TO_Incognito
2007-09-01, 10:42 PM
"These weak and half-hearted disciples are hardly worthy of the graces of the Sublime Way." --Harran Turiyeshor, swordsage
Dilettantes of the Sublime Way
Scattered throughout the world lie schools dedicated to the disciplines of the Sublime Way, the highest art a warrior can take upon himself. The martial adepts who walk this difficult path wander through every nation, spreading their might and teachings to the far corners of the world. Powerful warblades travel from dungeon to mountain to wasteland, making of themselves the stuff of legend. Wise swordsages traverse every walk of life, spreading their mastery and their enlightenment to all the peoples of the multiverse. Pious crusaders carry their crusades before them everywhere, advancing their cause with unparalleled might.
Despite this timeless tradition of single-minded disciples of sword, not all who walk the Sublime Way dedicate themselves totally to its practice. These dilettantes study the Sublime Way and learn its secrets, but they dedicate its use to their former practice of life. They study both the way of perfection and the skills they possessed before setting foot on the path of a martial adept.
Basic Premise
Players who take up one of these variant classes sacrifice one or more of their class features, or part of a class feature, to gain the use of several martial maneuvers and stances. These variant classes are more powerful than their core counterparts, hopefully in the same proportion by which martial adepts are more powerful than core melee classes. Classes which quality for martial dilettante status are generally not already primary martial characters or primary spellcasters (so, most are skill-based classes). In a campaign which includes schools of the Sublime Way, the party role of primary martial character is generally already filled by true martial adept classes, and such classes can generally cover the flavor and position in the world that core-martial-class-PCs normally fill. Furthermore, primary spellcasters lack the time and energy to study the way of the sword, and are generally powerful enough to compete with martial adept classes anyway.
Thus, of the classes in the Player’s Handbook, bards and rogues are obvious candidates for martial dilettante status, while rangers and monks are a possibility. Monks are not, however, included in this write-up because they almost completely covered flavor-wise by swordsages, and because there is such a huge push among fans of Tome of Battle to simply use unarmed swordsages in place of monks that the inclusion of monks seems pointless.
Mechanics
A character’s initiator level is equal to his martial dilettante class level. However, a martial dilettante gains access to higher level maneuvers (for the purpose of his martial dilettante classes) more slowly than a normal martial adept, as given on the table below. Thus, a swordsage 8/ranger 6/martial dilettante bard 4 has an initiator level of 15, giving him access to 8th level maneuvers as a swordsage and 5th level maneuvers as a bard.
The “Maneuver Level” column on the table below represents the highest level maneuver a martial dilettante can select relative to his initiator level.
A martial dilettante’s maneuver and stance progression is also given on the table below. If a character has levels in multiple martial dilettante classes, you must track each class’s maneuvers and recoveries separately, but the classes still stack for the purpose of determining initiator level. Thus, the “Level” column on the table below represents initiator level for the “Maneuver Level” column, but it represents class level for the “Maneuvers Known” and “Stances Known” columns.
A martial dilettante recovers stances as a warblade does, except that the swift action used for recovery can be followed by a ranged attack rather than a melee attack if the player wishes. Upon reaching 5th level and every 3 levels thereafter, a martial dilettante can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one he already knows.
All martial dilettantes gain the key skills for their available disciplines as class skills from level 1.
Martial Dilettantes
{table=head]Level|Maneuver Level|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied|Stances Known
1st|
-|
-|
-|
-
2nd|
1st|
3|
2|
1
3rd|
1st|
4|
2|
1
4th|
2nd|
5|
3|
1
5th|
2nd|
6|
3|
1
6th|
2nd|
6|
3|
1
7th|
3rd|
7|
3|
2
8th|
3rd|
7|
3|
2
9th|
3rd|
7|
4|
2
10th|
4th|
8|
4|
2
11th|
4th|
8|
4|
2
12th|
4th|
8|
4|
2
13th|
5th|
9|
4|
3
14th|
5th|
9|
4|
3
15th|
5th|
9|
5|
3
16th|
6th|
10|
5|
4
17th|
6th|
10|
5|
4
18th|
6th|
10|
6|
4
19th|
6th|
11|
6|
4
20th|
6th|
11|
6|
4[/table]
Dilettantes of the Sublime Way
Scattered throughout the world lie schools dedicated to the disciplines of the Sublime Way, the highest art a warrior can take upon himself. The martial adepts who walk this difficult path wander through every nation, spreading their might and teachings to the far corners of the world. Powerful warblades travel from dungeon to mountain to wasteland, making of themselves the stuff of legend. Wise swordsages traverse every walk of life, spreading their mastery and their enlightenment to all the peoples of the multiverse. Pious crusaders carry their crusades before them everywhere, advancing their cause with unparalleled might.
