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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]

TO_Incognito
2007-09-01, 10:45 PM
Ranger

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante ranger sacrifices his spellcasting ability in order to take up the Sublime Way to aid him in his role as a wilderness hunter. He loses his spellcasting progression and no longer has a caster level.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante ranger are Desert Wind, Iron Heart, and Tiger Claw.

Rogue

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante rogue sacrifices some of her training in striking vulnerable and unsuspecting enemies in order to take up the way of the sword. Her sneak attack damage increases once every six levels rather than once every other levels. She can deal +1d6 damage at 1st level, +2d6 damage at 7th level, +3d6 damage at 13th level, and +4d6 damage at 19th level.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante rogue are Desert Wind, Diamond Mind, and Shadow Hand.

Bard

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante bard sacrifices some of his spellcasting prowess in order to study the Sublime Way on his travels. He can cast one less spell of each spell level per day. If this penalty would normally reduce a bard to less than 0 spells of a given level, then he instead gains no spells of that level, bonus or otherwise.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial discipline bard are Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, and White Raven.

Ninja

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante ninja forgoes practice of her sudden strike ability in favor of the Sublime Way. Her sudden strike attack damage increases once every six levels rather than once every other levels. She can deal +1d6 damage at 1st level, +2d6 damage at 7th level, +3d6 damage at 13th level, and +4d6 damage at 19th level.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante ninja are Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand.

Scout

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante scout sacrifices some of his special combat training in favor of the way of the sword. He does not gain battle fortitude or evasion.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante scout are Desert Wind, Shadow Hand, and Tiger Claw.

Spellthief

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante spellthief sacrifices her spellcasting ability in order to take up the Sublime Way to aid her in her role as a counter to powerful enemies. She loses her spellcasting progression and no longer has a caster level.


Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante spellthief are Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, and White Raven.

Marshal

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante marshal sacrifices some of his traditional leadership abilities to walk the Sublime Way. He no longer gains additional uses of his grant move action ability at levels 8 and 16, and he knows one less aura of each type, to a minimum 1 (he still knows no major auras at level 1).

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante marshal are Devoted Spirit, Iron Heart, and White Raven.

Dragon Shaman

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante dragon shaman sacrifices some of her secondary training in order to study the way of a martial dilettante. She does not gain the Skill Focus, energy immunity, or natural armor adjustment which a dragon shaman normally obtains.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante dragon shaman are Devoted Spirit, Stone Dragon, and Tiger Claw.

Duskblade

Class Feature(s) Sacrificed

A martial dilettante duskblade sacrifices some of his normal combat skills in order to walk the Sublime Way. He loses the Combat Casting and arcane channeling class features.

Disciplines Available

The disciplines available to a martial dilettante duskblade are Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, and Stone Dragon.

Macrovore
2007-09-01, 11:46 PM
*sigh*
you guys wanna tell him, or should I?

http://www.corporation.walagata.com/fax/wiki/index.php/Tome_of_Battle_Core_Class_Update

there. fine.

TO_Incognito
2007-09-01, 11:57 PM
Thanks for the link, Mac.

Aye, I believe I might've heard of the previous core class update before; can't remember ever actually reading it though. This version actually feels quite a bit weaker than that one; it gives full progression from one of the established initiator classes?

Eh, I'll leave this post as a mark of shame for me; I could use some advice on simplifying my writing and content in general, at any rate.

Macrovore
2007-09-02, 12:20 AM
Well, it's good that you thought of ways to integrate the new classes from some of the splatbooks. But there are a few problems with those (i'm not gonna touch the classes that fax already updated, but i'll look at the splatbook ones, and use fax as a guide).

1. Initiator level progression is NOT based on class levels. The formula is: IL (initiator level)=martial adept levels+(non-martial adept levels/2). Nothing more, nothing less. If a class gets maneuvers, they are martial adepts. Now, you did adress this, but there is still a problem.

Martial Adepts ALWAYS gain new levels of maneuvers at the same level. The only differences between different martial adept classes is their maneuvers known, readied, stances, and disciplines available. Notice how the table of which levels of maneuvers you have access to is NOT in the Classes section, it's in the section that explains how maneuvers work.

Also, initiator level is the same for all classes. Thus, to use your example, a swordsage8/ranger6/martial bard4 would have an IL of 15 for all classes, not just swordsage, and even the bard levels would have access to 8th level maneuvers if he qualifies for them.

You may have wanted to change some of those rules for this system, but trust me, it's not worth it. It just complicates things even more.

2. NINJA: first of all, why did you lessen it's essential, though underpowered primary class feature (sudden strike) and not the class feature that was most like ToB (ki power). It would make much more sense to get rid of that, as many of the maneuvers duplicate it (mostly shadow hand), but better and more often.

3. SCOUT: this one's alright. Neither the battle fortitude or the evasion are essential abilities, and the class meshes well with ToB (esp. desert wind).

4. SPELLTHIEF: Even though it makes very good sense to take out the spellcasting for pallys and rangers, it DOES NOT work with spellthieves. They need their spells. If I added anything to this class at all, I would give them more spellcasting (probably as a bard), not ToB. Their abilities are more spell-based, and not martialy oriented.

5. MARSHAL: don't reduce the amount of auras they get. They have few enough as it is. Just take out the grant move action (just use white raven tactics).

6. DRAGON SHAMAN: I must admit I'm not that familiar with this class. I think you should leave in at least the energy immunity. And maybe even the natural armor. This class does need a boost. You could even give them variants on Desert Wind based on their dragon type (cold, electricity, acid, etc.)

7. DUSKBLADE: I don't think these guys should be ToBed up, either. They get spells, after all. If you want something like this, but with ToB, just be a warblade. Their flavor is very similar.


There. I hope that helps you.