Eldan
2013-06-11, 03:42 PM
Table of Contents
1. The Art of Fighting - General Mechanics
2. Students of the Art - Classes
3. Twelve Blades - Martial Disciplines
4. Honed to Perfection - Feats and Skills
5. Iron, Cold Iron - Martial Equipment
The Aim of this Book: An Introduction
This started out as a small project I had called "Un-Vancianing the Book of Nine Swords", but it grew from there. But I should start at the beginning.
There is a strange dichotomy in D&D, between mundane characters and magical characters. Not so much in how much they can do, or how many tactical options they have available, but in their abstraction. For simplicity's sake, I will illustrate this with the Wizard and the Fighter.
The Wizard has a number of spells available for any given situation. Every spell comes with a lengthy description of its detailed effects. There are spells that target enemy body parts, that target only certain types of enemy, that target ony certain materials, that move things in closely prescribed ways. Spells are specific. Of course, the wizard can ask the DM to allow a more general effect. Can you use Defenestrating sphere to hurl a rock at a ceiling? Could you perhaps use Transform Sand to Glass on a salt lake that is not technically sand? Some spells have quite narrow effects.
Spells are also discrete. A single standard action and one spell slot produces a single fireball.
Martial attacks are in many ways the opposite. The attack roll is quite abstract. Whether you stab an enemy's arm, chest, leg or left eyeball, you make an attack and a damage roll. Not only that, but while some spells have quite detailed (and often graphic) effects, melee attacks take away from a nebulous pool of hit points that can, depending on edition and personal interpretation, mean any number of things: wounds, fatigue, luck, inspiration, dodging or divine favour. It may well be that while your blow deals 1d12+50 damage on a mid-level character, there is no visible effect on your equally levelled foe.
Even worse, in some aspects, is that attacks are also quite nebulous in what exactly they represent. Some sources and rules texts seem to imply that one attack roll is one stroke, while others tell of the dozens of slashes and parries that fighters are levelling at each other in the six seconds (or full minute, in older editions) of a typical combat round.
The Tome of Battle tried to adress a few of those things by giving martial characters a selection of more specific maneuvers. This introduced some tactical versatility to them while making combat mechanics more descriptive. There were a number of problems with this approach.
Earlier, I started a small survey in this forum to have a look at what the community's problems were with the Tome of Battle. Initiatially, my thought was to change the way maneuvers were gained and used in combat to do away with the pseudo-vancian preparation aspect and just having all maneuvers be available always, but it turned out the community did not want that.
So I will instead try and change the maneuver restoration mechanic of the Swordsage and Crusader, giving the three initiator classes a single unified refreshing mechanic related to that of the present Warblade. The classes will instead be more differentiated over their class features and their unique schools (Devoted Spirit for Crusaders, Iron Heart for the Warblade and Shadow Hand and Desert Wind for the Swordsage).
As a secondary goal, I want to give all the classes more maneuvers, especially counters and stances. All schools will gain more maneuvers as well, giving them a bit more breadth.
(Note: I'm quite sure I will change the name Maneuver to Technique. Maneuvers make me thing of ships and armies, not swordsmen.)
1. The Art of Fighting - General Mechanics
There are untold ways in which one can learn to fight. From one's parents, one's officers, from schools and wise masters or simply from brutal necessity and endless fighting.
But one fact remains: there are only so many ways in which one can fight with a given weapon. In a culture where fighting with weapons is a common occurence, formalized ways of weapon training will often emerge.
The twelve blades, as they are often known, are twelve well-known, standardized ways of fighting. While some fighters may arrive at the most basic of these techniques on their own, these are most often taught in schools or by teachers.
Initiator level
A character's initiator level determines how well-versed they are in the various techniques and stances of their craft. As their initiator level increases, their techniques and stances will become stronger proportionally.
Initiator level is determined in a simple fashion: their basic initiator level is equal to their level in all initiator classes (the Knight, the Warrior and the Weapon Master, described below), plus their base attack bonus from all non-initiator classes.