Despite this timeless tradition of single-minded disciples of sword, not all who walk the Sublime Way dedicate themselves totally to its practice. These dilettantes study the Sublime Way and learn its secrets, but they dedicate its use to their former practice of life. They study both the way of perfection and the skills they possessed before setting foot on the path of a martial adept.
Basic Premise
Players who take up one of these variant classes sacrifice one or more of their class features, or part of a class feature, to gain the use of several martial maneuvers and stances. These variant classes are more powerful than their core counterparts, hopefully in the same proportion by which martial adepts are more powerful than core melee classes. Classes which quality for martial dilettante status are generally not already primary martial characters or primary spellcasters (so, most are skill-based classes). In a campaign which includes schools of the Sublime Way, the party role of primary martial character is generally already filled by true martial adept classes, and such classes can generally cover the flavor and position in the world that core-martial-class-PCs normally fill. Furthermore, primary spellcasters lack the time and energy to study the way of the sword, and are generally powerful enough to compete with martial adept classes anyway.
Thus, of the classes in the Player’s Handbook, bards and rogues are obvious candidates for martial dilettante status, while rangers and monks are a possibility. Monks are not, however, included in this write-up because they almost completely covered flavor-wise by swordsages, and because there is such a huge push among fans of Tome of Battle to simply use unarmed swordsages in place of monks that the inclusion of monks seems pointless.
Mechanics
A character’s initiator level is equal to his martial dilettante class level. However, a martial dilettante gains access to higher level maneuvers (for the purpose of his martial dilettante classes) more slowly than a normal martial adept, as given on the table below. Thus, a swordsage 8/ranger 6/martial dilettante bard 4 has an initiator level of 15, giving him access to 8th level maneuvers as a swordsage and 5th level maneuvers as a bard.
The “Maneuver Level” column on the table below represents the highest level maneuver a martial dilettante can select relative to his initiator level.
A martial dilettante’s maneuver and stance progression is also given on the table below. If a character has levels in multiple martial dilettante classes, you must track each class’s maneuvers and recoveries separately, but the classes still stack for the purpose of determining initiator level. Thus, the “Level” column on the table below represents initiator level for the “Maneuver Level” column, but it represents class level for the “Maneuvers Known” and “Stances Known” columns.
A martial dilettante recovers stances as a warblade does, except that the swift action used for recovery can be followed by a ranged attack rather than a melee attack if the player wishes. Upon reaching 5th level and every 3 levels thereafter, a martial dilettante can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one he already knows.
All martial dilettantes gain the key skills for their available disciplines as class skills from level 1.
Martial Dilettantes
{table=head]Level|Maneuver Level|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied|Stances Known
1st|
-|
-|
-|
-
2nd|
1st|
3|
2|
1
3rd|
1st|
4|
2|
1
4th|
2nd|
5|
3|
1
5th|
2nd|
6|
3|
1
6th|
2nd|
6|
3|
1
7th|
3rd|
7|
3|
2
8th|
3rd|
7|
3|
2
9th|
3rd|
7|
4|
2
10th|
4th|
8|
4|
2
11th|
4th|
8|
4|
2
12th|
4th|
8|
4|
2
13th|
5th|
9|
4|
3
14th|
5th|
9|
4|
3
15th|
5th|
9|
5|
3
16th|
6th|
10|
5|
4
17th|
6th|
10|
5|
4
18th|
6th|
10|
6|
4
19th|
6th|
11|
6|
4
20th|
6th|
11|
6|
4[/table]