Tome of Battle: What to do for remaining Core Martials?

[Morphic tide]

The Book of Nine Swords has some issues, many of them just being common symptoms of late-3.5 source books. But one thing I've never seen talked about is the Core Martials that the Book of Nine Swords doesn't replace. What might one do for replacing Rogue, Ranger and Barbarian as Tome of Battle classes? The fluff of the Book of Nine Swords is that Crusaders, Swordsages and Warblades are people who use specialized martial arts with a shared origin in a single temple/school. Rogues, Rangers and Barbarians are exactly the sort of people you don't expect to see at fancy martial arts schools.

Each of the Tome of Battle classes has at least one exclusive Discipline, and I'd like to keep to having one exclusive discipline for each. Swordsage has exclusive access to Desert Wind, Setting Sun and Shadow Hand. Warblade has exclusive access to Iron Heart. Crusader has exclusive access to Devoted Spirit.

I'm putting this in Homebrew because it's asking what to do with the three core Martials that didn't get a Tome of Battle update. What does the Playground think should be done for each one? What's lacking among the Ranger, Rogue and Barbarian that can be fixed by existing Disciplines, and what can be done for an exclusive Discipline for each?

Yes, I know that Swordsage can be a workable Rogue replacement in many situations, but the Rogue's status as flanker, finisher or ambusher in combat isn't done by Swordsage quite as well as Sneak Attack lets the Rogue pull. And Rogue has Skillmonkey superiority.

Now, unarguable stuff is that the Barbarian equivalent should be tanky, but in a different way from Crusader. Barbarian tanking is about just soaking up HP damage, rather than healing back up through it like Paladin tried to be and Crusader tends to do. As such, surviving as much damage as possible without healing is one of the goals to take with the class features. The easiest way to do this is with DR, but delayed damage is a thing worth mentioning. To make multiclassing with Crusader have costs, the pool can empty at the start of the turn or come with downsides that negatively effect Crusader. Or uniqueness can be kept by focusing on damage reduction. The exclusive Discipline should fit Rage and Frenzy, having options for added strength at the cost of downsides relating to collateral damage and weakening yourself in the long term, like temporary loss of Strength or Dexterity and having AoEs that don't keep allies safe.

Rogue-equivalent is getting Shadow Hand. No questions about it, Rogue gets the sneaky shadow stuff that solves some mobility-related issues. Rogue-equivalent also should keep the anti-trap stuff, getting a condensed thing that does the job of Trapfinding in a way that reduces the skill sink needs. Trap Sense as-is can die in a fire for being so narrow, but a better scaling sort or one that comes with more general advantages is welcome. Like Dodge AC. Sneak Attack can stand to have a reduced progression over Rogue, with the exclusive Discipline being focused on doing *things* with Precision Damage, like Ambush feats, having stuff scale with precision damage dealt and having ways to bypass immunities to precision damage. Possibly some poison-related things. Other class features to add probably involve poison advantages. Digging into skillmonkey with class features can open up tracking advantages, as well as bonuses to sneaking skills, cutting out a lot of skill sinks for basic effects. Depending on how far it goes, it might justify going down to 4+Int skill points due to just how many skills can be justifiably replaced.

Replacing the Ranger gets odd, as Tracking should be done by the assassin-type skillmonkey, Animal Companion comes online significantly later on than one would like for basing a class on, Favored Enemy is partially overlapping with skillmonkey status and Fighting Styles are a symptom of 3.5's failings and are exactly the sort of thing to get utterly lost in the translation, much like how Warblade tossed out Fighter bonus feats. Favored Enemy can be translated to a type of precision damage, with a range limit much like Sneak Attack, in order to justify the creation of a shared archery-based Discipline for the Ranger and Rogue replacements to have. In terms of actual class features, Animal Companion and Favored Enemy are the two things you might focus on. Fighting Styles might be integrated as features similar to various feats, but restricted to and based on the Favored Enemy variant. For an exclusive Discipline... All I can think of is Animal Companion tactics boiled down into a single Discipline, with bonuses that work for both mounts and flanking, like a Counter that let you attack enemies who attempt an attack against an ally.

