Trying to decide player races for ToB lore inspired setting, need help finding races

[Luccan]

For a setting I'm planning using a lot of non-core books (ToB, ToM*, and MoI** mostly), I wanted to make use of the Nine Swords lore found in the ToB. But its all a bit disjointed and on top of that, I don't know if there's anymore elsewhere. This isn't too big a problem, but I wanted to find out if there's any more reference to what races created the various marital disciplines. I know hobgoblins created the Iron Heart discipline... and that's it. If anyone knows where I can find this lore or has suggestions for my other questions below, I'd appreciate it.


*If anyone knows a good fix-up somewhere for truenamer I'm all ears.

**Soulborn could use some help too.

[Nifft]

I'd throw away most of the splatbook lore -- it's got value if it inspires your own homebrew, nothing more.

So, you like Hobgoblins -> Iron Heart. That's cool. Make one of the cultures be inclusive of hobgoblins (or maybe all gobliniods) and also the source for Iron Heart. Personally I see Iron Heart as the Barbarian discipline, and I don't associate hobgoblins with the Barbarian class, so I don't use that particular lore. (I kinda hate the RACE = CULTURE thing that D&D seems to fall into by uncreative default.)

-- -- --

Regarding class palette:

- ToB is good all around. Swordsage needs a liberal interpretation of Adaptive Style but with that it's solid.

- ToM has issues. Binder could use a 2nd vestige around level 3 to 5, and the vestiges aren't well balanced, but it's workable beyond that. Shadowcaster needs help but is technically playable. Truenamer needs a re-write.

- MoI has some issues, but it's 2/3 playable and that's great. Soulmelds are not well balanced against each other -- some are utter garbage, others boost UMD -- and would benefit from a re-write, but they're playable as-is. Soulborn are dreadfully weak, but you could just ignore them.

Additional thoughts & sources:

- Scout (C.Adv) is a solid Rogue replacement.

- Artificer (ECS) can be ridiculous if you allow infinite wealth loops, so don't do that. It's quite playable without any such tomfoolery, though, and plays nice in a setting where the whole party is rewarded for having UMD. In fact you could do your concept right in Eberron, with Magewrights only (no Wizards or Sorcerers), only one Cleric on the continent, and Druids are weird NPCs. Having access to Dragonmarks and Dragonmarked PrCs can give you a useful power-up without rewarding the traditional full-casters.

- Warlock (C.Arc) and Dragonfire Adept (DrM) are both on par with your class palette, and they fit into the style of all-day at-will smackdown that ToB / MoI / the Binder bring to the table. And they're from splats!


If you're open to non-magical Core classes... Rogue and Barbarian both have some synergy with your chosen classes. Heck, even Fighter 2 slots nicely into Warblade (to delay your Warblade 4 stance until you have access to level 3 Maneuvers). Ranger has some non-casting variants, most of which I don't like, but you could always adapt them to be skillful wilderness Initiators instead -- the Tiger Claw school seems very Ranger-ish to me, as opposed to the Devoted Spirit school which seems to make Crusader a drop-in replacement for the Paladin (and thus Paladins remain obsolete, which is fine).

You may want to allow Bards to exist, possibly just because Song of the White Raven is such a great feat.

Soulborn... hmm... you could gestalt it into a Soulborn + Fighter + Dragon Shaman, getting the benefits of 3 awful classes at once. Call the admixture a Wyrmbound Warlord. It's mechanically a very different front-liner from a Crusader, but it's got a similar overall feel -- heavy armor, boosts allies, heals a bit, plus some special effects on a random timer.

[Luccan]

I'd throw away most of the splatbook lore -- it's got value if it inspires your own homebrew, nothing more.

So, you like Hobgoblins -> Iron Heart. That's cool. Make one of the cultures be inclusive of hobgoblins (or maybe all gobliniods) and also the source for Iron Heart. Personally I see Iron Heart as the Barbarian discipline, and I don't associate hobgoblins with the Barbarian class, so I don't use that particular lore. (I kinda hate the RACE = CULTURE thing that D&D seems to fall into by uncreative default.)


Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I've even got it listed in the setting background that The Book of Nine Swords is an actual tome in the setting detailing the "history" of the Way, as it's called. Almost none of the book can be verified, beyond the cultures that created the various disciplines and some of it is in serious doubt (like any human mastering more than a couple disciplines within their lifetime, let alone all of them in the space of three years). I mostly don't want a huge number of sentient humanoids wandering around, so I was basically going to use specific races called out in that book and some of the Incarnum ones.



Regarding class palette:

- ToB is good all around. Swordsage needs a liberal interpretation of Adaptive Style but with that it's solid.

- ToM has issues. Binder could use a 2nd vestige around level 3 to 5, and the vestiges aren't well balanced, but it's workable beyond that. Shadowcaster needs help but is technically playable. Truenamer needs a re-write.

- MoI has some issues, but it's 2/3 playable and that's great. Soulmelds are not well balanced against each other -- some are utter garbage, others boost UMD -- and would benefit from a re-write, but they're playable as-is. Soulborn are dreadfully weak, but you could just ignore them.



