Is there a Non-ToB build that is made worse by the inclusion of ToB classes in 3.5?

[aleucard]

It was mentioned in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?366175-What-are-the-best-feats-to-give-a-3-5-Psicrystal) thread how an Ubercharger or a Tripper could beat out ToB in their chosen fields. I mentioned how both concepts have synergistic things from the Tome of Battle, but really I'd like to take that discussion further.

The criteria for the question in the title is that 1) the build has to include no amount of ToB classes in its levels, 2) have no feats, or other things that use Maneuvers or otherwise make use of Initiator levels, 3) would be made worse in its chosen field by the inclusion of things from #2 (presumably by being forced to drop a crucial feat/level to take the ToB thing) with the exception of items, and 4) can't have its main mode of operation done better by a build that DOES use things from #2.

[Feint's End]

Well since there are literally items to grant some Form of maneuvers and most focused builds (charger and trippers) have some unnecessary levels I would say no ... builds always get better when using TOB. Maybe not in their chosen field but rather in overall flexibility.

[snailgosh]

Since you didn't specify martial, maybe something psionic. iirc, there is no PrC in ToB with psionic synergy...

[Sith_Happens]

Most non-melee builds have extremely little to gain from either a martial adept dip or Martial Study.

[Fax Celestis]

Most non-melee builds have extremely little to gain from either a martial adept dip or Martial Study.

What, air walk, spider climb, dimension door, sneak attack, scent, sudden leap, and initiative shenanigans don't do it for you?

[nedz]

Most non-melee builds have extremely little to gain from either a martial adept dip or Martial Study.

Yes, I was going to give the example of a Wizard; though any full caster would lose a caster level.

For an extreme case: Beguiler with Vow of Non Violence.

[Nettlekid]

Yes, I was going to give the example of a Wizard; though any full caster would lose a caster level.

For an extreme case: Beguiler with Vow of Non Violence.

I think that Beguiler would still love nonmagical teleports and some quick invisibility.

I think the only builds that wouldn't want a level in ToB are casters which have already lost levels so that losing one more robs them of 9th level spells. Other than that, it's only a good thing.

[Psyren]

I find the premise odd. Yeah an Ubercharger might be better at charging than a ToB build, but they are so useless at anything else that I would take the ToB guy over them any day. The ToB build will likely have higher damage numbers over the course of the entire campaign rather than just when charging is an optimal strategy, and it will bring more utility/defense to the table besides. The charger also makes more headaches for the DM because your options boil down to "let it do its thing and one-shot the boss" or "stop it from doing its thing and watch it be useless" with little to no middle ground.

[Chronos]

Anyone, even a full caster, can benefit from, say, Martial Study: Iron Heart Surge, if they have a feat available. Well, assuming that you've houseruled IHS in such a way that it makes sense.

[snailgosh]

Anyone, even a full caster, can benefit from, say, Martial Study: Iron Heart Surge, if they have a feat available. Well, assuming that you've houseruled IHS in such a way that it makes sense.

but don't you have to have other Iron Heart maneuvers already before you can pick IHS? you won't get it with a single feat

[nedz]

I think that Beguiler would still love nonmagical teleports and some quick invisibility.

First rule of Optimisation: Never give up a Caster Level. It delays access to each new higher level of spells for the rest of your career.

Teleports can be had with Arcane Disciple: Travel or Portal; which, unlike nonmagical teleports, can fuel the Dimensional Jaunt Reserve Feat. Swift Invisibility would be nice but they do have other similar tricks.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

First rule of Optimisation: Never give up a Caster Level. It delays access to each new higher level of spells for the rest of your career.

Teleports can be had with Arcane Disciple: Travel or Portal; which, unlike nonmagical teleports, can fuel the Dimensional Jaunt Reserve Feat. Swift Invisibility would be nice but they do have other similar tricks.