So, what do you think of the core idea of making Tome of Battle replacements for the remaining Martial classes? What do you think of my ideas for doing so? What are your ideas for doing so? Do you think Bard and PRCs should be included in the Tome of Battle overhaul fun? Most importantly, is this an appropriate thread for Homebrew Design?

[Nifft]

Rogue seems fine as a dip-class, or as a prerequisite to a theurge PrC. It's also nice to have an unequivocal "mundane" class, especially one that gives UMD and enough skill points to be very good at UMD -- sure you start out mundane, but you don't expect to lack magic access, even if you decide to stay Rogue 20 (for some strange reason). Rogue 1 is the new kid who started as a street urchin / stowaway / orphan thief, and will eventually aspire to greatness, but now all he's got is pluck and (next level) the grace of fools (i.e. Evasion).

Scout -- same as Rogue, but with a less urban background.

Ranger -- I'd make them a type of Binder, who cavorts with nature & fey spirits, with PrCs for spell and martial theurges.

Barbarian -- Also a type of Binder, but with a voodoo type of Rage that allows the spirit to ride the man's body. That allows a lot of interesting effects.

(As an aside -- I have already written up the Ranger and Barbarian as "spirit binders" over here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?161597-Spirit-Binders-(Tome-of-Magic-variants)-updated-TWICE-12-25).)

[Morphic tide]

Rogue seems fine as a dip-class, or as a prerequisite to a theurge PrC. It's also nice to have an unequivocal "mundane" class, especially one that gives UMD and enough skill points to be very good at UMD -- sure you start out mundane, but you don't expect to lack magic access, even if you decide to stay Rogue 20 (for some strange reason). Rogue 1 is the new kid who started as a street urchin / stowaway / orphan thief, and will eventually aspire to greatness, but now all he's got is pluck and (next level) the grace of fools (i.e. Evasion).

Scout -- same as Rogue, but with a less urban background.

Ranger -- I'd make them a type of Binder, who cavorts with nature & fey spirits, with PrCs for spell and martial theurges.

Barbarian -- Also a type of Binder, but with a voodoo type of Rage that allows the spirit to ride the man's body. That allows a lot of interesting effects.

(As an aside -- I have already written up the Ranger and Barbarian as "spirit binders" over here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?161597-Spirit-Binders-(Tome-of-Magic-variants)-updated-TWICE-12-25).)

...this is about Tome of Battle conversion. As in Warblade, Swordsage and Crusader's relations to Fighter, Monk and Paladin. General analogues with varyingly close thematic ties. Not Tome of Magic gish conversion. And it's specifically about Core, so Scout isn't on the list.

Did you... completely ignore my post? Like, my first comment on converting Rogue to a Tome of Battle type class was "give it Shadow Hand, supernatural mobility is stuff Rogue needs."

[Nifft]

...this is about Tome of Battle conversion. As in Warblade, Swordsage and Crusader's relations to Fighter, Monk and Paladin. General analogues with varyingly close thematic ties. Not Tome of Magic gish conversion. And it's specifically about Core, so Scout isn't on the list.

Did you... completely ignore my post? Like, my first comment on converting Rogue to a Tome of Battle type class was "give it Shadow Hand, supernatural mobility is stuff Rogue needs."

I took it that you were looking to bring the remaining martials up to par with the ToB classes, not bring them into the exact same mechanical system. You had seemed to NOT want to use the Martial Initiator mechanics for those classes:


The fluff of the Book of Nine Swords is that Crusaders, Swordsages and Warblades are people who use specialized martial arts with a shared origin in a single temple/school. Rogues, Rangers and Barbarians are exactly the sort of people you don't expect to see at fancy martial arts schools.

So... yeah, I did read your post, and I tried to respond to what you actually said.

Did YOU read your post?

===

Anyway.

Rogue should go away entirely (replace by Swordsage, who already gets Shadow Hand and Setting Sun). Trapfinding as a feature should go away entirely, since it's nothing but niche protection. Make a Swordsage variant which loses some weapon proficiencies and gains more skills per level; give this variant the full Rogue skill list as well; add Charisma to AC instead of Wisdom. Done.