Additional thoughts & sources:

- Scout (C.Adv) is a solid Rogue replacement.

- Artificer (ECS) can be ridiculous if you allow infinite wealth loops, so don't do that. It's quite playable without any such tomfoolery, though, and plays nice in a setting where the whole party is rewarded for having UMD. In fact you could do your concept right in Eberron, with Magewrights only (no Wizards or Sorcerers), only one Cleric on the continent, and Druids are weird NPCs. Having access to Dragonmarks and Dragonmarked PrCs can give you a useful power-up without rewarding the traditional full-casters.

- Warlock (C.Arc) and Dragonfire Adept (DrM) are both on par with your class palette, and they fit into the style of all-day at-will smackdown that ToB / MoI / the Binder bring to the table. And they're from splats!


If you're open to non-magical Core classes... Rogue and Barbarian both have some synergy with your chosen classes. Heck, even Fighter 2 slots nicely into Warblade (to delay your Warblade 4 stance until you have access to level 3 Maneuvers). Ranger has some non-casting variants, most of which I don't like, but you could always adapt them to be skillful wilderness Initiators instead -- the Tiger Claw school seems very Ranger-ish to me, as opposed to the Devoted Spirit school which seems to make Crusader a drop-in replacement for the Paladin (and thus Paladins remain obsolete, which is fine).

You may want to allow Bards to exist, possibly just because Song of the White Raven is such a great feat.

Soulborn... hmm... you could gestalt it into a Soulborn + Fighter + Dragon Shaman, getting the benefits of 3 awful classes at once. Call the admixture a Wyrmbound Warlord. It's mechanically a very different front-liner from a Crusader, but it's got a similar overall feel -- heavy armor, boosts allies, heals a bit, plus some special effects on a random timer.

Yeah, I should say I'm mostly avoiding traditional casters (and psionics). Already planning to use Warlocks and DFAs. I was going to include all the complete mundanes except samurai (no monks or ninjas), so Scouts, Rogues, Barbs, etc., are already in. I had been working on a Dragon Shaman update based on an earlier post to make their auras more active as well as improving their breath weapon.

I'm just gestalting Marshal onto Fighter and Knight while giving all three some boosts, I'll probably get to work on giving Marshals effects when they activate/deactivate their auras next. I know Shadowcaster has a couple issues that I need to work on, but there were some brief fixes the author of that posted at one point, so I'll start there. As for Truenamer... Well, I was hoping someone had done a good rewrite already while keeping to the main idea, but I might have to do some serious work. I think I might have found a Soulborn fix on the forums that works, but I'll keep this in mind. Still in the early stages.

[Particle_Man]

Maybe Azurin could have favoured class crusader?

From the pictures it looks like aaracokra and white raven go together but you could pick a lawful race like skarn. Drow are featured for diamond mind - maybe the spirits for eternal blades are from before they turned evil? Races of the wild has catfolk for tiger style or you could use shifter or even that blue furry race from MoI. Dwarves and Stone dragons go together. The chaotic race from MoI could fit shadow blade.

[Andor13]

Yeah, I should say I'm mostly avoiding traditional casters (and psionics). Already planning to use Warlocks and DFAs. I was going to include all the complete mundanes except samurai (no monks or ninjas), so Scouts, Rogues, Barbs, etc., are already in. I had been working on a Dragon Shaman update based on an earlier post to make their auras more active as well as improving their breath weapon.

Sounds like a great setup to me. Some of the psionics classes seem like they'd be at about the level you're looking for, like the Psiwarrior. Soulknife seems thematically appropriate but the 3.5 version is dreadful. The PF version (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/) is a lot better.

Are you trying to avoid casters entirely, or just T1 casters? Some of the secondary casters like Bard or Duskblade seem about right for your theme/power level.

[Nifft]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I've even got it listed in the setting background that The Book of Nine Swords is an actual tome in the setting detailing the "history" of the Way, as it's called. Almost none of the book can be verified, beyond the cultures that created the various disciplines and some of it is in serious doubt (like any human mastering more than a couple disciplines within their lifetime, let alone all of them in the space of three years). I mostly don't want a huge number of sentient humanoids wandering around, so I was basically going to use specific races called out in that book and some of the Incarnum ones. If you're using a limited race palette, then I'd say Goblinoids are a great choice to include -- just make them one big race with magically weird genetics so they turn into gobins / hobgoblins / bugbears / etc., including the weird desert one and the weird Incarnum one. Maybe bugbears are the "orcs" of this world -- the wild warrior people with more thews than thoughts, in other words the Barbarian types. Civilized Bugbears tend to be Rogues, because Conan was a multi-class Barb/Rogue, and all Bugbears are basically extra-hairy Conans. Maybe there aren't dryads, there are Forrestkith -- goblinoids who have fallen back into their fey nature, quite literally becoming one with the forest every dusk. I'd include Dusklings, changing their type to Fey (goblinoid) instead of (extraplanar) -- the latter is quite annoying when banishment is possible. Sunscorch Hobgoblins (Dragon Magic) are decent, too.