Examples:
The initiator level of a Warrior 3 is simply three.
The initiator level of a Knight 3/Paladin 2 is 5, since a Paladin has a base attack bonus equal to their level.
The initiator level of a Weapon Master 3/Rogue 2 is 4, since a second level rogue has a base attack bonus of +1.
Stances
A Stance is the most basic component of any fighting style and always the first thing a prospective student learns. It represents different things to different styles: while in most, it is simply a certain way of standing, holding a weapon and readying oneself to striking, in the supernatural schools, it is a way of preparing the mind and entering a mystical state of focus.
There are three basic categories of stances: offensive stances, defensive stances and utility stances. While this mainly serves their general effect on the initiator, there are feats, class features and some techniques which interact differently with different kinds of stances.
Stances give a bonus that is always active as long as a character is in that stance, with the following exceptions:
Initiators who is currently confused, cowering, dazed, dead, dying, fascinated, frightened, helpless, nauseated, panicked, paralyzed, petrified, staggered or unconscious can not enter or maintain a stance and loses all bonuses of their current stance. As soon as the condition no longer applies, they may enter a stance again as normal.
One may enter a stance in two ways: either with the Combat Preparation action (described below in the section on techniques) or as a swift action.
An initiator may, at any time, drop their current stance as a free action during their own turn, foregoing the bonus it gives, or drop their current stance and enter a new stance as a single swift action.
Techniques
Techniques are advanced combat maneuvers initiators learn as part of their combat training. They include strikes, which usually harm a foe in some way, boosts, which improve their performance for a short time, usually a round, and counters, which are ways to immediately react to changing circumstances and enemy attacks.
Outside of combat, in any situation that is not dangerous, an initiator may execute all techniques at will with no limitation.
During combat, or any other stressful situation, however, an initiator must first mentally prepare themselves for executing a technique. They may only execute techniques which they have currently prepared. The number of techniques which an initiator may prepare themselves for executing is a class feature and increases as the initiator gains more levels in initiating classes. Once an initiator executes a technique during combat, it is expended and can only be executed again once the initiator refreshes it. An initiator may choose to voluntarily drop any of their prepared techniques as a free action whenever they prepare new techniques, freeing up slots for other techniques to be prepared.
Preparing a technique is possible in several ways:
An initiator can prepare techniques ahead of time. To do this, they have to go through the motions of a technique, which requires a move action per technique to be prepared and can only be done outside of stressful situations. After this, the techniques remain prepared until the next combat.
The Combat Preparation action prepares a number of techniques.
Alternatively, an initiator can perform a standard attack with a weapon they are proficient with and, as part of the attack, refresh 1d4 techniques. These techniques plus any other they have currently prepared, can not go over the current maximum number of techniques their class levels allow them to prepare at any given time.
Finally, whenever an initiator switches from one stance into another (a swift action, see the section on stances, above) they may refresh a single technique.
Combat Preparation
Combat preparation is a new type of combat action that everyone with at least one level in an initiating class can perform once per encounter, usually during a surprise round.
Combat preparation takes a standard action. As part of this action, the initiator may enter a stance they know and prepare a number of maneuvers up to the half the number of prepared techniques their class allows, rounded up. Additionally, they may do one or several of the following:
-Draw one weapon per hand
-Move up to their standard movement distance
or
-Do a standard melee or ranged attack, if possible.
Executing Maneuvers
Strikes
Strikes can only be executed during the initiator's turn. Unless otherwise noted, they take a standard action to execute and involve making a single melee attack against a target, with an added effect specific to the strike.
There are, however, also strikes which involve multiple or no attacks, or which can be made at range. In such cases, this is noted in each strike's description.
Boosts
Boosts are techniques which temporarily increase the initiator's capabilities in some manner. Unless otherwise noted, they take a swift action to execute and their bonus lasts until the end of the initiator's turn.
Counter
Counters allow an initiator to react to the world around them. They always have a trigger, a certain condition which must be met before they can be executed, which takes an immediate action.
