ToB Balancing

[Alveanerle]

Greetings and salutations!

I have allowed a ToB material in my game, and if i want anything houseruled within i should announce it soon. I didn't analyze the book with a magnifying glass, just read over once or twice. From what i see, there might be some slight tweakings needed.

What is your opinion on the subject?

What ToB-related houserules do You use?

My preliminary proposal is this:

- all manuvers imposing a negative condition or stat drain/damage allow a save

- White Raven Tactics can NOT grant another action in the same round and is 1 level lower maneuver _OR_ it can grant another action in the same round but the target is still limited by a hard limit of what it can do it one round* and cannot pass it.

- Iron Heart Surge clarification #1 - it cannot be used to remove a nonmagical physical condition originating from outside of a body (ie. cannot break free from grapple with it, cannot break free from being burried in a cave-in).

- Iron Hear Surge clarification #2 - it cannot be used to remove hold person (you cannot make any actions when paralyzed apart from the one specificaly mentioned in the spell description - means you cannot take any standard action, including the IHS)

- Immediate action counters cannot be used while flat-footed


*the limit being:
- 1 casting of a spell
- movement of up to double speed (unless running etc)
- 1 swift/immediate action
- max number of blows per round as per BAB/TWF

[Zincorium]

Makes a great deal of sense; really you caught most of the real problematic issues inherent in the new system. I'd probably ad-hoc most of these in game.

White raven tactics, as-is, is probably the most overpowered maneuver in ToB (even with the errata that you cannot affect yourself; a mage with more spellcasting time makes things difficult). Your version, while not nerfing it into unusability, does make it a less obvious choice for people to take.

[Roxlimn]

A possible alternate solution to WRT is to simply increase the Initiative Count of the target (not self) to its current number +20, similar in some ways to Moment of Alacrity.

[lord_khaine]

btw, to start with you cant use imidiate actions when you are flatfootet, thats a standart rule.

besides that you can take mental actions when paralysed, so i belive you should be able to use IHS when under a hold person, thats more or less the prime purpose of the maneuver.

as for the ability damage powers, i dont think a save should be allowed, there are a awfull lot of other effects that does ability damage without a save, like fx a wounding weapon.

[Alveanerle]

besides that you can take mental actions when paralysed
Indeed. Unfortunately, initiating a maneuver, as a standard rule, is not a purely mental action. To quote page 38 of ToB:
To initiate a maneuver or stance, you must be able to move.

Besides, this does not negate the usability of the IHS maneuver - it is still great manever for countering endless myriads of conditions. It's just that there are few that are immune - paralyze (no movement), stun (no actions), nausea (no standard action), petrification (no actions) and daze (no actions).

It also cannot remove conditions like dying, helpless or unconscious.

As for ability damage - i have houseruled all ability-damaging magical effects to require a save. Same with level draining effects. So both ray of enfeeblement and enervation need to hit and then are saved against for half damage.
So this goes quite along that change to force blade-magic effects to also require save for half ability damage or for negation of condition (stun etc).

[AlterForm]

Besides, this does not negate the usability of the IHS maneuver - it is still great manever for countering endless myriads of conditions. It's just that there are few that are immune - paralyze (no movement), stun (no actions), nausea (no standard action), petrification (no actions) and daze (no actions).

It also cannot remove conditions like dying, helpless or unconscious.

As for ability damage - i have houseruled all ability-damaging magical effects to require a save. Same with level draining effects. So both ray of enfeeblement and enervation need to hit and then are saved against for half damage.
So this goes quite along that change to force blade-magic effects to also require save for half ability damage or for negation of condition (stun etc).

Well, there was something of a nice big debate on the Wizard's CharOp boards as to what IHS should effect, and a lot of people felt that those were definitely in the spirit of the ability- and things like entire AMFs or Web spells (which it can get rid of, according to the Sage), were not. What kind of things are you going to be letting IHS get rid of?

[Starbuck_II]

Greetings and salutations!