You've got Humans & splatbook human subspecies. That's probably a great palette all by itself -- Karsites as a weird hidden anti-magic conspiracy threat, Azurin as the scions of a fallen empire, Silverbrow as the chosen special magic dragon-people who probably have a Sorceress cousin or ancestor somewhere, Sharakim as the totally-not-orcs who are surprisingly smarter than your character, maybe Tieflings and Changelings too. Heh, maybe Tiefligns were the other fallen empire which warred against Azurania.

For various reasons (cough Planescape: Torment cough) I like including Tieflings, but nothing about Aasimar really interests me. Asymmetry is okay -- if you like Aasimar but are sick of Tieflings, that asymmetry is also okay. :smallwink:

In terms of new races, you could steal basically all the other Dragon Magic racial variants and distribute them amongst the gobliniods -- which are already underpowered, so you don't even need to remove their core features to balance them against the awesomeness that is Humanity.

On the subject of the (dragonblood) subtype, Dragonborn is a fun template, and as a voluntary transformation it's not going to require weird fantasy genetics.

In that same vein of not-a-breeding-race, you could add Necropolitan and/or Warforged.


Yeah, I should say I'm mostly avoiding traditional casters (and psionics). Already planning to use Warlocks and DFAs. I was going to include all the complete mundanes except samurai (no monks or ninjas), so Scouts, Rogues, Barbs, etc., are already in. I had been working on a Dragon Shaman update based on an earlier post to make their auras more active as well as improving their breath weapon.

I'm just gestalting Marshal onto Fighter and Knight while giving all three some boosts, I'll probably get to work on giving Marshals effects when they activate/deactivate their auras next. I know Shadowcaster has a couple issues that I need to work on, but there were some brief fixes the author of that posted at one point, so I'll start there. As for Truenamer... Well, I was hoping someone had done a good rewrite already while keeping to the main idea, but I might have to do some serious work. I think I might have found a Soulborn fix on the forums that works, but I'll keep this in mind. Still in the early stages. I like the idea of Marshal+Knight because there's Cha synergy, but I don't like Marshal+Fighter because Fighters don't usually care about Charisma.

Hmm, how about Fighter+Expert (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/expert.htm), and call it the Adventurer class -- flavor it as an Everyman, the generic protagonist type who might have been born a humble villager yet who yearns for greatness and thus follows the call for adventure. With good skill choices (i.e. UMD) the class would be stand-alone viable, but it's even more interesting as a PrC prefix building block.

Soulknife+Ranger might make an interesting skirmisher, just make the thrown blade compatible with Rapid Shot & TWF when you get those feats -- maybe even tie the blade special perks to the combat style choice, so the Rapid Shot skirmisher gets to throw mindblades every turn, while the TWF skirmisher gets to make two blades at once every time (both of which are full-power). If you don't like Ranger spellcasting, then consider giving a feature like the Dragon Shaman's lay on hands, which recovers HP and also removes some conditions. Or give it Soulborn meldshaping -- none of the other features, just the meldshaping.

Bard+Marshal would be pretty neat, just be sure to modify the Diplomacy rules so you can't trivially break the game with Diplomancy. (You should probably fix that anyway, though -- Marshal isn't the only class which can break that sub-system, but it sure helps.)

[Particle_Man]

I think someone mashed up soulborn and soul knife to good effect.

[Mike Miller]

*If anyone knows a good fix-up somewhere for truenamer I'm all ears.


Didn't Zaq do a lot with Truenamer?

[Cosi]

Yeah, I should say I'm mostly avoiding traditional casters (and psionics). Already planning to use Warlocks and DFAs.

Why, exactly? Balance reasons (you think Wizards are too good), flavor reasons (you don't think Wizards capture the tone you're going for), or mechanical ones (you don't want Vancian Magic). All of those are potentially valid, but they would all result in different answers in various edge cases (e.g. in the first case, Warmages are presumably acceptable).

One thing to note is that you cut out Vancian Magic entirely, it's going to be a lot harder for people to deal with the kinds of problems that restoration, raise dead, and so on are supposed to cure. I would recommend giving the Marshall some SLAs that mimic those effects. It boosts an otherwise anemic class, and ensures that you don't have to double check each monster you use. Or maybe add some rituals.


I was going to include all the complete mundanes except samurai (no monks or ninjas)

Can I ask why no Monks? They seem like a pretty good fit for a ToB inspired world. Maybe give them some maneuvers (Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand + Shadow Sun Monk stuff seems good). Not sure about refresh mechanic. Maybe just crib the Swordsage's, or let them recover a maneuver whenever they hit with an unarmed strike.


As for Truenamer... Well, I was hoping someone had done a good rewrite already while keeping to the main idea, but I might have to do some serious work.

What main idea? Flavorfully, it's just a Wizard specialized in name magic. Mechanically, it's a mess that is not only nonfunctional, but relies on a mechanic (skill based casting) that is incapable of being balanced.

