Tome of Battle in Pathfinder

[Trask]

My gaming group and I recently switched to Pathfinder from 3.5 and we enjoy the update but one of my players very much loved the Tome of Battle in 3.5 and misses it in this new system. I looked up some conversions of the Tome of Battle but I wanted to get the opinion of the forumgoers here, have any of you converted Tome of Battle into Pathfinder? If so how did it go and is there a specific conversion you would recommend? Thanks

[LTwerewolf]

It's not hard to port it to pathfinder, and they have the path of war in pathfinder which is very similar.

[Trask]

I've read that it doesn't do what tome of battle does as well in comparison but ill give that one a look and run it by my player

[Alex12]

I, too, loved ToB, and Path of War (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war), by Dreamscarred Press (the same people who made the Pathfinder psionics conversion) updated it for Pathfinder. And, with the recent release of Path of War Expanded, there's a whole new set of awesome.

[digiman619]

Forgive me for shilling, but I'd suggest Dreamscarred Press's Path of War and Path of War: Expanded. DSP has made a career of converting variant magic to pathfinder. Starting with psionics, then incarnum binds, the aforementioned initiators, and even truenaming! That's right, they're working on (it's still in playtest) the most infamously broken class in all D & D, and are making it viable! They're Pathfinders best 3PP, so I can't endorse them harder.

[LTwerewolf]

I've read that it doesn't do what tome of battle does as well in comparison but ill give that one a look and run it by my player

O-o where on earth did you read that?

[TheIronGolem]

I've read that it doesn't do what tome of battle does as well in comparison but ill give that one a look and run it by my player

I'd be suspicious of any claim that PoW doesn't do initiation as well as ToB. It's way better edited and supported, and even without Expanded it supports more character concepts.

[The Glyphstone]

Not to mention an engaged and responsive community presence, and actual errata/support for the current game, rather than a ten-year old system.

[Trask]

I forget where I read it...I just kind of had that information floating around in my head. But I did take a look at the Path of War and it looks very nice, my player also seemed to enjoy it as well. He'll probably be playing a Warlord in the upcoming game since he loved Warblade so much.

[Denomar]

Generally speaking the only thing from Tome of Battle that doesn't port exactly as written is the diamond mind discipline.

The reason for this is that a lot of Diamond Mind maneuvers depend on Concentration Checks. A skill in 3.5 that is simply a caster level+ability score modifier check in Pathfinder.

This is generally worse in Pathfinder, as a concentration check scales more slowly in Pathfinder than it can in 3.5.

So, you can use it, you just need to decide how you want it to work. Whether to tie it to a different skill like Martial Lore or have it run off the new check mechanic is up to you.

[LTwerewolf]

When porting diamond mind, it works well with perception given the flavor of the discipline.

[stack]

When porting diamond mind, it works well with perception given the flavor of the discipline.

Scarlet throne is not entirely dissimilar and uses sense motive.

[Kitsuneymg]

I'd be suspicious of any claim that PoW doesn't do initiation as well as ToB. It's way better edited and supported, and even without Expanded it supports more character concepts.

Then be suspicious.

It is in *no* way "better edited". All you need to do is *read* the book to see that it's got a crap ton of issues with abilities being vague (Steel Defense, that HP draining stance) and short/long description disagreeing on basic things, like number of extra damage dice. DSP's main objective problem is in their terrible copy editing.

PoW is an inferior product on other levels, IMO. Its classes lack the strong flavor consistency of ToB classes. The Warblade feels like what a fighter (a non magical master of arms) should be. Anyone wanting to play a Fighter can easily play a Warblade instead and not change a thing about their character. The same goes for Swordsage/Monk and Paladin/Crusader. Even if you don't want to replace classes with initiators, the ToB classes all have an internal feel to them that is quite strong. A theme/trope, if you will. PoW does not have that. Each of their classes (and this goes for almost everything DSP produces) feel like a disparate collections of abilities thrown together to satisfy some vague "tier 3" criteria without bothering to fluff them in such a way that the class "makes sense".

