid of magic to make everyone behave like it.

Because Tome of Battle allows you to recover maneuvers so you are not eventually just doing the same minute ability over and over and over.

Because Tome of Battle offers as lot of diversity in maneuvers. It is true two schools can share similarities, such as Devoted Spirit Foe Hammer and Stone Dragon Mountain Hammer, but you can't mistake White Raven Tactics for Shadow Blink for Wall Of Blades for Inferno Blast for Moment of Perfect Mind. Meanwhile, in 4E almost every power is X[W] damage + effect with X and severity of effect increasing slowly as the levels increase.

4E took what was good about Tome of Battle and turned it into junk.

/rant

[Starbuck_II]

Because Tome of Battle did not get rid of magic to make everyone behave like it.

Because Tome of Battle allows you to recover maneuvers so you are not eventually just doing the same minute ability over and over and over.

Because Tome of Battle offers as lot of diversity in maneuvers. It is true two schools can share similarities, such as Devoted Spirit Foe Hammer and Stone Dragon Mountain Hammer, but you can't mistake White Raven Tactics for Shadow Blink for Wall Of Blades for Inferno Blast for Moment of Perfect Mind. Meanwhile, in 4E almost every power is X[W] damage + effect with X and severity of effect increasing slowly as the levels increase.

4E took what was good about Tome of Battle and turned it into junk.

/rant

We already went over this: Essentials is 4E's version of ToB.

[navar100]

For many people, it really just comes down to "melee doesn't deserve nice things."

[Psyren]

Because Tome of Battle did not get rid of magic to make everyone behave like it.

Because Tome of Battle allows you to recover maneuvers so you are not eventually just doing the same minute ability over and over and over.

Because Tome of Battle offers as lot of diversity in maneuvers. It is true two schools can share similarities, such as Devoted Spirit Foe Hammer and Stone Dragon Mountain Hammer, but you can't mistake White Raven Tactics for Shadow Blink for Wall Of Blades for Inferno Blast for Moment of Perfect Mind. Meanwhile, in 4E almost every power is X[W] damage + effect with X and severity of effect increasing slowly as the levels increase.

4E took what was good about Tome of Battle and turned it into junk.

/rant

I normally avoid edition warring posts but cookie to you sir. These are exactly the reasons I won't go near 4e.

[Terazul]

Yeah, and still manages to be more believable than the Swordsage. Nuff said.
What.

With the exception of their Detect Magic ability at 7th, all of a swordsages supernatural abilities are completely optional, like, 33 of the 141 possible maneuvers they can choose (23%!) are magical, and within 2 schools (like 12 Shadow Hand, rest are Desert Wind). A Monk is stuck with like 5 of their 18 (28%!) class features being supernatural, not counting stuff that's Ex (Speak with anything that lives and Spell Resistance!) but could arguably be mystical.

A standard monk can teleport, speak with animals, and if he takes feats shoot fireballs out his hands, can dodge a 20ft radius explosion in a 10x10 room, heal with a touch, and go ethereal. A swordsage could completely avoid all the supernatural stuff, and focus on Stone Dragon and Setting Sun, and just be a dude who punches people and throws them into walls. How are they any more believable other than you're saying they are? :smallconfused:

[Provengreil]

And fighters can take feats to grant them SLA. Or fire a sling shot through multiple targets. Or become immune to things. Or defelct touch attacks with their shield.

If you light your hand on fire and try to grab my face, and I slap it away with my shield, you STILL haven't grabbed my face.


For many people, it really just comes down to "melee doesn't deserve nice things."

I'm in two minds. I see where both sides come from, but I generally fall under the not use it category.

You say people think melee doesn't deserve nice things. I don't think it's that. To me, ToB often feels too much like giving melee their own version of spells. I never play the party melee anyway because there are two other people in my group who will on no account ever play anything else, but frankly the complexity, the nature of the maneuver slots and various actions are VERY similar to magic (heck, there's even 9 levels of 9 schools in both maneuvers and magic, if you allow universal to be a magic school. I know that's not really an argument, but it's another similarity for the list). On the rare occasion I do go melee, I enjoy the reduction in complexity.