[Nifft]

Can I ask why no Monks? They seem like a pretty good fit for a ToB inspired world. Maybe give them some maneuvers (Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand + Shadow Sun Monk stuff seems good). Not sure about refresh mechanic. Maybe just crib the Swordsage's, or let them recover a maneuver whenever they hit with an unarmed strike.

Isn't that just an unarmed variant Swordsage?

[Luccan]

If you're using a limited race palette, then I'd say Goblinoids are a great choice to include -- just make them one big race with magically weird genetics so they turn into gobins / hobgoblins / bugbears / etc., including the weird desert one and the weird Incarnum one. Maybe bugbears are the "orcs" of this world -- the wild warrior people with more thews than thoughts, in other words the Barbarian types. Civilized Bugbears tend to be Rogues, because Conan was a multi-class Barb/Rogue, and all Bugbears are basically extra-hairy Conans. Maybe there aren't dryads, there are Forrestkith -- goblinoids who have fallen back into their fey nature, quite literally becoming one with the forest every dusk. I'd include Dusklings, changing their type to Fey (goblinoid) instead of (extraplanar) -- the latter is quite annoying when banishment is possible. Sunscorch Hobgoblins (Dragon Magic) are decent, too.

You've got Humans & splatbook human subspecies. That's probably a great palette all by itself -- Karsites as a weird hidden anti-magic conspiracy threat, Azurin as the scions of a fallen empire, Silverbrow as the chosen special magic dragon-people who probably have a Sorceress cousin or ancestor somewhere, Sharakim as the totally-not-orcs who are surprisingly smarter than your character, maybe Tieflings and Changelings too. Heh, maybe Tiefligns were the other fallen empire which warred against Azurania.

For various reasons (cough Planescape: Torment cough) I like including Tieflings, but nothing about Aasimar really interests me. Asymmetry is okay -- if you like Aasimar but are sick of Tieflings, that asymmetry is also okay. :smallwink:

In terms of new races, you could steal basically all the other Dragon Magic racial variants and distribute them amongst the gobliniods -- which are already underpowered, so you don't even need to remove their core features to balance them against the awesomeness that is Humanity.

On the subject of the (dragonblood) subtype, Dragonborn is a fun template, and as a voluntary transformation it's not going to require weird fantasy genetics.

In that same vein of not-a-breeding-race, you could add Necropolitan and/or Warforged.

So it looks like the Hobgoblins are pretty much the only race called out in ToB. There's a picture with some of the background text of a particularly ugly elf and dwarf, but beyond that I'm gonna basically have to decide for myself. Consider that specific question set aside, I'm not able to rely on ToB lore for racial choices. I don't know if I'm going to use that many "here's a human but..." races, however there are many worth considering. Planetouched are probably out, I don't particularly care for them in 3.5. I'll include at least the 3 basic goblinoids (plus variants) and likely the MoI races (I like your suggestion for Dusklings). I know Rilkan and Skarn are kinda boring in a void, but I've got some fun ideas for them. Dragonborn might make it in. Don't think I want Warforged. Necropolitan might be an interesting option, though there won't actually be a Necropolitan society if they're included, just the forbidden ritual. I'm not sure which, if any, races I want to use from the PHB other than humans.



I like the idea of Marshal+Knight because there's Cha synergy, but I don't like Marshal+Fighter because Fighters don't usually care about Charisma.

Hmm, how about Fighter+Expert (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/expert.htm), and call it the Adventurer class -- flavor it as an Everyman, the generic protagonist type who might have been born a humble villager yet who yearns for greatness and thus follows the call for adventure. With good skill choices (i.e. UMD) the class would be stand-alone viable, but it's even more interesting as a PrC prefix building block.

Soulknife+Ranger might make an interesting skirmisher, just make the thrown blade compatible with Rapid Shot & TWF when you get those feats -- maybe even tie the blade special perks to the combat style choice, so the Rapid Shot skirmisher gets to throw mindblades every turn, while the TWF skirmisher gets to make two blades at once every time (both of which are full-power). If you don't like Ranger spellcasting, then consider giving a feature like the Dragon Shaman's lay on hands, which recovers HP and also removes some conditions. Or give it Soulborn meldshaping -- none of the other features, just the meldshaping.

Bard+Marshal would be pretty neat, just be sure to modify the Diplomacy rules so you can't trivially break the game with Diplomancy. (You should probably fix that anyway, though -- Marshal isn't the only class which can break that sub-system, but it sure helps.)

Glad you approve the Knight/Marshal thing. I'm still going to offer both classes a bit of a boost, since they still need it. My main idea for the Fighter/Marshal was similar and while I know Fighter doesn't like Charisma, Marshals already boost their skills, will save, and gives actual class abilities (that I'm planning to give activation/deactivation effects so there's a more tactical side). The Fighter/Expert idea is good, I like the idea of a "build your own" class outside the generic class system. I don't really want to use vancian or psionics for flavor reasons (it isn't the magic inherent to the region), but honestly I like the idea of the Soulknife/Ranger as you present it. Some unholy amalgam of Incarnum, Psionics, and Vancian casting would make a fun class. As for Bard/Marshal (setting aside the above on vancian casting), I'm including Marshal as a boost to one or two other classes so it's never going to be independent. I wouldn't include it on Bard anyway, even if I was going to use Bard. They don't really need the boost given the company they'd be in for this game.