I have allowed a ToB material in my game, and if i want anything houseruled within i should announce it soon. I didn't analyze the book with a magnifying glass, just read over once or twice. From what i see, there might be some slight tweakings needed.

What is your opinion on the subject?

What ToB-related houserules do You use?

My preliminary proposal is this:

- all manuvers imposing a negative condition or stat drain/damage allow a save

save negate or save 1/2?

Save Negate: Means I took this ability and now it is all or nothing (I wasted it or it works).

Save 1/2: Means it still works either way, but I get more benefit if they fail.

I perfer save 1/2 if you must add a save.


Now for conditions: same of the manuevers all ready have saves balancing mechanics: they require skill checks versus target AC usually.

[Dausuul]

I usually prefer to just nix problem maneuvers entirely. Specifically, Iron Heart Surge (too confusing), White Raven Tactics (ba-roken!), and White Raven Hammer (stun with no save is way too good). Most of the rest are okay.

[Person_Man]

My group is a mix of veterans and newish players. We've used ToB with few problems. The only house rule that we use is that you can't play a Ruby Knight Vindicator, because its too abusable (and our homebrew world doesn't include Wee-Jas).

Iron Heart Surge is powerful, but its a standard action that you can only use on effects that aren't instantaneous, and then you have to recover it before using it again. And I'm fine with that.

White Raven Tactics is even more powerful. None of my players have chosen to use it yet (knowing that I tend to house rule things if they abuse them). If they did want to use it, my house rule would probably just be to make it a Standard action.

FYI, in case you're reading this and wondering what we're talking about, you can read all the maneuvers, legally at the WotC website right here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a).

[Alveanerle]

Well, in my opinion IHS should only remove personal affects, if the character can perform required standard action. So no removing whole web or AM. He can remove web-based entangle, but will still have to pass through other web-affected squares if he wants to move.

As for saves - those are supposed to be saves for 1/2 ability damage. And nagation of effects if those occure. What i am a bit afraid of is current "miss or die" effect of some manevers. White raven hammer anyone? Almost 95% guaranteed way of enemy loosing a round and dropping all his weapons? How many enemies there are that have meaningful AC versus a lvl15 warblade?

[Alveanerle]

Dausuul and Person_Man: In your experience, are there any other maneuvers/stances that cause problems?

Those 3 you mentioned are precisely what i fear the most, I just wonder if there's anything uber that i missed.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Well, in my opinion IHS should only remove personal affects, if the character can perform required standard action. So no removing whole web or AM. He can remove web-based entangle, but will still have to pass through other web-affected squares if he wants to move.

As for saves - those are supposed to be saves for 1/2 ability damage. And nagation of effects if those occure. What i am a bit afraid of is current "miss or die" effect of some manevers. White raven hammer anyone? Almost 95% guaranteed way of enemy loosing a round and dropping all his weapons? How many enemies there are that have meaningful AC versus a lvl15 warblade?

Worst is White Raven Tactis with White Raven Hammer, before the "no self-only WRTactics" ruling. Hit them with the Hammer. They're stunned. Use WRT, get another turn, recover your maneuvers. You go before they do, just like you did last time. Stun them again...

White Raven Hammer might make for a decent 9th-level maneuver (and, in fact, War Master's Charge does include a stunning effect if more than one of the multiple charges hits). Spells with similar effects are Fleshshiver (especially in the Player's Guide to Faerun; the Spell Compendium version is a bit better), the Complete Arcane version of Illusory Pit, Stun Ray (also in the Compendium--of course, it's a 7th level spell, and I believe mind-affecting, but it does stun for 1 round on a successful save, 1d4+1 on a failed one), and, I guess, Irresistible Dance.

As for problems, Warblades have a sweet spot at level 3--with a greatsword and Punishing Stance you're rolling 3d6 plus strength and a half for damage, and adding, say, Mountain Hammer on top of that. That has its drawbacks, though, and can be matched by another equally offense-over-defense character (a Goliath barbarian with the Mountain Rage substitution level, say?), and is a problem only for that level if at all. The rest of the maneuvers are more or less fine.