I once heard, however, on this forum, something else to that note. See, when people look at the stuff ToB can give them, it's all about the maneuvers. Therefore, people hate tome of battle because of the Alphabet.

Desert wind, where most of the fire spouting and straight up magical seeeming stuff comes from desert wind. I just opened it, and 9 of the first 12 maneuvers are tagged as fire abilities. This could easily give a bad first impression.

For our group, we mostly avoid ToB because we've accepted that our preferred balance point is low T4. we know of the tier system, ad we use higher tier classes sometimes, but we don't build them as high as they can go. ToB classes top out at T3, but you can pick maneuvers more or less at random and still be T3. So for anyone saying it's not too powerful, that is group dependent. Sometimes, it really is.

[Darius Kane]

To me, ToB often feels too much like giving melee their own version of spells.
If that's what it takes for melee to suck less, I'm okay with that.

[Spuddles]

Dude, that's exactly my point. D&D monks are based on the most typical structure of the "mystical monk". The monks that do crazy feats through their spiritual nature. Once again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I feel monks do a better job reflecting this, opposed to having that power manifest solely as brutal combat prowess.

If I understand your argument, it's essentially "what about the martial masters who forgo spirituality in part or entirely to become brutal warriors?"

Why are they granted power through their spirituality if it's not an integral part of their schtick?

It's all opinion about fluff, so it's very subjective, but I just don't like that.

I simply find monks are a better reflection of that type of character than a swordsage-- who seem to me, to have traded the aspects of monastic training / spirituality. They aren't even limited by a weapon set to suggest their monastary is specialized in any way. You could be a martial master with a greatsword, and that just seems kinda silly.

I just find constraints serve to solidify a character's theme. And with swordsages being pretty well entirely open, you really can build a character that doesn't evoke visions of that "mystical master", or even "martial master", which they are supposed to be... imo. Like a mithril breastplate wearing, greatsword weilding ninja-knight.

Anyways, I'm kinda tired of justifying my disliking Swordsages, I could go on and on- I am fueled by an endless supply of biased distaste. But in the end, the entire issue boils down to 3.5 being a modular system, rending this a non issue. I add books I like, remove ones I don't, which is kinda how the system was developed.

Sorry for typos in advance.

I was pretty turned off to tome of battle, in large part because people just couldn't stop talking about how great it was and touching themselves and ignoring the stupid parts and the bad parts.

But it's a good upgrade to fighters and stuff, and my party needed it when I was DMing for them, so they retrained into swordsage and warblade.

Now, granted that virtually all of the stuff in ToB is about fighting, I am going to have to disagree with you on the monk being more monk than the swordsage.

The swordsage gets more skill points, a lot more, actually, than the monk, to invest in monk-y stuff, like jumping and climbing and etc. The swordsage also gets maneuvers and stances that let her teleport in the blink of an eye, jump huge distances, including prince of persia style parkour double jumps, balance on the freaking air, shroud themselves in shadows (hey there, hide check), walk through fire, summon fire spirits, and of course, be badass killing machines with their weapon of choice. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ7z57qrZU8) Oh yeah, and they can be pretty good at smashing objects, too. Monks are actually pretty bad at breaking things.

Tell me, how is your monk going to run across the trees of a bamboo forest, leap up the side of a castle wall, charge down the battlements leaving a trail of fire, teleport into the gatehouse in a burst of shadow, and drop the guard with a flurry of unarmed strikes/katana cuts/etc, before level 10? Then he'll make his exit by dramatically throwing some one out a window, leaping out after them, and finishing them by impaling them with a glaive.

You're really not going to be doing any of that as a monk, because you're not going to have the feats, the skills, the levels, or just easy access to abilities like that.

I don't mean to jump on the bash squidfist train. I want you to know that I used to feel the same way about ToB, before I started using it. Other than spellcasting, I think it is probably the only mechanic in the game that matches what it is supposed to feel like. Throwing a demon into a pit of lava is exactly that. I don't need a chain of feats. I just do it at level 1. Doing a backflip over an enemy and disemboweling him on the way over? Check. Able to jump 10 vertical feat without having to make a jump check? Check. As a swift action? Hell yeah.