Steps
Steps are maneuvers which take place during a single move action, as part of that movement. Often, they change how that movement works.
Multiclassing and the Art of Fighting
A character always only has a single initiator level which they use for all their initiating classes, which is always calculated as their combined level in all initiator classes plus their base attack bonus in all other classes.
Similarly, it makes no difference which class one learned a maneuver from, a character always has a single pool of maneuvers known and prepared.
Chains
Chains are similar to counters in that they are triggered by a certain action. However, unlike Counters, they are not triggered by anything an enemy does, but by certain actions the initiator performs, usually involving a certain sequence of maneuvers or changing his
2. Students of the Art - Classes
-The Knight
-The Warrior
-The Weaponmaster
3. Twelve Blades - Martial Disciplines
Overview:
Stances:
Level 1:
Desert Wind: Dancing Sand (Utility) - move, tumble and balance across various kinds of difficult terrain unhindered
Desert Wind: Flame's Blessing (Defensive, Supernatural) - fire resistance based on initiator level
Desert Wind
Taking its name from the blazing wastelands and their savage sandstorms, Desert Wind is a school that on the one hand focuses on pure speed and dexterity, combining rapid flurries of strikes with dazzling agile footwork, but on the other hand also draws supernatural power from the sun and the storm, allowing the initiator to scour their opponents with fire and scouring wind.
First Level Stances:
Dancing Sand
Stance (Desert Wind, Utility)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
The initiator may move without increased movement cost or speed penalty and without a penalty or increased skill DC to their balance or tumble check over angled, slippery or lightly obstructed terrain (see the balance and tumble skills) and over shallow sand and light rubble (see Sandstorm).
If their initiator level is five or higher, add deep sand and dense rubble to this list of terrain.
If their initiator level is eight or higher, they may tumble at full speed without taking a penalty to their tumble check and they gain Run as a bonus feat while in this stance.
Flame's Blessing
Stance (Desert Wind, Defensive, Supernatural)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
While in this stance, the initiator gains fire resistance equal to twice their initiator level. If their initiator level is 15 or greater, they gain fire immunity instead.
Devoted Spirit
-Diamond Mind
-Faithful Protector
Hawk's Eye
While most trained warriors focus on close combat, the adepts of the Hawk's Eye train almost exclusively with ranged wapons, knowing that distance is often the best armour. Masters of this school are deadly with the bow, both fearsome snipers and able to unleash truly frightening hails of arrows.
First Level Stances:
Eye on the Horizon
Stance (Hawk's Eye, Utility)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
While in this stance, the initiator suffers a reduced penalty for spotting creatures and objects at a distance.
Instead of a -1 penalty per ten feet of distance, they suffer only a -1 penalty per twenty feet of distance.
With increasing initiator level, the power of this stance increases:
At initiator level 5, the penalty is reduced to -1 per thirty feet of distance.
At initiator level 10, the penalty is reduced to -1 per fifty feet of distance.
At initiator level 15, the penalty is reduced to -1 per one hundred feet of distance.
Guarded Shot
Stance (Hawk's Eye, Defensive)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
If the initiator provokes an attack of opportunity for making a ranged attack, they gain a dodge bonus to their armour class against those attacks equal to their initiator level +2.
If their initiator level is eight or higher, they no longer provoke attacks of opportunity for making ranged attacks when in melee range of an opponent.
-Hidden Blade
-Iron Heart
-Setting Sun
-Shadow Hand
-Stone Dragon
-Tiger Claw
White Raven
First Level Stances:
Bolstering Voice
Stance (White Raven, Defensive)
Prerequisites: Initiator level 1
By the initiator's mere presence, they inspire their allies to stand strong against menacing foes and dangers of the mind, hardening their will.
All allies within a 60 ft. emanation centered on the initiator gain a morale bonus of 2+1/5 initiator levels on will saves. This bonus doubles against all fear effects.