This isn't always a bad thing, but it's something I and my group noticed and commented on after first reading the book. Well, that, and the atrocious copy-editing. Seriously, go read the warder's Steel Defense and the marvel in awe at how a bunch of dudes that are 100% aware of how people abuse badly worded abilities in 3.5 were able to publish something so poorly written and not catch it before it went to print.

The last complaint I have, is that the amount of bookkeeping required for Stalker (in particular) will slow table play immensely. You need to track: spells known, spells prepared, stances known, stance you're in, ki, people you get extra damage to due to crits/spending ki, and how many rounds each person you get extra damage against has left on the buff. You have more stances than ToB, you have more maneuvers than in ToB, and you have extra abilities that all have round-level cooldowns. It's a crap ton of **** to track and manage and it will only lead to slow downs at the table. Yes, other classes in PF have similar issues, but I consider those problems as well.

So, to OP a TL;Dr: find ToB conversion docs and use those if you like ToB. PoW is mechanically sound (after you scour errata threads for which description's number of dice damage to use) and has been elevated to PF power levels. If you do not have issues with poor editing, poor fluff, and increased bookkeeping, use it.

[Anlashok]

PoW is an inferior product on other levels, IMO. Its classes lack the strong flavor consistency of ToB classes.
What flavor consistency? ToB classes are completely generic. Now maybe you consider that a good thing, but that's not 'flavor consistency', it's just liking generic classes rather than classes with identity.

You have a point about PoW having editing issues, but that's not really one in favor of ToB either, since that book's complete garbage on that front to an even more significant extent. I mean seriously, one or two maneuver having the wrong damage dice listed is on an entirely different level than a book having functional infinite loops and abilities that outright don't work.

And I don't know what to tell you about Stalker. I've never seen anyone ever have trouble playing one. It sounds mostly like a personal thing, rather than an issue with the book.

[LTwerewolf]

What flavor consistency? ToB classes are completely generic. Now maybe you consider that a good thing, but that's not 'flavor consistency', it's just liking generic classes rather than classes with identity.

You have a point about PoW having editing issues, but that's not really one in favor of ToB either, since that book's complete garbage on that front to an even more significant extent. I mean seriously, one or two maneuver having the wrong damage dice listed is on an entirely different level than a book having functional infinite loops and abilities that outright don't work.

And I don't know what to tell you about Stalker. I've never seen anyone ever have trouble playing one. It sounds mostly like a personal thing, rather than an issue with the book.{Scrubbed}

[TheIronGolem]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Come on, don't be like that. I don't see much merit in what they said, but it's not trolling.

[Psyren]

Come on, don't be like that. I don't see much merit in what they said, but it's not trolling.

A post that praises ToB's editing over PoW's is... suspect, to say the least.

[Tuvarkz]

Come on, don't be like that. I don't see much merit in what they said, but it's not trolling.

Alright, I'll take the bait.
Point one-poor editing:
As per (A list I helped correct):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hYrnghrSe7kMOko-aNiS0HTVlSJnUBkvHD2dmg0omGY/edit#gid=1637836539
Only Black Seraph has a significant amount of errors between table and text, the others are just minor clarifications (Such as Autodeath vs Coup-de-Grace on hit for Final Blow), and even then half of the missing stuff in BS is the Drive maneuver line, whose major change is the lack of provoking from charging and no AC penalty missing from text.

Flavor consistency? Hell this one's pretty wrong. The Warlord's abilities, outside of self-bonuses, focus around helping the party fight better. It's pretty much the Cavalier.
All of the Warder's abilities are about being tanky (High defenses, protect allies)
Stalker is a sneaky damage dealer, most of his abilities are geared for that. He gets rogue talents too.

I don't see the wording issue in Steel Defense, it's pretty clear-cut.

