3.5 Incarnum/ToB Party Capabilities?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Assume the only base classes available for a party are Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, and all the Tome of Battle and Magic of Incarnum base classes. All Prestige Classes are available to them except for ones that grant spellcasting/invoking/manifesting/etc. Without being able to directly utilize those other forms of "magic" (being used as a blanket term here) what can a party of 6 (only using core and MoI player races) accomplish in terms of overcoming challenges across levels, say, 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20? Oh, and no abnormal variants, such as Arcane Swordsage, though ACFs such as the Barbarian totems and Dungeoncrasher Fighter are cool. Please don't try to circumvent the question using things like the AS (not that I think any of you will, asking just in case).

[AmberVael]

In general I'd say such a group is capable of handling most things you'd find in a D&D game. Between incarnum characters and rogues you'd be able to handle anything skill based easily- so traps, stealth, social encounters, knowledge checks. Incarnum and Maneuvers will allow for some limited magical effects as well, like flight, short range teleportation, moderate healing. Standard combat, of course, will be easy; Tome of Battle dominates that stuff. They won't breeze by some tasks as easily as if they had magic at their disposal, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Where it is reaaaally going to suffer though is recovery. Without access to spells it is far harder (or outright impossible) to deal with more obscure conditions and negative effects- curses, petrification, shape changing, negative levels, ability damage/drain, etc.

Also, it's worth considering that such a group basically needs to rely on horses or other mounts for fast travel. No teleportation for you! Overland travel becomes a much bigger thing.

[Person_Man]

Yeah, you're fine at every level, though you might struggle at very high levels when the game devolves into magical rocket tag.

Though it's worth mentioning that ToB + MoI make the Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue mostly obsolete, or at least less efficient.

[Psyren]

As Vael mentioned, you're going to have a hard time recovering from various status effects. (Well, the Warblade will be fine.) At a minimum I would throw Warlock, Binder and Truenamer (preferably fixed) into the mix.

[Gwendol]

They can survive, using scrolls and UMD to cover some specific areas.

[Fouredged Sword]

Status restoration will be hard. Negative levels will be nasty, as they will be a serious risk at low to mod levels.

[Chronos]

Quoth Psyren:

As Vael mentioned, you're going to have a hard time recovering from various status effects. (Well, the Warblade will be fine.) At a minimum I would throw Warlock, Binder and Truenamer (preferably fixed) into the mix.
You could also use Dragon Shaman-- They gain the ability to fix many status conditions through their Lay On Hands-like ability.

One condition that they will very notably not be able to fix is "Dead". Nothing can fix that but spells or psionics, and nothing but divine magic can really do a good job at it.

[Piggy Knowles]

Hey, the incarnate has had a great answer for "dead" since level 2 when they got access to Necrocarnum Circlet's crown bind.

[infomatic]

Dragon Shaman's a good bet as a "healer". Binder would also be a good choice — maybe add a vestige that lets the player cast restoration occasionally. (Make it a different one from Buer, though, so they can't fill all their healing needs w/one vestige).

Note that an Incarnate with Lifebond Vestments could arguably use Caduceus Bracers [MIC] to restore ability damage. But you'd have to improve the Lifebond Vestments usage (make it more like Buer vestige, maybe) to make it usable as a healing/restorative mechanic.

Dragon Shaman will also give a an AOE attack to deal with swarms (Totemist could also do this, but not as well) and, with magic item help, a bit of battlefield control. (Edit: Wait, I forgot a Swordsage can do that, too.)

[Big Fau]

Hey, the incarnate has had a great answer for "dead" since level 2 when they got access to Necrocarnum Circlet's crown bind.

And they do get Gate, so calling in a Solar or something to cast Raise Dead is an option for them.