4. Honed to Perfection - Feats and Skills
-Tactical Feats
5. Iron, Cold Iron - Martial Equipment
-New Special Materials
1. The Art of Fighting - General Mechanics
2. Students of the Art - Classes
3. Twelve Blades - Martial Disciplines
4. Honed to Perfection - Feats and Skills
5. Iron, Cold Iron - Martial Equipment
The Aim of this Book: An Introduction
This started out as a small project I had called "Un-Vancianing the Book of Nine Swords", but it grew from there. But I should start at the beginning.
There is a strange dichotomy in D&D, between mundane characters and magical characters. Not so much in how much they can do, or how many tactical options they have available, but in their abstraction. For simplicity's sake, I will illustrate this with the Wizard and the Fighter.
The Wizard has a number of spells available for any given situation. Every spell comes with a lengthy description of its detailed effects. There are spells that target enemy body parts, that target only certain types of enemy, that target ony certain materials, that move things in closely prescribed ways. Spells are specific. Of course, the wizard can ask the DM to allow a more general effect. Can you use Defenestrating sphere to hurl a rock at a ceiling? Could you perhaps use Transform Sand to Glass on a salt lake that is not technically sand? Some spells have quite narrow effects.
Spells are also discrete. A single standard action and one spell slot produces a single fireball.
Martial attacks are in many ways the opposite. The attack roll is quite abstract. Whether you stab an enemy's arm, chest, leg or left eyeball, you make an attack and a damage roll. Not only that, but while some spells have quite detailed (and often graphic) effects, melee attacks take away from a nebulous pool of hit points that can, depending on edition and personal interpretation, mean any number of things: wounds, fatigue, luck, inspiration, dodging or divine favour. It may well be that while your blow deals 1d12+50 damage on a mid-level character, there is no visible effect on your equally levelled foe.
Even worse, in some aspects, is that attacks are also quite nebulous in what exactly they represent. Some sources and rules texts seem to imply that one attack roll is one stroke, while others tell of the dozens of slashes and parries that fighters are levelling at each other in the six seconds (or full minute, in older editions) of a typical combat round.
The Tome of Battle tried to adress a few of those things by giving martial characters a selection of more specific maneuvers. This introduced some tactical versatility to them while making combat mechanics more descriptive. There were a number of problems with this approach.
Earlier, I started a small survey in this forum to have a look at what the community's problems were with the Tome of Battle. Initiatially, my thought was to change the way maneuvers were gained and used in combat to do away with the pseudo-vancian preparation aspect and just having all maneuvers be available always, but it turned out the community did not want that.
So I will instead try and change the maneuver restoration mechanic of the Swordsage and Crusader, giving the three initiator classes a single unified refreshing mechanic related to that of the present Warblade. The classes will instead be more differentiated over their class features and their unique schools (Devoted Spirit for Crusaders, Iron Heart for the Warblade and Shadow Hand and Desert Wind for the Swordsage).
As a secondary goal, I want to give all the classes more maneuvers, especially counters and stances. All schools will gain more maneuvers as well, giving them a bit more breadth.
(Note: I'm quite sure I will change the name Maneuver to Technique. Maneuvers make me thing of ships and armies, not swordsmen.)
1. The Art of Fighting - General Mechanics
There are untold ways in which one can learn to fight. From one's parents, one's officers, from schools and wise masters or simply from brutal necessity and endless fighting.
But one fact remains: there are only so many ways in which one can fight with a given weapon. In a culture where fighting with weapons is a common occurence, formalized ways of weapon training will often emerge.
The twelve blades, as they are often known, are twelve well-known, standardized ways of fighting. While some fighters may arrive at the most basic of these techniques on their own, these are most often taught in schools or by teachers.
Initiator level
A character's initiator level determines how well-versed they are in the various techniques and stances of their craft. As their initiator level increases, their techniques and stances will become stronger proportionally.
Initiator level is determined in a simple fashion: their basic initiator level is equal to their level in all initiator classes (the Knight, the Warrior and the Weapon Master, described below), plus their base attack bonus from all non-initiator classes.
Examples:
The initiator level of a Warrior 3 is simply three.