Maybe Azurin could have favoured class crusader?

From the pictures it looks like aaracokra and white raven go together but you could pick a lawful race like skarn. Drow are featured for diamond mind - maybe the spirits for eternal blades are from before they turned evil? Races of the wild has catfolk for tiger style or you could use shifter or even that blue furry race from MoI. Dwarves and Stone dragons go together. The chaotic race from MoI could fit shadow blade.

I don't really use favored class rules, but yeah I was thinking a lot of Azurin would be crusaders. Fits their alignment extremes fluff. Skarn are definitely going to have a proud history with martial adepts, so they might fit for white raven. Not sure whether or not I'm including any elves, but it's a good point. I appreciate these suggestions, I'll have to mull them over more as I think of the races for the setting.


Sounds like a great setup to me. Some of the psionics classes seem like they'd be at about the level you're looking for, like the Psiwarrior. Soulknife seems thematically appropriate but the 3.5 version is dreadful. The PF version (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/) is a lot better.

Are you trying to avoid casters entirely, or just T1 casters? Some of the secondary casters like Bard or Duskblade seem about right for your theme/power level.

I do want to avoid casters entirely if possible, as well as psionics. However, if it becomes clear the game just won't run without them, I'll bring in Bards and the like. You're absolutely right about them being on the right power level.


Didn't Zaq do a lot with Truenamer?

I know he wrote a guide, of sorts, but I don't think he offered any particular ideas on how to improve them. General stuff like "The Laws need to be less harsh" doesn't help me figure out how much they need to be adjusted. Honestly, I'd just been hoping someone had already done the hard work for me, but I should be able to handle it.


Why, exactly? Balance reasons (you think Wizards are too good), flavor reasons (you don't think Wizards capture the tone you're going for), or mechanical ones (you don't want Vancian Magic). All of those are potentially valid, but they would all result in different answers in various edge cases (e.g. in the first case, Warmages are presumably acceptable).

Fair question. I'd call it a mixture of all three, balance actually being the smallest concern. I've got some weariness with the vancian magic system and have recently had a chance to use psionics quite a bit as a player. This is a great opportunity for both myself and my players to think outside the box a bit with their casters. None of the systems I want to use offer the same breadth of abilities and power as the vancian full casters, but are still strong and varied enough to be useful (I know I haven't mentioned this, but Zyrcell is off the table for Binders, because Summon Monster shenanigans). And I like the flavor; traditional casting in 3.5 feels too safe. Binders and Shadowmages feel like they're inherently playing with forces they probably shouldn't. Even Incarnum involves using your very soul to fight. Admittedly, Truenamers feel a bit safer than all that, but you don't see Truenames just anywhere. I imagine the art itself to be closely guarded, beyond the basics, as well as personal truenames a person knows other than their own.



One thing to note is that you cut out Vancian Magic entirely, it's going to be a lot harder for people to deal with the kinds of problems that restoration, raise dead, and so on are supposed to cure. I would recommend giving the Marshall some SLAs that mimic those effects. It boosts an otherwise anemic class, and ensures that you don't have to double check each monster you use. Or maybe add some rituals.

Giving Marshals the ability to help their allies through some of that (so long as it was within a few rounds, let's say) seems like a good idea. I do think it's a fair point that without Vancian magic access to that is a bit more difficult, so I think rituals for that sort of thing are a good idea. And of course, if there are specific places those rituals need to be performed, that can be an adventure by itself.



Can I ask why no Monks? They seem like a pretty good fit for a ToB inspired world. Maybe give them some maneuvers (Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand + Shadow Sun Monk stuff seems good). Not sure about refresh mechanic. Maybe just crib the Swordsage's, or let them recover a maneuver whenever they hit with an unarmed strike.

Fixing monks up with their own maneuver progression seems like the best way to improve them. But at that point, I might as well just fix the unarmed Swordsage instead. If a player comes to me and really wants a specific monk ability, we'll figure it out, but as is I'm just going to offer them a finished unarmed Swordsage and leave it at that. Essentially, I feel ninjas, monks, and swordsages step on each others toes and since this setting has a bit of a focus on ToB anyway, monks end up feeling under powered on their own and redundant if given maneuvers.



What main idea? Flavorfully, it's just a Wizard specialized in name magic. Mechanically, it's a mess that is not only nonfunctional, but relies on a mechanic (skill based casting) that is incapable of being balanced.

If it can't be mechanically salvaged (and that may very well be the case), I'll drop it before the game starts. But I like the idea of an actual skill based caster and if I can take the foundation and improve it enough to get a working class out of it, I only increase the options available to myself and my players.


