Variant Rogue with fighter feats and tome of battle.

[Vec]

How many maneuvers could one get with so many feats?

[Chronos]

Three. Martial Study can only be taken three times.

Martial Stance can be taken as many times as you'd like, but that's probably a waste, since you can only use one stance at a time, and you'll probably find that there's one you're using almost all the time anyway.

[Vec]

Three. Martial Study can only be taken three times.

Martial Stance can be taken as many times as you'd like, but that's probably a waste, since you can only use one stance at a time, and you'll probably find that there's one you're using almost all the time anyway.

Well that is a shame, tho I don't really see why there needs to be a limit on how many times a person could take it.

[A_S]

Well that is a shame, tho I don't really see why there needs to be a limit on how many times a person could take it.
Because melee can't have nice things.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Melee can't have nice things in a ToB thread? Does not compute.... that book was the single greatest gift to melee characters in 3.5, sure it wasn't a complete fix but really?
Personally I think the reason was to encourage people to use the actual initiator classes and frankly allowing you to take it more than once was a nice thing since most feats can't be taken more than once (yes there are exceptions, like this one), and you must'n forget that without initiator levels you cap at 5th level maneuvers since you still have to meet all the other pre-requisites, including initiator level..

[A_S]

I love me some ToB; no disagreement there. I was just commenting on the somewhat arbitrary-seeming limit of 3 Martial Study feats. To me, it read kind of like, "Well, here's a new subsystem to help out melee...but this is 3.5, after all, so let's throw a pointless restriction on this feat to make sure this system doesn't, like, help Fighters suck less or anything. God forbid."

The "encourage you to use initiator classes" hypothesis is probably more likely. It just always irked me. If somebody wants to make a haphazard fake initiator by taking Martial Study a bajillion times on a Fighter...why not let them?

[ben-zayb]

I love me some ToB; no disagreement there. I was just commenting on the somewhat arbitrary-seeming limit of 3 Martial Study feats. To me, it read kind of like, "Well, here's a new subsystem to help out melee...but this is 3.5, after all, so let's throw a pointless restriction on this feat to make sure this system doesn't, like, help Fighters suck less or anything. God forbid."

The "encourage you to use initiator classes" hypothesis is probably more likely. It just always irked me. If somebody wants to make a haphazard fake initiator by taking Martial Study a bajillion times on a Fighter...why not let them?You said it yourself:

Because melee can't have nice things.:smallbiggrin:

Of course, there are DMs who'd reasonably Rule 0 that limit, probably even giving the fighter full initiator levels. I mean... it's the fighter FFS.

[Talionis]

The other problem with the feat is that you can't renew your maneuvers without an initiator class level.

One of the failings of Tome of Battle is that one level dip into an initiator class is super valuable, especially Warblade and Crusader because they have solid recharge methods.

My answer has been to encourage players to take a one level dip in a ToB base class to supplement Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Monks, Rogues, etc. it tends to work pretty well. It maybe a little hard to fluff, but it tends to make playing the more boring melee classes more fun.

Maybe a feat that works like Darring Warrior might be appropriate. Allowing Fighter levels to count as initiator levels.

[HammeredWharf]

The other problem with the feat is that you can't renew your maneuvers without an initiator class level.

One of the failings of Tome of Battle is that one level dip into an initiator class is super valuable, especially Warblade and Crusader because they have solid recharge methods.

My answer has been to encourage players to take a one level dip in a ToB base class to supplement Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Monks, Rogues, etc. it tends to work pretty well. It maybe a little hard to fluff, but it tends to make playing the more boring melee classes more fun.

I'm away from books at the momet, but I think you can renew them by meditating a couple of minutes.

I don't think the importance of a dip is a failure. The dip itself is easy to justify if you drop the bad wuxia fluss ToB has, which I always do anyway. I do think letting non-initiator swap some maneuvers after they level up post-dip would be nice. Waiting until a certain level before dipping is counter-intuitive and gamist.

[Red Fel]

I think that the limitation on Martial Study accomplishes two very specific aims.

First, let's not forget that Martial Study not only grants you a maneuver; it also grants you a class skill. Permanent, now and forever, enjoy. And they're useful ones, too. It's understandable that the designers would limit that.

Second, it acts as a common-sense pressure release. If you're grabbing Martial Study once or twice to fill out a build, fine, do your thing. By the time you're taking it three times for the maneuvers, common sense would dictate it would have been a more productive use of your time to take a single level of an initiator class, and by doing so get at least that many (Warblade gets 3 at level 1, Crusader gets 5, Swordsage gets 6) plus a stance, plus an in-combat means of refreshing maneuvers.

How many class levels can you take? How many feats? Unless you're leveling a caster build (thou shalt not sacrifice caster levels) taking a one-level dip to grab a big batch of maneuvers is a vastly superior decision to spending three feats.