The initiator level of a Knight 3/Paladin 2 is 5, since a Paladin has a base attack bonus equal to their level.
The initiator level of a Weapon Master 3/Rogue 2 is 4, since a second level rogue has a base attack bonus of +1.
Stances
A Stance is the most basic component of any fighting style and always the first thing a prospective student learns. It represents different things to different styles: while in most, it is simply a certain way of standing, holding a weapon and readying oneself to striking, in the supernatural schools, it is a way of preparing the mind and entering a mystical state of focus.
There are three basic categories of stances: offensive stances, defensive stances and utility stances. While this mainly serves their general effect on the initiator, there are feats, class features and some techniques which interact differently with different kinds of stances.
Stances give a bonus that is always active as long as a character is in that stance, with the following exceptions:
Initiators who is currently confused, cowering, dazed, dead, dying, fascinated, frightened, helpless, nauseated, panicked, paralyzed, petrified, staggered or unconscious can not enter or maintain a stance and loses all bonuses of their current stance. As soon as the condition no longer applies, they may enter a stance again as normal.
One may enter a stance in two ways: either with the Combat Preparation action (described below in the section on techniques) or as a swift action.
An initiator may, at any time, drop their current stance as a free action during their own turn, foregoing the bonus it gives, or drop their current stance and enter a new stance as a single swift action.
Techniques
Techniques are advanced combat maneuvers initiators learn as part of their combat training. They include strikes, which usually harm a foe in some way, boosts, which improve their performance for a short time, usually a round, and counters, which are ways to immediately react to changing circumstances and enemy attacks.
Outside of combat, in any situation that is not dangerous, an initiator may execute all techniques at will with no limitation.
During combat, or any other stressful situation, however, an initiator must first mentally prepare themselves for executing a technique. They may only execute techniques which they have currently prepared. The number of techniques which an initiator may prepare themselves for executing is a class feature and increases as the initiator gains more levels in initiating classes. Once an initiator executes a technique during combat, it is expended and can only be executed again once the initiator refreshes it. An initiator may choose to voluntarily drop any of their prepared techniques as a free action whenever they prepare new techniques, freeing up slots for other techniques to be prepared.
Preparing a technique is possible in several ways:
An initiator can prepare techniques ahead of time. To do this, they have to go through the motions of a technique, which requires a move action per technique to be prepared and can only be done outside of stressful situations. After this, the techniques remain prepared until the next combat.
The Combat Preparation action prepares a number of techniques.
Alternatively, an initiator can perform a standard attack with a weapon they are proficient with and, as part of the attack, refresh 1d4 techniques. These techniques plus any other they have currently prepared, can not go over the current maximum number of techniques their class levels allow them to prepare at any given time.
Finally, whenever an initiator switches from one stance into another (a swift action, see the section on stances, above) they may refresh a single technique.
Combat Preparation
Combat preparation is a new type of combat action that everyone with at least one level in an initiating class can perform once per encounter, usually during a surprise round.
Combat preparation takes a standard action. As part of this action, the initiator may enter a stance they know and prepare a number of maneuvers up to the half the number of prepared techniques their class allows, rounded up. Additionally, they may do one or several of the following:
-Draw one weapon per hand
-Move up to their standard movement distance
or
-Do a standard melee or ranged attack, if possible.
Executing Maneuvers
Strikes
Strikes can only be executed during the initiator's turn. Unless otherwise noted, they take a standard action to execute and involve making a single melee attack against a target, with an added effect specific to the strike.
There are, however, also strikes which involve multiple or no attacks, or which can be made at range. In such cases, this is noted in each strike's description.
Boosts
Boosts are techniques which temporarily increase the initiator's capabilities in some manner. Unless otherwise noted, they take a swift action to execute and their bonus lasts until the end of the initiator's turn.
Counter
Counters allow an initiator to react to the world around them. They always have a trigger, a certain condition which must be met before they can be executed, which takes an immediate action.
Steps
Steps are maneuvers which take place during a single move action, as part of that movement. Often, they change how that movement works.