Isn't that just an unarmed variant Swordsage?

Agreed. Too much redundancy and the monk doesn't seem worth salvaging (for this specific game). But again, if there's a monk ability a player simply must have, I'll work with them to let them have it.

[Troacctid]

I think rilkans with their teamwork abilities would be a better fit for White Raven than skarn would. Skarn might go for Setting Sun as the most monk-like discipline. Or maybe the original mishtai created the White Raven style and it's another point of tension between the two races as they both claim it as their heritage.

Desert Wind wants to go to a speedy race. What about kobolds? They're small, quick, and agile, and they have a desert variant that's more resistant to heat. Xephs could be another interesting option.

For Tiger Claw, I'm eyeing neraphim because of how good they are at jumping and charging. I guess it makes sense to use something with natural claws, though, like catfolk, who also have a nice Jump bonus.

Shadow Hand could be a good fit for gnomes, especially whisper gnomes, since they're sneaky and have a talent for illusions. It could also work for illumians, since they have ties to the Plane of Shadow. I'd suggest shadar-kai if they weren't basically unplayable.

[mabriss lethe]

It will be a lot less of a pain to just axe truenamer for this campaign. while there are plenty of good rewrites out there, skill based magic will inherently be feast or famine. characters will either be able to pump their rolls so high that it might as well be At-will, or will constantly struggle to get their abilities to work at all.

For races: Raptorans are always fun to throw in the mix, LA 0 race with a level based flying ability is rather unique.

I'm also promoting a lot of the XPH psionic races, even if psionics isn't going to be a thing. (they're usually pretty easy to MacGuyver mechanics for their special abilities in a non psionic world. Treating them like specialized bonus TOB maneuvers is a quick and dirty way to do it. ) Tweaking an Elan so that their repletion ability is just baked in at no cost, and that their resilience and resistance abilities are counters based off of character or initiator level instead of requiring PP works well enough. The others work about as well.

[Nifft]

So it looks like the Hobgoblins are pretty much the only race called out in ToB. There's a picture with some of the background text of a particularly ugly elf and dwarf, but beyond that I'm gonna basically have to decide for myself. Consider that specific question set aside, I'm not able to rely on ToB lore for racial choices. I don't know if I'm going to use that many "here's a human but..." races, however there are many worth considering. Planetouched are probably out, I don't particularly care for them in 3.5. I'll include at least the 3 basic goblinoids (plus variants) and likely the MoI races (I like your suggestion for Dusklings). I know Rilkan and Skarn are kinda boring in a void, but I've got some fun ideas for them. Dragonborn might make it in. Don't think I want Warforged. Necropolitan might be an interesting option, though there won't actually be a Necropolitan society if they're included, just the forbidden ritual. I'm not sure which, if any, races I want to use from the PHB other than humans. I'm totally ignorant of Necropolitan society -- I just know about the template from CharOp threads. :)

The desert goblins I mentioned turn out to be the Bhuka from Sandstorm. They seem decent.

Elans from XPH are a neat transformational race. You'd need to modify them to not use power points for their racial abilities, of course.

Elf has value mostly because of the Eternal Warrior PrC, which is awesome -- but it'd be easy enough to adapt that PrC to a specific culture which practices ancestor-worship, perhaps a culture made of both Humans and Hobgoblins...

Personally I have no real interest in Rilikan nor Skarn, but maybe you can do something cool with them, like give the Rilikan the [Dragonblood] subtype since they're scaly -- so they'd replace Silverbrow Humans as the go-to Totemist choice.



Glad you approve the Knight/Marshal thing. I'm still going to offer both classes a bit of a boost, since they still need it. My main idea for the Fighter/Marshal was similar and while I know Fighter doesn't like Charisma, Marshals already boost their skills, will save, and gives actual class abilities (that I'm planning to give activation/deactivation effects so there's a more tactical side). The Fighter/Expert idea is good, I like the idea of a "build your own" class outside the generic class system. I don't really want to use vancian or psionics for flavor reasons (it isn't the magic inherent to the region), but honestly I like the idea of the Soulknife/Ranger as you present it. Some unholy amalgam of Incarnum, Psionics, and Vancian casting would make a fun class. As for Bard/Marshal (setting aside the above on vancian casting), I'm including Marshal as a boost to one or two other classes so it's never going to be independent. I wouldn't include it on Bard anyway, even if I was going to use Bard. They don't really need the boost given the company they'd be in for this game. It's easy enough to allow Soulknife without allowing Psionic Powers to exist.

Something like:
- Wild Talent grants no power points. Instead, it grants the [Psionic] subtype.
- Having the [Psionic] subtype allows you to take [Psionic] feats, and you can gain Psionic Focus per the usual rules.
- Items & effects that apply to [Psionic] creatures apply to you if you have the subtype, obviously.
- Items & effects that steal or grant Power Points just don't exist.

Then the Soulknife class grants Wild Talent, which gives the [Psionic] subtype, and thus access to [Psionic] feats. Hmm, so I guess the Soulknife+Ranger class could grant (Greater) Psionic Shot instead of Multishot. Hmmmmmm... yeah, this could be good.