[Serenity]

I ask purely out of curiosity and desire to know, with no intent to imply disapproval or disagreement with your assesment: what makes a Ruby Knight vindicator particularly abusable? I didn't look it over too closely, not finding it a particularly interesting class, but it didn't seem particularly broken to me. What am I missing?

[Rachel Lorelei]

I ask purely out of curiosity and desire to know, with no intent to imply disapproval or disagreement with your assesment: what makes a Ruby Knight vindicator particularly abusable? I didn't look it over too closely, not finding it a particularly interesting class, but it didn't seem particularly broken to me. What am I missing?

Well, they can grant themselves extra swift actions. And use those swift actions to recover maneuvers. Like White Raven Tactics. Before the "can't use it on yourself" ruling, a Ruby Knight Vindicator was capable of basically taking a number of extra turns equal to his turning attempts/2 +1 in a fight (and the notorious Nightsticks from the Libris Mortis make getting turning attempts easy).

[Ramza00]

I ask purely out of curiosity and desire to know, with no intent to imply disapproval or disagreement with your assesment: what makes a Ruby Knight vindicator particularly abusable? I didn't look it over too closely, not finding it a particularly interesting class, but it didn't seem particularly broken to me. What am I missing?
Extra actions is the ultimate currency in higher level play. It matters as much if not more than high level spells/high level spell like effects.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Greetings and salutations!

I have allowed a ToB material in my game, and if i want anything houseruled within i should announce it soon. I didn't analyze the book with a magnifying glass, just read over once or twice. From what i see, there might be some slight tweakings needed.

What is your opinion on the subject?

What ToB-related houserules do You use?

My preliminary proposal is this:

- all manuvers imposing a negative condition or stat drain/damage allow a save

- White Raven Tactics can NOT grant another action in the same round and is 1 level lower maneuver _OR_ it can grant another action in the same round but the target is still limited by a hard limit of what it can do it one round* and cannot pass it.

- Iron Heart Surge clarification #1 - it cannot be used to remove a nonmagical physical condition originating from outside of a body (ie. cannot break free from grapple with it, cannot break free from being burried in a cave-in).

- Iron Hear Surge clarification #2 - it cannot be used to remove hold person (you cannot make any actions when paralyzed apart from the one specificaly mentioned in the spell description - means you cannot take any standard action, including the IHS)

- Immediate action counters cannot be used while flat-footed


*the limit being:
- 1 casting of a spell
- movement of up to double speed (unless running etc)
- 1 swift/immediate action
- max number of blows per round as per BAB/TWF

Really, I see only two big balance issues with ToB, and that's a really danged good track record compared with so many other supplements (for all that people like to whine about it.)

Those are...

-Iron Heart Surge: This thing is just written horribly. Works on everything except what you think it does.

-White Raven Tactics: Getting another turn is just about the *best* thing you can do with a swift action. Ever. Not fair. I also get rid of Belt of Battle and Celerity.

I also agree with the counters ruling.

[Person_Man]

Dausuul and Person_Man: In your experience, are there any other maneuvers/stances that cause problems?

Those 3 you mentioned are precisely what i fear the most, I just wonder if there's anything uber that i missed.

Not really. If your party sits down and optimizes as a group, there are plenty of things that are very potent. But that's fine - as long as party member are roughly the same power level, you can always scale your encounters upwards.

"Balance" is only an issue if Party Member A is particularly strong and Party Member B is particularly weak. This is a common problem in D&D if your party doesn't build as a group. For example, Player A is a Wizard, Player B is a Ninja. So Player B feels useless at high levels, because the Wizard can walk around with Overland Flight, Greater Invisibility, and touch attack Save or Die spells, doing exactly what the Ninja does, but better. The solution is that Player A needs to tone down his spell selection, or Player B should spend five minutes on the boards and pick a better class.

Since Tome of Battle puts melee types closer to full casters (but rarely above them), additional balance problems are rarely an issue. Again, your party just needs to build as a group and come to a general consensus as to their power level.


Though I should mention that ToB has a several things that differ from standard scaling conventions. For example:

Hunter's Scent gives you Scent (ability to locate Invisible enemies) at 1st level.