Even accounting for the First Rule of Optimization, a Beguiler can still acquire some of the tricks from ToB, although at the cost of it either being magical due to it coming from a maneuver-granting item or by burning one-to-three feats on the necessary prerequisites for a particular maneuver. Oddly enough, for the latter case you may be able to bypass one of those feats by using the previously described item to meet the requirements of knowing enough of a certain school of maneuvers for the actual maneuver you want to have.

[aleucard]

I was mainly thinking about non-magical builds with this, though things that just have casting as filling like Paladin to take advantage of the Casting-Advancement PrC's would be valid. We all know that Casters are King in 3.5, please don't bang on that drum for the entire thread.

So there are no builds you can think of that don't have a large enough dead-level gap in the minimal-level-necessary range to be able to take ToB levels/feats without weakening their main ability? I knew that that rule applied to MOST martial builds, but all of them?

Oh, and just for the record, I'm pretty sure that several things exist that would be of VERY great interest to almost any type of non-magical ranged character in evidence. Thrown Weapon specialists is an obvious one, but several maneuvers are unspecified enough to potentially work with projectile weapons, or possibly aren't offensive and work regardless of what the user is holding. Similar can be said about stances (for example, Child of Shadow or whatever it's called (gives concealment for the round if you move 10+ feet) on a Sniper (Skirmish especially)).

Nedz, there ARE spellcasting builds that don't demand complete devotion to spellcasting to function; Gishes are a thing, after all. You don't need the highest spell level possible to function.

[Fax Celestis]

Dungeoncrashers and mobility fighters can definitely benefit from a few levels, if only to pick up Charging Minotaur and Leading the Charge.

Lockdown fighters can make good use of things like Thicket of Blades and Adamantine Hurricane (and its weaker cousins), as well as mobility things like Shadow Jaunt and Sudden Leap.

Gishes make good use of things like Diamond Nightmare Blade.

TWFers love Tiger Claw. Just. The whole thing.

Tanks and backup healers (like paladin) get a lot of mileage out of Devoted Spirit.

[Seppo87]

I believe Psychic Warrior is a good start.
There has to be at least one thing they do that cannot be improved via TOB

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I don't think any builds actually get worse, they're just worse by comparison if you include ToB. Nothing can lose power by the inclusion of more options unless one of the options gained automatically trumps something that a build does. For example, the inclusion of Iron Heart Surge can really screw any Conjurer build focused on battlefield control. Things like Cloud of Bewilderment, Web, and Black Tentacles can be ended instantly by an opponent spending a standard action.

Any Fighter 20 build is better off as a Fighter 9/ Warblade 10/ Fighter 1, making it worse by comparison. That doesn't delay any of the actual Fighter class features (Dungeoncrasher, Zhentarim Soldier), and it can even get Weapon Supremacy at 20th level with that last Fighter bonus feat.

Unarmed Swordsage > Monk, while you can hardly consider a mediocre class to be a build, there are plenty of less savvy players who would do exactly that. Again though, Monk isn't better without ToB, it's just worse by comparison if you include it.

For builds that are actually worse if you include ToB:

BFC Conjurer Wizard, because so many area effect crowd controls can be ended by Iron Heart Surge.

Ray-focused spellcasters and Beholders, because an opponent with the Ray Deflection ACF in CM and the Wall of Blades maneuver is almost guaranteed to send that Disintegrate back at you.

Tripper BFC builds, because Battle Leader's Charge and similar allows someone to charge right past him to hit a squishier party member or charge right up to him through his 20+ ft. threatened space without getting tripped or knocked back.

[Seppo87]

I don't think any builds actually get worse, they're just worse by comparison if you include ToB. Nothing can lose power by the inclusion of more options unless one of the options gained automatically trumps something that a build does. For example, the inclusion of Iron Heart Surge can really screw any Conjurer build focused on battlefield control. Things like Cloud of Bewilderment, Web, and Black Tentacles can be ended instantly by an opponent spending a standard action.

Any Fighter 20 build is better off as a Fighter 9/ Warblade 10/ Fighter 1, making it worse by comparison. That doesn't delay any of the actual Fighter class features (Dungeoncrasher, Zhentarim Soldier), and it can even get Weapon Supremacy at 20th level with that last Fighter bonus feat.