Ranger - Use the Martial Ranger found here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?187901-ToB-Bo9S-Nifft-s-Compendium).

Barbarian - Just use Warblade. It's already got the Iron Heart awesomeness and the right HD & armor proficiencies.

[Ziegander]

Morphic, there have been a TON of write ups over the years for martial Rogues, Rangers, Barbarians, and just about anything and everything else you could imagine. There are dozens of homebrew disciplines to cover everything from archery to rage to sneaky stuff that Shadow Hand doesn't already cover. Personally, I think Tiger Claw + Stone Dragon already does a fine job for simulating a Barbarian and I don't really know what else you would want out of a class. Tiger Claw handles the rage, Stone Dragon handles the tankiness.

Rogues and Rangers, I agree, are not modeled very well by the Tome of Battle. But that's why there's a lot of Martial Rangers out there on the internet. Google D&D martial ranger/D&D martial rogue or D&D sublime "XX" for starters. The leg work really has been done for you on this, over and over.

If you just want custom disciplines, boom, they're already done. If you want full class overhauls with Tome of Battle mechanics, bang, also already done.

[Morphic tide]

I took it that you were looking to bring the remaining martials up to par with the ToB classes, not bring them into the exact same mechanical system. You had seemed to NOT want to use the Martial Initiator mechanics for those classes:

So... yeah, I did read your post, and I tried to respond to what you actually said.

Did YOU read your post?
...damnit, I thought I caught wording issues like that on during the pre-post revisions. It was left over from a paragraph I deleted going over the fluff contradictions of having more Disciplines with lore compatibility with the Book of Nine Swords being maintained. Blarg.


Rogue should go away entirely (replace by Swordsage, who already gets Shadow Hand and Setting Sun). Trapfinding as a feature should go away entirely, since it's nothing but niche protection. Make a Swordsage variant which loses some weapon proficiencies and gains more skills per level; give this variant the full Rogue skill list as well; add Charisma to AC instead of Wisdom. Done.
Rogue is defined by Sneak Attack and sneaking, not Diplomacy. Charisma is not a Rogue thing by definition, Intelligence is more of a Rogue thing than Charisma. UMD power is not what Rogue is for. UMD power is there for gadget simulation, part of a style of Rogue play.


Ranger - Use the Martial Ranger found here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?187901-ToB-Bo9S-Nifft-s-Compendium).
I'd be fine with a shameless plug if it were an actual separate class of the sort I'm going for. What I'm looking for is the kind of overhaul Unarmed Swordsage is for Monk. Thematic similarities, but otherwise almost pure improvements with features that only maintain the basic playstyle.


Barbarian - Just use Warblade. It's already got the Iron Heart awesomeness and the right HD & armor proficiencies.
Rage. Passive DR. Movement speed boost. The largely-useless Trap Sense, which can stand to be removed in favor of a strong Reflex save. This is about making classes that near-directly map to the three core Martials that are left without a dedicated counterpart class.


Morphic, there have been a TON of write ups over the years for martial Rogues, Rangers, Barbarians, and just about anything and everything else you could imagine. There are dozens of homebrew disciplines to cover everything from archery to rage to sneaky stuff that Shadow Hand doesn't already cover. Personally, I think Tiger Claw + Stone Dragon already does a fine job for simulating a Barbarian and I don't really know what else you would want out of a class. Tiger Claw handles the rage, Stone Dragon handles the tankiness.

Rogues and Rangers, I agree, are not modeled very well by the Tome of Battle. But that's why there's a lot of Martial Rangers out there on the internet. Google D&D martial ranger/D&D martial rogue or D&D sublime "XX" for starters. The leg work really has been done for you on this, over and over.

If you just want custom disciplines, boom, they're already done. If you want full class overhauls with Tome of Battle mechanics, bang, also already done.
What I'm looking for is outright overhaul with themes intact. Not just porting the mechanics over to Tome of Battle stuff, but actually making different classes for Tome of Battle mechanics that largely fit the same themes. I'm talking the level of change Crusader has from Paladin, here. And I want to hold a conversation about what should be done for such mapping. What parts of the class work better as being shifted into an exclusive Discipline and what ones should be kept in-class, and of the things in the class, what should be altered and what should stay the same?