Flame's Blessing gives you scaled energy resistance/immunity, starting at 1st level.

Thicket of Blades arguably defeats Tumble at 6th level. Though there's a great deal of controversy over whether it effects Tumble, or just 5 ft. steps and the Withdraw action.

Various Diamond Mind maneuvers allow you to replace Saves with Concentration checks. Concentration checks can be boosted much easier then Save checks.

Bounding Assault let's you make a non strait line double-move for a charge at level 8.

Step of the Wind allows you to ignore difficult terrain at 1st level.

Counter Charge let's you foil one charge attempt.

Island of Blades: If you and an ally are adjacent to the same creature that creature is flanked.


There are many other examples, but I'm too lazy to list them all. None of them are "broken." All of them ecan be duplicated in some fashion by spells or class abilities accessible to non-ToB classes. They just give players these abilities slightly earlier in their ECL then they normally get them.

[Alveanerle]

Thank you for your experienced opinions.
Just one last question - how do you view the balance ToB-casters if Spell Compendium is not allowed? I am currently not allowing SpC as a rule - single spells from it get added as rewards, or are found in enemy spellbooks/scrolls, to the average of 0.5 spell per session introduced.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Thank you for your experienced opinions.
Just one last question - how do you view the balance ToB-casters if Spell Compendium is not allowed? I am currently not allowing SpC as a rule - single spells from it get added as rewards, or are found in enemy spellbooks/scrolls, to the average of 0.5 spell per session introduced.

Errr, honestly, saying spell compendium isn't allowed doesn't mean much if, you know, other supplements are. Are you saying it's core only, or are the supplements just more limited? I mean, most spell compendium spells are easily found in other books.

Anyways, among the primary benefits to spellcasters from adding in supplements is the proliferation of swift and immediate actions, which didn't exist in core, which is rather disappointing, considering that they're pretty much the big new thing that was added to the system in in 3.5.

[Alveanerle]

-Iron Heart Surge: This thing is just written horribly. Works on everything except what you think it does.

What do you mean by "except what you think it does"?

[Alveanerle]

Errr, honestly, saying spell compendium allowed doesn't mean much if, you know, other supplements are. Are you saying it's core only, or are the supplements just more limited? I mean, most spell compendium spells are easily found in other books.

For spells its core only, unless some spell gets introduced by DM. Basicly it means that, in order to be aware of a possibility of the existance of a spell with given non-core effects, caster needs to see another cast it, or find knowledge of the spell in tomes of knowledge or be granted the knowledge by other casters. This includes divine magic.

[OneWinged4ngel]

What do you mean by "except what you think it does"?

"You are paralyzed with a powerful enchantment spell! (Hold Person)"

"With a roar of effort, I break free of his spell! Iron Heart Surge!"

See, that doesn't actually work, because you need to move to activate it. On the other hand...

"You walk into an antimagic field, and your gear doesn't work."

"With a roar of effort, I destroy the field! Iron Heart Surge!"

This actually works. You end any effect affecting you, and not *just* for you, but for *everyone.* So you could, for example, eat anti-magic fields. Or, if you're a vampire, the wording suggests that you might even be able to, say, put out the sun. But you can't heroically break free of an enchanter's hold, since that prevents you from initiating the maneuver. It seems pretty obvious that you're supposed to be able to break free of effects like that, a la just about any movie hero. Instead, you eat area effects, destroy permanent effects, and all sorts of other ridiculous things.

It's basically an INCREDIBLY poorly written ability.

[skywalker]

Up front, the only house rules I've used concerning ToB is that martial adepts are only allowed to be twice as bad ass as non-martial adepts, and are only allowed to show the other characters up once per encounter. That said:

I agree with starbuck, those drain effects usually have a skill check to make first(and it's not a paltry skill check).

I have no personal experience with WRT or WRH, although I think at the high a level, the PCs are going to be in roughly the same situation(IE, if the BBEG hits, they die)

As for IHS, I think the effects you mentioned banning are exactly what it's designed to counteract(except for petrification, because a petrified character is considered unconscious, which means you can't use it.)