Stalker doesn't have spells. Heck, the Mage Hunter PrC that does grant a spell progression is spontaneous, not prepared. Second, Deadly Strikes isn't that hard to track. If you're critting it, you're killing it. Outside of a heavily dedicated AoE attack builds, Stalker will very rarely have 2 targets with Deadly Strikes on, and mostly one at a time.

TL;DR, half of what he says is a hyperbole or outright wrong.

[Andreaz]

My gaming group and I recently switched to Pathfinder from 3.5 and we enjoy the update but one of my players very much loved the Tome of Battle in 3.5 and misses it in this new system. I looked up some conversions of the Tome of Battle but I wanted to get the opinion of the forumgoers here, have any of you converted Tome of Battle into Pathfinder? If so how did it go and is there a specific conversion you would recommend? Thanks

Make no mistake, pal, path of war is exactly what you need.

[Sahleb]

Honestly, Tome of Battle is plenty balanced compared to the pathfinder martials; just allowing it to be ported would be fine.

[Tuvarkz]

Honestly, Tome of Battle is plenty balanced compared to the pathfinder martials; just allowing it to be ported would be fine.

The thing is, balancing around Paizo martials isn't a good idea.

[Sahleb]

The thing is, balancing around Paizo martials isn't a good idea.

Ehh. The problem with that truism is that it doesn't deal with why it's a bad idea - it's not because they should deal more damage, it's because they're bad at variety, and ToB fixes that.

So ToB is fine. No need for a boost or nerf or whatever.

Given that it's just one player who wants it, and given that the OP has not thus far seemed interested in playing a homebrew rebalanced system with vague similarity to pathfinder or 3.5e, I think it's fairly reasonable to expect that the Warblade or whatever will end up in a party with a pathfinder martial.

[bahamut920]

The only "fixes" necessary to play ToB in Pathfinder is finding a key skill for Diamond Mind, and updating class skill lists for the consolidated skills.

That said, Path of War isn't a bad replacement or supplement. I personally prefer the fluff of ToB, but PoW does allow for more character concepts, what with it actually having a ranged discipline. Some of it smells a little like cheese, like the Mage Hunter PrC, which has 6-level arcane casting, progresses maneuvers, and a class-specific stance which grants evasion, mettle, and the ability to cast mage hunter spells auto-quickened, however. I'll admit I haven't played with it, or even given it more than a quick once-over, but aside from some power creep, it seems fine.

[137beth]

I haven't used ToB in Pathfinder (though I have used PoW in Pathfinder). However, I have used PoW in 3.5 alongside ToB. Quoting a similar post I made on the Paizo forums,

Having used them together, my observations have been
1. The Maneuvers themselves are pretty close. On a rare occasion PoW maneuvers reference CMB/CMD, which ToB maneuvers don't (obviously). Otherwise they mostly play nice together.
2. The classes don't, though. ToB classes are defined almost entirely by what maneuvers they have. PoW classes have a lot more class features on top of maneuvers. The class features aren't huge (they aren't nearly as game-changing, as say, sorcerer bloodlines), but they are there to bring the PoW classes more in line with the general power-boost non-martial classes got in Pathfinder. If you are looking to use PoW maneuvers/disciplines in 3.5 (as my group does), what I've found to be the easiest is to just give the ToB classes access to some PoW disciplines (you're probably safe giving the warblade all warder disciplines, and the swordsage all stalker disciplines. Then decide which disciplines you think are appropriate for the crusader). If, on the other hand, you plan on using ToB maneuvers in a pathfinder game, you'll want to either
a)divvy up the ToB disciplines among the PoW classes, and ignore the ToB classes, or
b)give extra buffs/class features to the ToB classes.

[Tuvarkz]

The only "fixes" necessary to play ToB in Pathfinder is finding a key skill for Diamond Mind, and updating class skill lists for the consolidated skills.

That said, Path of War isn't a bad replacement or supplement. I personally prefer the fluff of ToB, but PoW does allow for more character concepts, what with it actually having a ranged discipline. Some of it smells a little like cheese, like the Mage Hunter PrC, which has 6-level arcane casting, progresses maneuvers, and a class-specific stance which grants evasion, mettle, and the ability to cast mage hunter spells auto-quickened, however. I'll admit I haven't played with it, or even given it more than a quick once-over, but aside from some power creep, it seems fine.