Just give it a try. Maybe as a dip on some monsters with a lot of hit dice that you want to have a kung fu feel. Wait until you see the look on a player's face when that kobold picks them up and hurls them 40 feet across a tavern.

[Boci]

If you light your hand on fire and try to grab my face, and I slap it away with my shield, you STILL haven't grabbed my face.

Thats the low hanging fruit. Now explain how it works for scorching ray and incorporeal touch attacks.

[Spuddles]

"The idea they get their power in the same way as a monk doesn't fly with me, because all of their power is directed at combat- where monks spiritual nature is apparent with their still mind, and perfect body and all that. It's a better outlet for the "mind body and soul" type thing than just being a brutal warrior."


I don't think that compensates for the fact they can, if they choose to, do all sorts of bizarre quasi-magical crap with seemingly no explanation other than "being a total badass".


Did you know that both classes that do magic stuff get knowledge religion or knowledge arcana as class skills?

The crusader gets magic through his conviction, his faith, his devoted spirit allows him to perform miracles. A monk calls it Ki. A crusader calls it righteousness.

A swordsage studies the ancient mystic technique of doing monk stuff by meditating. A monk calls it skill hax and the epic handbook. A swordsage recognizes that as bad game design and just gets class features that let her be a badass that monks get, too, and from the same power source (ki, blade magic, quasi-mystic martial arts mumo-jumbo), but 15 levels earlier and without depending on a huge pile of magic items. Basically, a swordsage is a monk, only BETTER at being a monk and focusing that mysticality to balance on clouds and jump over small houses.

I seriously suggest you build a few characters and see how they play- mundane warblade "samurai", unarmed swordsage "monk", tanky healing crusader "paladin". You'll find that in actual play, the way the end up feeling is surprisingly close to how you want them to play. The mechanics add stuff that melee should have got ages ago, without being too clunky or totally useless. Setting Sun and Iron Heart are basically stuff that every martial character should have had options to do by default....

[TuggyNE]

Thats the low hanging fruit. Now explain how it works for scorching ray and incorporeal touch attacks.

Quibble: incorporeal touch attacks really aren't; they're more properly incorporeal slams (which happen to ignore non-force-effect/ghost-touch armor and natural armor). (Of course in this context it doesn't matter, since one is as hard to explain as the other.)

Another example is disintegrate. Go on, tell me how your mundane fighter is knocking aside a thin green ray of pure destructive energy with his shield.

(For clarity's sake: I fully support Fighters being able to pull this off, but I don't pretend it's anything less than a superhero-style feat. It's not mundane by any means.)

[Knaight]

You're right, except that the guys who designed it say that it is.

So what? The materials are out there, they have a certain level of similarity, and regardless of what WotC says it isn't going to change said level of similarity. They call it similar, but that really means no more than the huge number of people who disagree with them calling it sufficiently dissimilar.


Thats the low hanging fruit. Now explain how it works for scorching ray and incorporeal touch attacks.
If you try to hit me with a heat ray, and it hits the edge of my shield and burns the surface, you still haven't hit me with the heat ray.

[ThiagoMartell]

Actually, you know how elves are seen as haughty and not caring about other races? (read Complete Book of elves for 2E Elves being racist)

Giant Eagles were worst. True Neutral. Old School Style.
So the eagles just didn't care. Why should they? This was a Man problem.

Nah, the eagles helped Gandalf. Looks for the Tolkien letters. He admits it himself - he just didn't want the story to be over that easily. And that's okay.

[Provengreil]

Quibble: incorporeal touch attacks really aren't; they're more properly incorporeal slams (which happen to ignore non-force-effect/ghost-touch armor and natural armor). (Of course in this context it doesn't matter, since one is as hard to explain as the other.)

Another example is disintegrate. Go on, tell me how your mundane fighter is knocking aside a thin green ray of pure destructive energy with his shield.

(For clarity's sake: I fully support Fighters being able to pull this off, but I don't pretend it's anything less than a superhero-style feat. It's not mundane by any means.)