Multiclassing and the Art of Fighting
A character always only has a single initiator level which they use for all their initiating classes, which is always calculated as their combined level in all initiator classes plus their base attack bonus in all other classes.
Similarly, it makes no difference which class one learned a maneuver from, a character always has a single pool of maneuvers known and prepared.
Chains
Chains are similar to counters in that they are triggered by a certain action. However, unlike Counters, they are not triggered by anything an enemy does, but by certain actions the initiator performs, usually involving a certain sequence of maneuvers or changing his
2. Students of the Art - Classes
-The Knight
-The Warrior
-The Weaponmaster
3. Twelve Blades - Martial Disciplines
Overview:
Stances:
Level 1:
Desert Wind: Dancing Sand (Utility) - move, tumble and balance across various kinds of difficult terrain unhindered
Desert Wind: Flame's Blessing (Defensive, Supernatural) - fire resistance based on initiator level
Desert Wind
Taking its name from the blazing wastelands and their savage sandstorms, Desert Wind is a school that on the one hand focuses on pure speed and dexterity, combining rapid flurries of strikes with dazzling agile footwork, but on the other hand also draws supernatural power from the sun and the storm, allowing the initiator to scour their opponents with fire and scouring wind.
First Level Stances:
Dancing Sand
Stance (Desert Wind, Utility)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
The initiator may move without increased movement cost or speed penalty and without a penalty or increased skill DC to their balance or tumble check over angled, slippery or lightly obstructed terrain (see the balance and tumble skills) and over shallow sand and light rubble (see Sandstorm).
If their initiator level is five or higher, add deep sand and dense rubble to this list of terrain.
If their initiator level is eight or higher, they may tumble at full speed without taking a penalty to their tumble check and they gain Run as a bonus feat while in this stance.
Flame's Blessing
Stance (Desert Wind, Defensive, Supernatural)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
While in this stance, the initiator gains fire resistance equal to twice their initiator level. If their initiator level is 15 or greater, they gain fire immunity instead.
Devoted Spirit
-Diamond Mind
-Faithful Protector
Hawk's Eye
While most trained warriors focus on close combat, the adepts of the Hawk's Eye train almost exclusively with ranged wapons, knowing that distance is often the best armour. Masters of this school are deadly with the bow, both fearsome snipers and able to unleash truly frightening hails of arrows.
First Level Stances:
Eye on the Horizon
Stance (Hawk's Eye, Utility)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
While in this stance, the initiator suffers a reduced penalty for spotting creatures and objects at a distance.
Instead of a -1 penalty per ten feet of distance, they suffer only a -1 penalty per twenty feet of distance.
With increasing initiator level, the power of this stance increases:
At initiator level 5, the penalty is reduced to -1 per thirty feet of distance.
At initiator level 10, the penalty is reduced to -1 per fifty feet of distance.
At initiator level 15, the penalty is reduced to -1 per one hundred feet of distance.
Guarded Shot
Stance (Hawk's Eye, Defensive)
Prerequisites: Initiator Level 1
If the initiator provokes an attack of opportunity for making a ranged attack, they gain a dodge bonus to their armour class against those attacks equal to their initiator level +2.
If their initiator level is eight or higher, they no longer provoke attacks of opportunity for making ranged attacks when in melee range of an opponent.
-Hidden Blade
-Iron Heart
-Setting Sun
-Shadow Hand
-Stone Dragon
-Tiger Claw
White Raven
First Level Stances:
Bolstering Voice
Stance (White Raven, Defensive)
Prerequisites: Initiator level 1
By the initiator's mere presence, they inspire their allies to stand strong against menacing foes and dangers of the mind, hardening their will.
All allies within a 60 ft. emanation centered on the initiator gain a morale bonus of 2+1/5 initiator levels on will saves. This bonus doubles against all fear effects.
4. Honed to Perfection - Feats and Skills
-Tactical Feats
5. Iron, Cold Iron - Martial Equipment
-New Special Materials