What level are we talking? I agree with person man, whether or not any of these maneuvers is overpowered depends on the other members of the party.

My other question is, what's your reasoning for the way you've set up learning non-core spells?

[Draz74]

One more thing to watch out for: the Shadow Hand Maneuvers that allow dimension-door effects. Oh, they're not too powerful in battle; they're pretty reasonable in combat. But the rules about recovering maneuvers outside of combat mean that a mid-level Swordsage in noncombat situations can just ... keep ... teleporting ... all ... day ... long. Ick.

[Reel On, Love]

One more thing to watch out for: the Shadow Hand Maneuvers that allow dimension-door effects. Oh, they're not too powerful in battle; they're pretty reasonable in combat. But the rules about recovering maneuvers outside of combat mean that a mid-level Swordsage in noncombat situations can just ... keep ... teleporting ... all ... day ... long. Ick.

Meh, it's 50 feet... and it requires line of sight, so it can't even get you through locked doors.

[Skjaldbakka]

Meh, it's 50 feet... and it requires line of sight, so it can't even get you through locked doors

Depends on the locked door? You could always peek through a keyhole, or lie on the floor to peek under. Most locked doors could be defeated this way.

[Kaelik]

Depends on the locked door? You could always peek through a keyhole, or lie on the floor to peek under. Most locked doors could be defeated this way.

Well I bet it's technically line of effect. And that is limited to needing a larger hole then is present under most (all) doors.

[Attilargh]

It is, and thus needs a square foot hole to work. Gets you out from behind bars, though, and over all sorts of nasty hazards. Also usable to go up and down. Also, it's damn cool.

[Serenity]

Problem being, your party can't move as fast, so unless your 'porting over to find a way to help them across, you're puttinng yourself in a bit of danger just using it indiscriminately.

[Tyger]

Not to mention, using the Shadow Hand's various teleports is actually going to be slower than just walking / running. Yes, the ability to get past obstacles can be nice, and you can often use it to get to places you otherwise would have difficulty with, but so can any wizard worth his salt, most rogues and bards, ninjas, etc, etc, etc.

[Alveanerle]

Up front, the only house rules I've used concerning ToB is that martial adepts are only allowed to be twice as bad ass as non-martial adepts, and are only allowed to show the other characters up once per encounter.

And how do you meaure "badassness"? :smallbiggrin:



That said:

I agree with starbuck, those drain effects usually have a skill check to make first(and it's not a paltry skill check).

I have no personal experience with WRT or WRH, although I think at the high a level, the PCs are going to be in roughly the same situation(IE, if the BBEG hits, they die)

Well, save or die effects of BBEG's usually do allow a save. And rarely a BBEG one-shots a player on a non-crit.


As for IHS, I think the effects you mentioned banning are exactly what it's designed to counteract(except for petrification, because a petrified character is considered unconscious, which means you can't use it.)

Well, first of all it's not really banning, more like natural consequence of the ability text as witten (or at least as i read it - must be able to perform a standard action, must be able to move, must be willing to remove the effect at all). Also, it's still greatly usable for other effects, like being sickened, confused (if the character rolled "acts normally" on a confusion table that round - all other options do not allow for anything else so also don't allow for willing removal of the effect), shaken, etc.
Maybe it should be lowered to the second level of IH instead of third.



What level are we talking? I agree with person man, whether or not any of these maneuvers is overpowered depends on the other members of the party.

The rest of the party consists of dwarven warblade, human fire blasting wizard, human morninglord of lathander cleric, rogue/swashbuckler halfling, sharpshooter/favored_soul halfling and a human warlock. The equivalent party level is right now around 7.4 (the warblade will hit 7 at the beggining of the next session). Those chars are far from being optimized, and are played by mediocrately experienced players (except for the favored soul, who's pretty experienced - in fact he was the first DM for this group).


My other question is, what's your reasoning for the way you've set up learning non-core spells?

