Tome of Battle in E6: Would you tweak it? How?

[Zovc]

Hey, folks. I'm working on a ground-up campaign setting built around E6. I'm wanting there to be epic stuff, but in the form of ritual magic and post-6-advancement epic skills and other far-and-away silliness.

Anyways, I haven't done as much playing with Tome of Battle as I should, so I'm sorta 'forcing' it into this campaign. A lot of things are being designed brand new and specifically for the setting, so it seems to me like the ToB content should, too.

I'm sure there are a lot of good resources for me to glean insight from--and I'm going to look into them--but I wanted to fish for personal opinions and specific suggestions first.

So, I'm designing two Martial Adept classes for my campaign, which will hopefully be pretty modular and able to fulfill most people's needs for the martial artist trope. The Sublime Warrior will be the martial adept fighter, like the warblade, but not necessarily exactly like him. The Sublime Monk will be like the swordsage and the monk and the ninja all had a baby, and possibly even borrowed some tricks from the Warblade and/or the Crusader.

To further explain, I'm roughly categorizing classes based on how I want them to function: specialized classes are streamlined and focused on one set of mechanics (Magic, Psionics, Tome of Battle-ry, etc.), and should be able to do their "thing" all day, every day--they should always be able to contribute their expertise regardless of how long the adventuring day lasts (so long as they aren't dead, I guess). Hybrid classes combine the specialized classes with other classes--they should generally always be able to contribue in a fight, and they should generally always be able to do their two activities, but they'll probably pale in comparison to a specialist. To account for their lesser expertise, though, hybrid classes should have interesting mechanics that give them a unique playstyle with synergy between their two focuses and advantages over specialized classes.

So, the Sublime Warrior will be my 100% Tome of Battle guy, while my Sublime Monk will be my Tome of Battle-sporting priest/rogue/monk/ranger/other things.

I'm intending to give the Sublime Warrior the Warblade's mechanics for maneuvers, I feel like they're the most elegant and straightforward. I really like the idea of giving the Sublime Monk the crusader's mechanics for maneuvers, where they might need to stall until they can set up the move they have that's perfect for the situation.

The things I'd like to ask for advice on are:
Would you adjust Tome of Battle's advancement for E6? How?
Hearing my descriptions of the Sublime Warrior and Monk, what hodgepodge of mechanics do you envision? What kinds of characters?
How many maneuvers do you think an E6 campaign's disciplines need? How do you feel about "epic" E6 maneuvers?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Would you adjust Tome of Battle's advancement for E6? How?
Probably not.


Hearing my descriptions of the Sublime Warrior and Monk, what hodgepodge of mechanics do you envision? What kinds of characters?
A Warblade and a Swordsage, pretty much. Though I do like giving the Swordsage the Crusader's mechanism. Just be aware that the more maneuvers you have readied, the more awkward the mechanism gets.


How many maneuvers do you think an E6 campaign's disciplines need?
I suppose it couldn't hurt to homebrew a few more, but there are usually way more maneuvers I want than I can take.


How do you feel about "epic" E6 maneuvers?
Take a feat for a specific 4th level maneuver? Eh... there aren't any that are radially different, necessary (like restoration), or iconic. I wouldn't bother.

[Zovc]

Though I do like giving the Swordsage the Crusader's mechanism. Just be aware that the more maneuvers you have readied, the more awkward the mechanism gets.

Do you have a specific number for when things get awkward? What if I provided my players with a deck of cards for their maneuvers to shuffle up?


I suppose it couldn't hurt to homebrew a few more, but there are usually way more maneuvers I want than I can take.

Well, elves specifically in my campaign are going to be very "eastern" and samurai-like. They'll probably have one or two (or a few) disciplines of their own. Other races might have their own, too. And there will be others, too, I'm sure.

I'm thinking a Gnomish Wing Chun and Judo hybrid sounds pretty (read: obscenely) awesome.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Would you adjust Tome of Battle's advancement for E6? How?

I'd run them as-is, at least for the first campaign. There's a chance that their high level of out-of-the-box capability might end up making them seem very strong, but I suspect that they'll just end up being highly competent instead of actually overpowered.


Hearing my descriptions of the Sublime Warrior and Monk, what hodgepodge of mechanics do you envision? What kinds of characters?

I'll echo Grod_The_Giant here: I'm still basically seeing default Warblade and default Swordsage flavoring. Can you be a bit more specific in your descriptions of each class?


How many maneuvers do you think an E6 campaign's disciplines need? How do you feel about "epic" E6 maneuvers?

The current maneuver list would be sufficient: it does work for levels 1-6 in normal games, after all. If you're looking to expand it, there are literally dozens of homebrew martial disciplines on these boards alone, and many of them are quite good. Consider appropriating several of those disciplines, or merging them together.

[AmberVael]

The current maneuver list would be sufficient: it does work for levels 1-6 in normal games, after all. If you're looking to expand it, there are literally dozens of homebrew martial disciplines on these boards alone, and many of them are quite good. Consider appropriating several of those disciplines, or merging them together.

Yeah, at this point I would recommend not bothering making disciplines unless you really want a really specific idea. There are a ton already out there. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=255468) Not just dozens, dozens of dozens. It is crazy. If you look for it, you'll probably find that what you want is already made.

And I'm going to echo the sentiment that Sublime Warrior and Monk sound too much like Warblade and Swordsage.

[dspeyer]

While certainly not necessary, E6 does open some homebrew discipline possibilities. For example, I once considered a parkour discipline, but concluded it just wouldn't make sense at high levels.

If you're planning to go deep into 'epic', so more ToB-related feats would be good. Or at least allow Martial Study and Extra Readied Maneuver to be taken unlimited times.