Similarly, if you want the XPH Elans, they could all have the [Psionic] subtype, plus a pool of racial powers (since power points don't exist). For example, maybe you get a racial Psi Pool which is equal to your class level + your highest mental ability bonus (Int / Wis / Cha). You can use your Psi Pool in three ways:
- Resistance (Su): Elans can use psionic energy to increase their resistance to various forms of attack. As an immediate action, you can spend 1 Psi Pool point to gain a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws until the beginning of your next action.
- Resilience (Su): When an elan takes damage, she can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, you can spend 2 Psi Pool points to reduce the damage you are about to take by 2 hit points per character level.
- Repletion (Su): An elan can sustain her body without need of food or water. If you spend 3 Psi Pool points, you do not need to eat or drink for 24 hours.


You could do something similar for Kalashtar if you want them to exist -- just give them the [Psionic] subtype + Telepathy 100 ft. instead of mindlink as a racial power + bonus power points.


Hmm, Pyrokineticist might be a viable PrC in this world. I have a soft spot for that PrC. Yay.


In terms of making sure the UMD classes remain viable -- Rogue, Warlock, Bard, DFA, Incarnate, Binder, Expert, etc. -- I really do recommend that Artificer be allowed. Sure, you'll have to house-rule away some infinite loops, but you'd have to do that eventually anyway -- or you play with people who wouldn't force that issue, so it's not necessarily a problem. You'll need to watch over WBL, but you'd need to do that anyway with UMD classes, and with an Artificer in the party you won't need a magical WBLmart constantly available to keep the UMD folks happy.

[Luccan]

I think rilkans with their teamwork abilities would be a better fit for White Raven than skarn would. Skarn might go for Setting Sun as the most monk-like discipline. Or maybe the original mishtai created the White Raven style and it's another point of tension between the two races as they both claim it as their heritage.

Desert Wind wants to go to a speedy race. What about kobolds? They're small, quick, and agile, and they have a desert variant that's more resistant to heat. Xephs could be another interesting option.

For Tiger Claw, I'm eyeing neraphim because of how good they are at jumping and charging. I guess it makes sense to use something with natural claws, though, like catfolk, who also have a nice Jump bonus.

Shadow Hand could be a good fit for gnomes, especially whisper gnomes, since they're sneaky and have a talent for illusions. It could also work for illumians, since they have ties to the Plane of Shadow. I'd suggest shadar-kai if they weren't basically unplayable.

I kinda want to include gnomes just for Shadowcasters any way, so giving them a more sinister bent is already on the table. And if I'm gonna include kobolds, obviously their vicious little war will be all the better if they're both origins of a martial path... hmm, what if kobolds got Tiger Claw and gnomes Shadow Hand. They are said to have betrayed the other students together, but maybe when that fell through the two groups turned on each other. I could see giving kobolds a boost to Jump checks; even with the web expansion (which gives them claws), that shouldn't be overpowered. Whisper Gnomes could be the origin point in this setting: other gnomes have attempted to become more open and friendly, but Whisper Gnomes keep the insular and mysterious roots of their people. Ok, so from the PHB gnomes (of all races) are in.

Xephs don't actually get much in the way of power points (and have no inherent way of using them). Still not sure I want to use those, but making Psionic feats an option might be nice. In that case, I'd keep Xephs counting as a Psionic race without the bonus power point. Something to think about.

I like the idea of Rilkans and Skarn fighting over a single path, but now that you mention it, Skarn probably wouldn't turn away from Incarnum so easily. I'll have to think on it some more.


It will be a lot less of a pain to just axe truenamer for this campaign. while there are plenty of good rewrites out there, skill based magic will inherently be feast or famine. characters will either be able to pump their rolls so high that it might as well be At-will, or will constantly struggle to get their abilities to work at all.

For races: Raptorans are always fun to throw in the mix, LA 0 race with a level based flying ability is rather unique.

I'm also promoting a lot of the XPH psionic races, even if psionics isn't going to be a thing. (they're usually pretty easy to MacGuyver mechanics for their special abilities in a non psionic world. Treating them like specialized bonus TOB maneuvers is a quick and dirty way to do it. ) Tweaking an Elan so that their repletion ability is just baked in at no cost, and that their resilience and resistance abilities are counters based off of character or initiator level instead of requiring PP works well enough. The others work about as well.

Hmm. Well if you can point me to them, I'd like to at least take a look. I don't know about Raptorans. I mean, they're cool, I just don't know how I'd want want to fit them into the game. I'm considering Xeph now, but I'm not sure about other XPH races. I know it can't be too difficult to switch them to non-psionic versions (I mean, the duergar is just switching magic to psionics), but I'll at least give them all a harder look.


I'm totally ignorant of Necropolitan society -- I just know about the template from CharOp threads. :)

The desert goblins I mentioned turn out to be the Bhuka from Sandstorm. They seem decent.