The reason is simple - i am afraid of the increased power level the full allowance of non-core spells would bring in. We're running AoW adventure path, and i have problems with balancing encounters versus the group. In short - they blast through everything. There were few close calls and near TPKs, but even those were only in areas that i manually enhanced in order to create any sense of danger at all. Full allowance of non-core magic would probably mean i'd have to rehaul every spellcasting threat in the AP.

[skywalker]

And how do you meaure "badassness"? :smallbiggrin:

That particular DM actually hands out "bad ass points." My swordsage got one for saving the party a nasty encounter with a monstrous centipede by getting it to chase him across the ceiling, when it failed its climb check it dropped into a speeding underground river and drowned. Stuff like that. I love that dm.



Well, save or die effects of BBEG's usually do allow a save. And rarely a BBEG one-shots a player on a non-crit.

Hmmm, I think you're right, there could be a save against the stunning effect. However, I think it should be rather high, equal to the save DC of the ability granted by the stunning fist feat(you also need to remember two things: 1. That many, many monsters are immune to stunning, and 2. That you can use ToB as well.)



Well, first of all it's not really banning, more like natural consequence of the ability text as witten (or at least as i read it - must be able to perform a standard action, must be able to move, must be willing to remove the effect at all). Also, it's still greatly usable for other effects, like being sickened, confused (if the character rolled "acts normally" on a confusion table that round - all other options do not allow for anything else so also don't allow for willing removal of the effect), shaken, etc.
Maybe it should be lowered to the second level of IH instead of third.


Well, I(and I think most of the others on this thread) believe the intention of the rule was for the character to be able to press through conditions that would be absolutely deadly for characters at the level where you receive that maneuver. For instance, I have seen confusion(one of your cited examples) result in multiple TPKs at or around level 7. Because you see, once they roll "attack nearest creature," it becomes a vicious cycle, because confused creatures that are attack defend themselves, which means that if player A attacks player B, player B will attack player A on his turn. Imagine this going on for 7 rounds(a CR 7 wizard has CL 7= 7 rounds of confusion). If one of those characters is a mage as well, then he starts using his most damaging spells(because he perceives his target as his greatest threat). Your fire blaster mage would be fire balling your entire party for 4 rounds, then scorching ray for another 3.



The rest of the party consists of dwarven warblade, human fire blasting wizard, human morninglord of lathander cleric, rogue/swashbuckler halfling, sharpshooter/favored_soul halfling and a human warlock. The equivalent party level is right now around 7.4 (the warblade will hit 7 at the beggining of the next session). Those chars are far from being optimized, and are played by mediocrately experienced players (except for the favored soul, who's pretty experienced - in fact he was the first DM for this group).


I have no experience with the morninglord class, but the rest of those sound somewhat less than optimal(I think I'm in the minority saying that the warlock is rather powerful). So perhaps your warblade will be overpowered. Perhaps you should talk to him about this, or play one session and see how it turns out.



The reason is simple - i am afraid of the increased power level the full allowance of non-core spells would bring in. We're running AoW adventure path, and i have problems with balancing encounters versus the group. In short - they blast through everything. There were few close calls and near TPKs, but even those were only in areas that i manually enhanced in order to create any sense of danger at all. Full allowance of non-core magic would probably mean i'd have to rehaul every spellcasting threat in the AP.

I can see where you're coming from, I just see a possible problem where you are allowed to use spells that the players are not. It's like using ToB yourself and not allowing them to. Or not letting a player see what happened in a session after the session(I'm personally in favor of DM/player transperency. Not during the session, at the table, but afterwards, if a player has a question, I am glad to explain what this ability was, or what that attack did.)

[Matthew]

One House Rule I would propose is treating Non Martial Adept Classes as having Martial Adept Levels equal to their Base Attack Bonus and allowing them to refresh their Manoeuvres somehow (perhaps as a Full Round Action).

[TimeWizard]

Aside from the specific maneuvers in question, is thread about taking Initiators down a peg? If so, why? If broken abilities were nukes, Casters would be America; China (Warriors) get one or two and everybody flips out. It's just not fair.