Tome of Battle vs Path of War

[DarkSonic1337]

I'm currently playing in a 3.5 game with all first party sources+dragon magazine available. The DM has given all players the option of either having a free +4 level adjustment (either using existing races/templates or using the savage species rules to help homebrew our own) or to homebrew our own class (along with spells/maneuvers/what have you). I essentially want to back port the stalker class, mix a few abilities from 3.5 swordsage and rogue in there, and use maneuvers from the path of war disciplines. Story wise this should fit in well in the campaign because there has been evidence of multiple "books of the nine swords," and even suggestions that other disciplines exist (and my current character casually mentioned to the warblade in our group that the school I studied at actually taught "combat maneuvers," but I didn't recognize those that he was doing and I wasn't a martial adept myself).

We've sort of been cycling characters throughout different "arcs" in this campaign and a few Tome of Battle characters have popped up here and there (I got to play a Dvaati Swordsage myself, it was a blast), but I'm wondering if a Path of War character would be too strong in comparison.

What are your thoughts on how introducing a single Path of War character into a 3.5 game would turn out?

[Anlashok]

PoW is a step up from ToB (outside a few specific tome tricks and the fact that op ceilings are lower in Pathfinder) ... but if the +4 LA is used at all judiciously, probably not.

[Twilightwyrm]

I'll second Anlashok here. Path of War is certainly a step up from Tome of Battle, not just in terms of the power of the individual classes, but of the power of the maneuvers as well. Further, there is even more reason to play an Unarmed Swordsage, as the Broken Blade discipline now exists.

[Night Trasher]

Yes, there is significant power creep from ToB to PoW.

[Petrocorus]

Path of War is from PF?

[malonkey1]

Path of War is from PF?

3rd-party, but yes.

[DarkSonic1337]

So the general consensus is that Path of War is a significant step up from Tome of Battle and I should be wary about introducing it? I did notice that the maneuvers do more damage almost across the board, and there are some cool things introduced that are amazing in comparison to tome of battle (a stance for incorpreality?!?). On the other hand, I do like that it's standard action strikes are so good that I can't decide if I want to full attack or not (rather than Tome of Battle where it felt like standard action strikes are just nice things to do when you can't full attack most of the time).

[Sayt]

Yes, there is significant power creep from ToB to PoW.

Power Creep would imply a progression, a gradual rise in power. Tome of Battle came out in august '06.


I'll second Anlashok here. Path of War is certainly a step up from Tome of Battle, not just in terms of the power of the individual classes, but of the power of the maneuvers as well. Further, there is even more reason to play an Unarmed Swordsage, as the Broken Blade discipline now exists.

Or you could just play a Steelfist Commando Warlord, which is actually legitimately codified in the rules, and has Broken Blade native to the class, and is generally less work for the GM to convert.

Also, the Steelfist has a hugely better recovery mechanic.

[upho]

So the general consensus is that Path of War is a significant step up from Tome of Battle and I should be wary about introducing it?I'd definitely say PoW's step up from ToB does not equal a +4 LA, at least not if that +4 is put to any half-way decent use, especially considering the potential of Savage Species custom races and the staggering amount of powerful options in the allowed 3.5 sources (which for example includes UA's LA buy-off).

You may turn out more powerful than the party's +4 LA ToB disciple, but would that be a problem? I mean since even full casters seem to be fair game, it's highly unlikely that using PoW would make your character OP in comparison to those. The PoW classes and maneuvers are not even remotely close to approaching the powers of a T1, so unless you give your custom class some weirdly powerful features (like say at least 2/3 casting from a powerful list and/or polymorph shenanigans, plus a very good supporting action economy mechanic) or only play during the earliest levels, your class will likely remain in T3 and still feel kinda lame in comparison to any decenty built and played full caster.

Of course, this is also dependent on how much opting the other players will do, but I really don't see much cause for you to be wary about PoW in this game.

Good luck!

[DarkSonic1337]

Thanks for the input guys. A high tier 3 is what I'm looking for in terms of options.

I play to go heavy into veiled moon and steel serpent (mostly for the ability damage maneuvers and the save or daze/stun/other nasty effects. Might mess with poisons but I have no experience with them and it seems hard to acquire them as a non caster). Do you guys feel like I can just depend on Path of War's higher damage from maneuvers and deadly strike, or should I still invest in stuff specifically to boost damage (like Craven, stormguard warrior, Blood in the Water, sneak attack boosting items, ect, ect?). I don't want to compete with the pouncing power attacking leap attacking warblade for damage (that's kinda his thing right now), but I want my damage to be...respectable.

Tier 1 is definitely open, but for some reason they haven't really been popping up much. At one point we had a Druid, Wizard, and...Superman (he had the basic superman powers. Flight, heat vision gaze attack, immobilizing breath weapon, X ray vision, DR and Energy resistance, ect.) party. We've also had parties where unoptimized tier 3 was the strongest thing in the party. And right now we've got this mix of a mildly optimized Warblade, a Factotum who kinda doesn't know what he's doing besides grabbing font of inspiration and...unarmed strike stuff (I recommended taking a level in decisive strike martial monk next level and retraining improved unarmed strike.) and a...Wizard/Spelldancer/Swiftblade with persistent spell and echoing spell(I totally overshot this one :p).

I can't really gauge how strong the rest of the party will be by the time I introduce this character (I'm making Blake Belladonna from RWBY:))