Strengths and weaknesses of Sublime Way disciplines

[danielxcutter]

So, I've been thinking about this for a while, but I'm not really getting solid results. I'm trying to look at each of the nine martial arts in ToB and say "X is good at this but worse than Y at Z and doesn't do W at all", and while some aren't too hard(for example, Stone Dragon), others are less easy. So I decided to fall back on the guaranteed-to-work strategy of asking you guys.

Guidelines:

-For each discipline, assume that you're focusing on that school, but not to the complete exclusion of others.

-Don't mention silly stuff like WRT loops or IHSing the sun away. Most DMs won't allow those tricks in the first place.

-I'm looking for stuff that can be easily adapted based on a character's build, not specific builds that require specific feats at specific levels. tl;dr Advice is welcome, builds are not.

[Metahuman1]

White Raven gives you some good things even if your playing solo or the only actual weapons/unarmed/nat weapons/melee/ranged weapons person on your side. More so if you make some use of charging but still.

Though it is admittedly far better if you have some other warriors in the party.



Devoted spirit is good against opposed alignments, and offers a wide variety of tactical options in offense and defense and party support. This means it's also rather versatile.


Diamond mind offers less party support, but more high quality attacks and high quality personal defenses, and several spiffy tactical options. It's less helpful for the rest of the party, but also less situation specific and more effective for the one using it in most instances.


Iron Heart works best in two contexts. Dealing with one on one duels. And Dealing with large groups of weaker opponents. Though it does also offer a few good defensive tricks like Wall of Blades, that counter that lets you reroll a save, and of course Iron Heart Surge.


Tiger Claw does give some mobility. But too many maneuvers require too many checks for me to really get behind it in most situation's. And yes, the mobility and a couple of the boosts like Dancing Mongoose and Raging Mongoose do help give TWF some support.


Setting Sun and Shadow hand offer a number of very useful mobility and defense options. and both offer some mechanically interesting options. I'd say there about evenly matched, and would note for certain kinds of characters they play very well off one another. Both also tend to combo well with Diamond Mind.

You mentioned Stone Dragon being covered, so I'll skip it.


Dessert Winds weakness is that it has a fatal flaw. It's damage is all fire damage. And with out a way to get around fire resistance and fire immunity, the most common resistance and immunity in the game. After very low levels, this rapidly becomes a useless school. Which is a shame, if it were not for that, it would have been the best skirmisher school and as good or better then Tiger Claw for helping Two Weapon Fighting. And I will note there's a low level stance for it that gives fire resistance and immunity based on an easy to optimize tumble check, which is a very inexpensive way of getting it on the PC side.

It wouldn't be hard to rule that Dessert Wind is using Ki fire or something, and that that makes it different then regular fire, so it get's past this problem by not being effected by Fire resistance or immunity. If someone who knows what there doing asks this when I'm DMing, I always grant it.

[danielxcutter]

^Actually, I'd still like it if advice was given for Stone Dragon, since my analysis could be wrong. Otherwise, seems pretty nice to me.

[Metahuman1]

Alright.


Stone Dragon actually has some utility maneuver's, and the lowest level one is actually so good it's recommended despite it's flaw to have in most martial adept tool boxes.

And it does have considerable damage and tactical support potential, and offer some nice defense options.

But the two fatal flaws, having to stay stationary to use most if not all stances and needing contact with the ground to use maneuver's from the school, mean after very low levels, it ceases to have much of any combat application.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Devoted spirit is the discipline of the crusader (concept, not class). It offers its practitioner incredible resilience (self and short range healing without interupting the flow of battle) and tremendous might in destroying his ideological foes. Adherents to this school are a major hurdle on the field of battle, making foes pay dearly for straying too close (ironguard's glare and thicket of blades) However, its adherents simply cannot muster their fervor against foes who are less committed (little bonus damage for foes that are not on the opposite end of an alignment axis) and they're not the quickest of combatants (no mobility maneuvers at all).

Diamond mind is the discipline of the warrior of laser-focus. His mind is his primary weapon and he wields it to deadly effect (nightmare blade line). His mind is also his shield and a mighty bulwark it is (lots of defensive counters). A diamond mind practitioner is also a highly mobile warrior (several manevuers improve speed or grant extra movement). However, his focus leaves him largely unable to deal wiith multiple foes (virtually nothing in the discipline allows you to hit multiple enemies and a few things make it easier for enemies to hit you if you're not focused on them).