To note, about Mage Hunter:
-Improved Initiative isn't a particularly great feat for most initiators, and Step Up ranges from terrible to meh.
-Heavy skill prerequisites
-Unflexible maneuver choice (Most other PrCs will grant one or two fixed plus a couple the player can choose from)
-Mage Killer Stance is strong, however as any other stance the initiator needs to be in it to keep the benefits, and quickened spells aren't that great once you notice that boosts/counters/other class features will eat up the initiator's swift actions most of the time. Additionally, DSP seems to not rate Evasion/Stalwart pretty high, considering how cheaply the Aegis can access them.
To note, a Stalker 10/Mage Hunter 10 won't be much stronger than a Warpath Inquisitor (or warpriest) 20 and might get overdone by a Pathwalker PsyWar 10/Awakened Blade 10.

[Cyphrus]

Sooo, tangentially related. what sort of home-brew for ToB would you all use to "spruce up" the three original initiators?

My guess would be to delay stance progression to match up with actually getting the new tiers of stances, fixing skills, maybe tying diamond mind to perception and giving swordsage wisdom to AC in no armor in addition to light.

But....other than that, is there anything that would liven them up, as base classes?

Looking at the tables, they....kinda empty? How would you all "pathfinder-ize" them?

Other than some silly idea of copping weapon training from fighters for warblade, I'm stumped.

Swordsage I'd, I dunno, mini sudden strike or knowledge devotion built in? But that's already stalker. Just fix their renewal I guess.

Crusader. Some sort of taunt Free Antagonize feat?

[LTwerewolf]

Sooo, tangentially related. what sort of home-brew for ToB would you all use to "spruce up" the three original initiators?

My guess would be to delay stance progression to match up with actually getting the new tiers of stances, fixing skills, maybe tying diamond mind to perception and giving swordsage wisdom to AC in no armor in addition to light.

But....other than that, is there anything that would liven them up, as base classes?

Looking at the tables, they....kinda empty? How would you all "pathfinder-ize" them?

Other than some silly idea of copping weapon training from fighters for warblade, I'm stumped.

Swordsage I'd, I dunno, mini sudden strike or knowledge devotion built in? But that's already stalker. Just fix their renewal I guess.

Crusader. Some sort of taunt Free Antagonize feat?

Also remember PoW uses initiation modifiers for the classes instead of the discipline, that's important. It gives crusaders a real reason to have a decent cha.

First you would need to look at the intent behind them. Warblade was intended to be an offensive class that uses intelligence to boost their offense. This is done a little bit, but they didn't really go for enough with it. Being able to add their int to combat maneuvers (they have it to defend against them, not to initiate them). The ability to use combat maneuvers with a strike would also be huge.

Crusader was meant to be a charisma based damage sponge. The thing they're lacking more than anything is the ability to force enemies to attack them. Give them the knight's ability to do so, and over the levels expand it to more types of enemies (and remove the silly penalties, they serve no purpose). I would also recommend changing up their recovery mechanic to be less clunky and deal more with their intent (tanking) than just randomness. It makes little sense for a champion of order (one of many possible crusader concepts) to have an entirely random recovery mechanic. I'd make it so every time their steely resolve is maxed out, they regain maneuvers. Also might want to increase their steely resolve a bit, it scales rather slowly. bring it up to 50 or even 100 by level 20 and it still won't be unbalancing for the damage from furious counterstrike. With the different mechanic they'd need to have more maneuvers readied. I would also give them access to iron tortoise.

Swordsage seems to be trying to be more than one thing at once. Decide on which of those things you want and make adjustments towards that goal. If you want it to be more monklike, give it monklike abilities and access to broken blade. With broken blade it doesn't need the increased unarmed damage. Stalker has the ninja archetype down pretty well, so you don't need to turn it into that.