Most importantly, what should be shifted into non-exclusive Disciplines? This isn't just putting together the classes one by one and getting a Discipline list, I'm wanting to make a connected set of three extra ToB Martial Initiator classes that are actually structured as an extension of sorts to Tome of Battle. Including feats. Like, does there need to be an Archery Discipline for the Rogue and Ranger counterparts to share for them to work properly as Archers, or can one structure other Disciplines to work with Archery?

[Nifft]

...damnit, I thought I caught wording issues like that on during the pre-post revisions. It was left over from a paragraph I deleted going over the fluff contradictions of having more Disciplines with lore compatibility with the Book of Nine Swords being maintained. Blarg. This is exactly why you should try to avoid throwing a tantrum at people who show up trying to help you.


Rogue is defined by Sneak Attack and sneaking, not Diplomacy. Charisma is not a Rogue thing by definition, Intelligence is more of a Rogue thing than Charisma. UMD power is not what Rogue is for. UMD power is there for gadget simulation, part of a style of Rogue play. Bluff (-> Feint), Intimidate, Disguise, and UMD. Those are all central Rogue things, and they're all based on Charisma.

Intelligence is also great for a Rogue, of course, and using Int would also be balanced.


I'd be fine with a shameless plug if it were an actual separate class of the sort I'm going for. What I'm looking for is the kind of overhaul Unarmed Swordsage is for Monk. Thematic similarities, but otherwise almost pure improvements with features that only maintain the basic playstyle. IMHO the Ranger isn't a good fit for Swordsage, nor Crusader, nor Warblade -- so I took the Ranger chassis and figured out what I hope is a good Initiator progression.

There are assuredly other adaptations, but I suspect none are as clean as Swordsage <=> Monk (same BAB & HD, similar skills, same Wis to AC, etc.).


Rage. Passive DR. Movement speed boost. The largely-useless Trap Sense, which can stand to be removed in favor of a strong Reflex save. This is about making classes that near-directly map to the three core Martials that are left without a dedicated counterpart class. Rage => lower AC, higher damage. There are several Stances for that, maybe the earliest is Punishing Stance (Iron Heart).

For DR, Stone Dragon gives a bunch of these (though most are not passive).

Movement: several stances, in particular Iron Heart gives you Absolute Steel Stance.

Stronger Reflex: Warblade gets Int to Reflex.

IMHO it seems like a Barbarian could be built using a Warblade who focused on Iron Heart + Stone Dragon + Tiger Claw, plus maybe White Raven if he's supposed to be a war-leader type.

So, an adaptation might look like:
- Warblade
- remove (some of) the Intelligence-based bonuses
- add the Crusader's delayed damage mechanics
- remove Diamond Mind
- add one custom per-tribe discipline to show differences in culture & training

[Just to Browse]

I know this is pre-defined as out of scope, but I don't think any of the current disciplines quite fit vanilla PHB classes. For example: Shadow Hand is definitely the stealth discipline, but not every rogue should be running around cloaked in shadows making ice attacks. Sneak attack & disciplines are also both class features designed to make your combat routine relevant, and disciplines are (IMO) more exciting for players. Plus, if making Shadow Hand exclusive means no more swordsage / ninja types.

[Morphic tide]

This is exactly why you should try to avoid throwing a tantrum at people who show up trying to help you.

Bluff (-> Feint), Intimidate, Disguise, and UMD. Those are all central Rogue things, and they're all based on Charisma.

Intelligence is also great for a Rogue, of course, and using Int would also be balanced.

IMHO the Ranger isn't a good fit for Swordsage, nor Crusader, nor Warblade -- so I took the Ranger chassis and figured out what I hope is a good Initiator progression.

There are assuredly other adaptations, but I suspect none are as clean as Swordsage <=> Monk (same BAB & HD, similar skills, same Wis to AC, etc.).
See, your reasonings for Charisma Rogue are a type of Rogue. Those things are central to making Rogue function because the system is broken beyond belief by making Dex-based stealth nigh impossible due to skill cost, among many other things relating to making mundane stealth a painful exercise in futility.