Iron Heart is the discipline of the dedicated warrior. It's practitioners use techniques of great complexity (several maneuvers mimic fighter bonus feats or allow him to deliver minor status conditions) and power (lots of stuff to improve damage consistently or improve hit-rate). It also offers him improved defenses over a typical warrior (several options for stopping or even redirecting enemy attacks). The only significant problem with the discipline is that by doing a bit of everything in battle, it doesn't offer the extremes of some other disciplines.

Setting sun is a defensive discipline focused on preventing the enemy from acting as he wishes. It's practitioners are adept at preventing his foes from moving as they will (the whole discipline focuses on forced movement with throws and minor pushes and redirections). However, it isn't a terribly destructive discipline (bonus damage tends to be small and doesn't stack up with stances from the same discipline).

Shadow hand is the assassin's discipline. Such skulks can descimate foes they catch unawares (several maneuvers do substantial harm but can only be used on flat-footed foes and assassin's stance is famous at this point) and are quite adept at catching foes by surprise (many stances and maneuvers to either sneak up on a foe or render one flat-footed). Of note, however, is the fact that disciplines strikes are often rebuffed by foes of a hardy nature (lots of fort-saves to negate bonus effects and ability damage with relatively little bonus HP damage) making it a poor discipline for felling powerful beasts.

Stone dragon is the discipline of the human tank. It is wholly dedicated to raining powerful, singular blows upon the enemy (mountain hammer) and absorbing substantial attacks (<mineral> bones). Stone dragon adherents, though, are even less mobile than even devoted spirit's crusaders because of the need to keep their feat firmly on the ground or even root themselves to the spot with some techniques.

Tigerclaw is the discipline of the savage. It's strikes and stances center entirely around delivering as much damage to as many foes as they can as quickly as possible. It is also a mobile discipline, though less so than diamond mind, whose maneuvers allow the warrior to leap upon his foes from a great distance. To its detriment however, it offers no defensive maneuvres at all.

White raven is the leader's discipline. Practically all of its techniques improve the ability of their allies to maneuver on the battlefield or deal damage to the enemy. Unfortunatley, it offers little to those who stand alone.

Finally, desert wind is the mystic's discipline. It is the only discipline that is overtly magical (though shadow hand has few supernatural maneuvers*). A desert wind adherent is in near constant motion (many maneuvers call for the adept to move as part of their execution) and uses the flames he invokes to lash out at foes beyond his blade's reach. A master of the discipline is like unto a humanoid holocaust.




Sorry, just felt a bit loquatious for some reason. Down to brass tacks then;

Devoted spirit: yields tough fighters, combine with stone dragon to become a brick wall. Only hits hard against foes that are of an opposing alignment in most cases.

Diamond mind: great maneuverability, fairly balanced offense and defense. Not great when facing groups of enemies. Combines well with tiger claw and desert wind for offense and makes a good secondary discipline all around.

Iron heart: well rounded discipline. Doesn't really have any deficiencies but doesn't standout in any area either.

Setting sun: lot of BFC, not a lot of damage. Combines well with white raven; you set 'em up, your allies knock 'em down.

Shadow hand: you're a ninja, Harry! Lots of goodies for a skirmisher, not much for a standup fight and what there is usually offers a fort save. Combines nicely with tiger claw for dramatic ambushes.

Stone dragon: tank, tank, and more tank. You take the hits and you give them back harder. Actually reduces maneuverability though. Seriously, devoted spirit + stone dragon = brick wall.

Tiger claw: rip 'em a new one but be wary of biting off too much. Huge offense, no defense. Combine with diamond mind for even greater mobility or shore up the lack of defense with devoted spirit or stone dragon.

White raven: the more melee friends you have, the better it gets. Still a little something even if you're the only front-liner. Not much else to say really.

Desert wind: freakin' pyro. Basically a blaster warlock in a warrior wrapper. Ask your GM about adaptations with other elements.