Disintegrate targets an object. That target is you. it will not affect your equipment; even if you die, your stuff is still on the ground. however, you ever notice that even such a potentially devastating spell has no collateral effects at all if it misses? it only has an effect if it hits the intended target, which is NOT your shield, as evidenced by your shield being intact if you die to the ray.

For incorporeal touch/slam/whatever, no, there isn't a good explanation involving shields unless the attack does damage(specifically, HP damage). For that to happen, it must impact you, and be physical at the time of strike, at which point a shield would be relevant. If it does, say, DEX damage, then no. There is no easy explanation.

[Boci]

Disintegrate targets an object. That target is you. it will not affect your equipment; even if you die, your stuff is still on the ground. however, you ever notice that even such a potentially devastating spell has no collateral effects at all if it misses? it only has an effect if it hits the intended target, which is NOT your shield, as evidenced by your shield being intact if you die to the ray.

But disintigration can target shield. You're just solving one problem by highlighting a gap in the rules and ignoring versimultitude.


For incorporeal touch/slam/whatever, no, there isn't a good explanation involving shields unless the attack does damage(specifically, HP damage). For that to happen, it must impact you, and be physical at the time of strike, at which point a shield would be relevant. If it does, say, DEX damage, then no. There is no easy explanation.

This one seems problomatic. Even if an incorporeal creature does materialize part of its body to attack (as oppose to just draining your life force), it would only do so once it is in conctact with your body, otherwise your armour would apply against the attack.


If you try to hit me with a heat ray, and it hits the edge of my shield and burns the surface, you still haven't hit me with the heat ray.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to spell it out, but doesn't that explanation just raise another problem in the form of, why do I need a feat to do this?

I agree with tuggyne: I have nothing wrong melee doing this, just don't pretend it makes sense.

[Alienist]

I was pretty turned off to tome of battle, in large part because people just couldn't stop talking about how great it was and touching themselves

There's nothing wrong with a bit of touching yourself between friends. :smallredface:

The ones that get to me are the ones who if you even hint that you don't like ToB act like you just picked up their favourite grandparent and beat their childhood puppy to death with said octogenarian. :smalleek:

Likewise, in threads about Fighters you cannot use the W word otherwise the frothing at the mouth legions will appear and start taking it very personally. :smallfurious:

At OP. This. This thread illustrates exactly why your group is right to be scared of ToB. ;-) Flee while you still can! (If you do use it, don't point them at any online forums)

[Thrice Dead Cat]

There's nothing wrong with a bit of touching yourself between friends. :smallredface:

The ones that get to me are the ones who if you even hint that you don't like ToB act like you just picked up their favourite grandparent and beat their childhood puppy to death with said octogenarian. :smalleek:

Likewise, in threads about Fighters you cannot use the W word otherwise the frothing at the mouth legions will appear and start taking it very personally. :smallfurious:

At OP. This. This thread illustrates exactly why your group is right to be scared of ToB. ;-) Flee while you still can! (If you do use it, don't point them at any online forums)

We have already established that if the group is a bunch of meatshield fighters, blaster wizards, healbot clerics, and skillmonkey rogues, then the optimization floor of Tome of Battle will blow them away.

Other people have shown that some of the preconceived notion in regards to ToB are, well, silly at best. We're lucky we've avoided most of the nonsense that is "it's too anime" this time around. While Boci, Lord Gareth and others have all been rather straight forward in either asking why Squidfist has such a disdain for ToB when it seems most of the complaints of the flavor are concentrated primarily within the monk-analogue or showing how even mundane (in so much as any 3.5 character is mundane) such characters can still be with Swordsages that avoid Shadow Hand and Desert Wind.

A few people even went so far as to introduce ToB into the game slowly with the use of martial scripts, the Martial Study/Stance feats on NPCs, or by offering the players to swing a level into one of the three initiator classes to see how it is to play.

[Knaight]

I was hoping I wouldn't have to spell it out, but doesn't that explanation just raise another problem in the form of, why do I need a feat to do this?

It shouldn't need a feat, no. Still, it makes more sense to have than to not have, so the ability to do it isn't problematic. By the standards of the D&D combat system though, needing a feat to do something that should just be available is hardly a new thing (e.g. Combat Expertise).