Rage => lower AC, higher damage. There are several Stances for that, maybe the earliest is Punishing Stance (Iron Heart).

For DR, Stone Dragon gives a bunch of these (though most are not passive).

Movement: several stances, in particular Iron Heart gives you Absolute Steel Stance.

Stronger Reflex: Warblade gets Int to Reflex.

IMHO it seems like a Barbarian could be built using a Warblade who focused on Iron Heart + Stone Dragon + Tiger Claw, plus maybe White Raven if he's supposed to be a war-leader type.

So, an adaptation might look like:
- Warblade
- remove (some of) the Intelligence-based bonuses
- add the Crusader's delayed damage mechanics
- remove Diamond Mind
- add one custom per-tribe discipline to show differences in culture & training

This is what I'm talking about. I'd actually be fine with Variant Classes, like the three Paladin of X variants that swap alignment requirements, which make the existing Tome of Battle classes map to a different Core Martial. Although a full Discipline for each tribe is a bit much. A larger-than-usual Discipline with prerequisites on some Manoeuvres that the Tribe choices make easy to meet would be simpler and take less effort. Although the setup fits Totem Barbarian better, given that Tribes would be a rather large fluff devotion that can get in the way of RP options. If you need Tribes, you can just make each Tribe focus on a totem/whatever it gets called. And the fact that there's no tribe-like mechanical things Barbarians can grab to note themselves as part of a tribe and getting Barbarian-specific benefits for it.


I know this is pre-defined as out of scope, but I don't think any of the current disciplines quite fit vanilla PHB classes. For example: Shadow Hand is definitely the stealth discipline, but not every rogue should be running around cloaked in shadows making ice attacks. Sneak attack & disciplines are also both class features designed to make your combat routine relevant, and disciplines are (IMO) more exciting for players. Plus, if making Shadow Hand exclusive means no more swordsage / ninja types.

My idea is specifically to make a new Discipline for each one and have two of the Swordsage's exclusive Disciplines stop being exclusive. A properly stealth oriented style, rather than the mobility focus Shadow Hand has. With a lot of effects based on Precision Damage, which is the category that Sneak Attack falls into. Shadow Hand proper should be shared between Swordsage and the Rogue-equivalent.

[Nifft]

See, your reasonings for Charisma Rogue are a type of Rogue. Those things are central to making Rogue function because the system is broken beyond belief by making Dex-based stealth nigh impossible due to skill cost, among many other things relating to making mundane stealth a painful exercise in futility. You are absolutely right: the Charisma Rogue is one Rogue archetype.

Thinking about it, the best way to represent all the different Rogue archetypes might be to have a different set of schools for each one, plus maybe a different set of class features.

Scout: Dex + Wis; focus on stealth & mobility
Thug: Str + Cha; focus on TWF, Intimidation, and damage
Scoundrel: Dex + Cha; focus on mobility & Bluffing (feint, etc.)
Thief: Dex + Int; focus on precision (Diamond Mind) & detection
Spy: Dex + Cha; focus on deception & disguise
Assassin: Dex + Str; focus on stealth & damage
Trickster: Dex + ???; focus on anti-magic and (non-magical?) illusions



This is what I'm talking about. I'd actually be fine with Variant Classes, like the three Paladin of X variants that swap alignment requirements, which make the existing Tome of Battle classes map to a different Core Martial. Although a full Discipline for each tribe is a bit much. A larger-than-usual Discipline with prerequisites on some Manoeuvres that the Tribe choices make easy to meet would be simpler and take less effort. Although the setup fits Totem Barbarian better, given that Tribes would be a rather large fluff devotion that can get in the way of RP options. If you need Tribes, you can just make each Tribe focus on a totem/whatever it gets called. And the fact that there's no tribe-like mechanical things Barbarians can grab to note themselves as part of a tribe and getting Barbarian-specific benefits for it.

Yeah you could use totem instead of tribe. Mechanically they just need some ability to apply per-character customization.