*there are a couple devoted spirit maneuvers that should've been tagged supernatural too

[danielxcutter]

Thanks Kelb, this really helps. I mean, really helps; I could actually use this as guidelines for that webcomic I'm still working on. Metahuman1, your posts help too. Thank you guys so much.

[ayvango]

I built a master of nine swords few years ago. My impressions is that the core of master is top-level maneuvers and stances. And all other are just prerequisites for them. Say a 9th level maneuver requires 5 other known maneuvers from the same school. So you should take exactly 5 maneuvers from the school and save rest maneuvers known for other schools.

What I get:

Desert wind
Fire damage is not so effective, so I took only mobility from the school:
Salamander charge as the goal, an 3 maneuvers as prerequisite: distracting ember boost, inferno blade boost, searing charge

Devoted spirit
It has really cool highest level maneuvers: immortal fortitude stance which prevent you from dying due to hitpoint damage. righteous vitality provides you with free heal. They requires 3 other maneuvers, so I took: foehammer strike, defensive rebuke boost, aura of perfect order stance. Consider becoming undead, it allows use greater divine surge strike to get +18 AB, +42d6 damage bonus on a single blow.

Diamond mind
The highest level abilities are not such impressing: if you want to do multiple full attacks per round consider telflammar shadow lord, who can do it better. So I just take single convenient counter diamond defense which adds your initiator level to a single saving throw. It is pretty high maneuver but has zero prerequisites.

Iron heart
The top maneuver is just a solid single strike damage, but blasting is considered generally ineffective strategy. Battlefield control, mobility, disabling your opponents are more effective. So leave blasting to the sorcerers and wizards. Martial adept should not rely on ending battle in a single blow, he should be prepared to a long struggle where arsenal of dirty tricks could save his life many times.

The school still provides some tools for mass-damage which is rare for a martial adept. So I took couple but ready them rarely. adamantine hurricane strike under enlarge person, reach weapon and cleave could wipe out mob of underlings. lightning throw strike just do your melee damage on a line and martial artist is proficient with melee damage. The prerequisites may be met with pretty useful defenses: iron heart surge, iron heart focus. Resist fiendish grafts (the cheapest fly option) temptation with it.Take punishing stance as a useless prerequisite.

Setting Sun
The best battlefield control belongs to the school. So take tornado throw strike and 5 other maneuvers to fill requirements: counter charge counter, step of the wind stance, shifting defense stance, ballista throw strike, foul's strike counter. shifting defense and ballista throw is useful beside being prerequisite. Improved trip is must have for using throws effectively.

Shadow Hand
Here lies ability damage. Dex, Str, Con damage as well as negative levels. It also has gives good mobility. So took top-level five-shadow creeping ice enervation strike and 5 prerequisites for it: cloak of depection boost that grants improved invisibility for 1 round. shadow blink grants dimension door as swift action, dance of the spider - useless prerequisite, enervation shadow strike trades negative level on victim for temporal hitpoints on you. one with shadow counter make you incorporeal temporary. If you lacks ability to fly balance on the sky stance grants you continuous air walk. If it is not actual, you could trade it for martial spirit stance, replace foehammer as prerequisite for devoted spirit school and spend maneuver known for lightning recovery counter from iron heart, that allows you to reroll missed hits.

White Raven
Brilliant school for team fights. War master's charge strike does ton of damage and allows to change location on battlefield quickly. Take white raven hammer which deals stun with no saves, order forged from chaos to break action economy, white raven tactics boost for the same and leading the charge as rather dull prerequisite.

Tiger Claw
It focuses on two-weapon fighting that not so effective and costs many feats. And again telflammar shadow lord do the things better. Jump checks is other feature and it is nice, since jump could be boosted easily with low-level spell. I have no maneuvers known left for the school. And primarily focus on two weapon fighting is useless for my build. But it have still not-so-bad level 8 stance. You could sacrifice balance on the sky, lightning throw, greater divine surge, for wolf pack tactics stance that has great synergy with tornado throw. And take claw at the moon and death from above strikes that shares the same cheese: if you misses with Jump vs AC, you could retry with AB vs AC.

Stone Dragon
Nothing particular interesting. If I have spare maneuver I will take mountain hammer for smashing the doors.