Unarmed Swordsage > Monk, while you can hardly consider a mediocre class to be a build, there are plenty of less savvy players who would do exactly that. Again though, Monk isn't better without ToB, it's just worse by comparison if you include it.

For builds that are actually worse if you include ToB:

BFC Conjurer Wizard, because so many area effect crowd controls can be ended by Iron Heart Surge.

Ray-focused spellcasters and Beholders, because an opponent with the Ray Deflection ACF in CM and the Wall of Blades maneuver is almost guaranteed to send that Disintegrate back at you.

Tripper BFC builds, because Battle Leader's Charge and similar allows someone to charge right past him to hit a squishier party member or charge right up to him through his 20+ ft. threatened space without getting tripped or knocked back.
You missed the point. Re-read OP

[Fax Celestis]

Tripper BFC builds, because Battle Leader's Charge and similar allows someone to charge right past him to hit a squishier party member or charge right up to him through his 20+ ft. threatened space without getting tripped or knocked back.

Thicket of Blades would like a word with you.

[nedz]

Even accounting for the First Rule of Optimization, a Beguiler can still acquire some of the tricks from ToB, although at the cost of it either being magical due to it coming from a maneuver-granting item or by burning one-to-three feats on the necessary prerequisites for a particular maneuver. Oddly enough, for the latter case you may be able to bypass one of those feats by using the previously described item to meet the requirements of knowing enough of a certain school of maneuvers for the actual maneuver you want to have.
Spending feats for ToB manoeuvres would be fine, but would they be a better option than say spending those feats on Arcane Disiple, Item creation or various Metamagic feats ?


Nedz, there ARE spellcasting builds that don't demand complete devotion to spellcasting to function; Gishes are a thing, after all. You don't need the highest spell level possible to function.
I know this, and I never said otherwise. Most Gishes would benefit from ToB elements, I suspect.

Anyway, More questions:

Would a non-melee Warlock, say Warlock 12 / Chameleon 2 / ..., benefit more from ToB than taking levels in classes which advance Invocations or burning feats on Extra Invocation ?

How about DFA similarly ?

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Spending feats for ToB manoeuvres would be fine, but would they be a better option than say spending those feats on Arcane Disiple, Item creation or various Metamagic feats ?

If the goal is to have nonmagical teleportation, then the feat would be better if you're only using one feat and the items to qualify just because of how damn hard that is to acquire. Whether or not it's worth compared to using the same feat to gain access to a multi-use teleport spell is a valid question.



Anyway, More questions:

Would a non-melee Warlock, say Warlock 12 / Chameleon 2 / ..., benefit more from ToB than taking levels in classes which advance Invocations or burning feats on Extra Invocation ?

How about DFA similarly ?

If it uses whatever the name of that Eberron feat is to get your SLAs to count as actual spells of X level would allow a DFA or warlock to qualify for Jade Phoenix Mage might have merit, but there are certainly better options for the warlock if you go that route. I can't recall if a DFA also qualifies for that same feat or not, but it certainly would have a novel quality given that the default fluff is about imprisoning an evil dragon thingy with your soul/magic.

EDIT: Auto correct had issues with some of my text. I hope I got all of the errors now.

[AMFV]

Spending feats for ToB manoeuvres would be fine, but would they be a better option than say spending those feats on Arcane Disiple, Item creation or various Metamagic feats ?


I know this, and I never said otherwise. Most Gishes would benefit from ToB elements, I suspect.

Anyway, More questions:

Would a non-melee Warlock, say Warlock 12 / Chameleon 2 / ..., benefit more from ToB than taking levels in classes which advance Invocations or burning feats on Extra Invocation ?

How about DFA similarly ?

Actually Gishes don't do that well with it, since Gishes tend to be very action intensive. And the ToB maneuvers consume actions. There are a few counters and boosts that can very beneficial but the synergy is a lot less than one might imagine.