Elans from XPH are a neat transformational race. You'd need to modify them to not use power points for their racial abilities, of course.

Elf has value mostly because of the Eternal Warrior PrC, which is awesome -- but it'd be easy enough to adapt that PrC to a specific culture which practices ancestor-worship, perhaps a culture made of both Humans and Hobgoblins...

Personally I have no real interest in Rilikan nor Skarn, but maybe you can do something cool with them, like give the Rilikan the [Dragonblood] subtype since they're scaly -- so they'd replace Silverbrow Humans as the go-to Totemist choice.


It's easy enough to allow Soulknife without allowing Psionic Powers to exist.

Something like:
- Wild Talent grants no power points. Instead, it grants the [Psionic] subtype.
- Having the [Psionic] subtype allows you to take [Psionic] feats, and you can gain Psionic Focus per the usual rules.
- Items & effects that apply to [Psionic] creatures apply to you if you have the subtype, obviously.
- Items & effects that steal or grant Power Points just don't exist.

Then the Soulknife class grants Wild Talent, which gives the [Psionic] subtype, and thus access to [Psionic] feats. Hmm, so I guess the Soulknife+Ranger class could grant (Greater) Psionic Shot instead of Multishot. Hmmmmmm... yeah, this could be good.


Similarly, if you want the XPH Elans, they could all have the [Psionic] subtype, plus a pool of racial powers (since power points don't exist). For example, maybe you get a racial Psi Pool which is equal to your class level + your highest mental ability bonus (Int / Wis / Cha). You can use your Psi Pool in three ways:
- Resistance (Su): Elans can use psionic energy to increase their resistance to various forms of attack. As an immediate action, you can spend 1 Psi Pool point to gain a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws until the beginning of your next action.
- Resilience (Su): When an elan takes damage, she can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, you can spend 2 Psi Pool points to reduce the damage you are about to take by 2 hit points per character level.
- Repletion (Su): An elan can sustain her body without need of food or water. If you spend 3 Psi Pool points, you do not need to eat or drink for 24 hours.


You could do something similar for Kalashtar if you want them to exist -- just give them the [Psionic] subtype + Telepathy 100 ft. instead of mindlink as a racial power + bonus power points.


Hmm, Pyrokineticist might be a viable PrC in this world. I have a soft spot for that PrC. Yay.


In terms of making sure the UMD classes remain viable -- Rogue, Warlock, Bard, DFA, Incarnate, Binder, Expert, etc. -- I really do recommend that Artificer be allowed. Sure, you'll have to house-rule away some infinite loops, but you'd have to do that eventually anyway -- or you play with people who wouldn't force that issue, so it's not necessarily a problem. You'll need to watch over WBL, but you'd need to do that anyway with UMD classes, and with an Artificer in the party you won't need a magical WBLmart constantly available to keep the UMD folks happy.

I believe the fluff for the Necropolitan states they have a city. Hence the "-politan". I've seen the Bhuka before, though I don't actually have Sandstorm. I'd had an idea for a goblinoids only game and they seemed to fit... but despite their supposed relation to hobgoblins, I've never seen anything that indicates they actually have the [goblinoid] subtype. I'm thinking a lot about the [Dragonblood] subtype: I'll probably end up allowing the Dragon Magic variants, though possibly applied to different humanoids. There's a lot of dragon in this setting.

The soulknife suggestion is a solid one. If I include Xeph, I'll take it. I'm still not sure about other psionic races yet. As for Pyrokineticist... I could try to tweak it, but we'll see. Could make the pp requirement "must be able to manifest a mindblade" and make it a soulknife PRC. Or just a "must be psionic" requirement and it benefits from mindblade improvements.

As for artificer... Yeah I was thinking Warlocks could handle it, but they get their "create magic items like a real caster" ability way too late. I don't necessarily want magic item creation to be super common, but I'm not sure there's much else I can do.

[Cosi]

Isn't that just an unarmed variant Swordsage?

Maybe? Monks get some stuff I'm pretty sure Unarmed Swordsages don't, particularly since I'm suggesting you give them some abilities from the Monk/Shadow Hand/Setting Sun PrC. You could also add Devoted Spirit to their list of disciplines.


Giving Marshals the ability to help their allies through some of that (so long as it was within a few rounds, let's say) seems like a good idea. I do think it's a fair point that without Vancian magic access to that is a bit more difficult, so I think rituals for that sort of thing are a good idea. And of course, if there are specific places those rituals need to be performed, that can be an adventure by itself.

No, it can't be an adventure by itself. A Bodak is a CR 8 enemy that has a reasonable chance of straight up killing a character. It's not a special encounter, it's just a thing you can fight at 8th level. Like a Mind Flayer or four Zombie Minotaurs. It can't send the party off on a separate adventure, because that's completely logistically untenable. Either fights with enemies that might require any of the standard Cleric spells have to be rare (which necessitates checking each enemy you use to make sure it's not handing out negative levels), the ability to supply those spells has to be as common as it is in a game with Clerics, or players are going to spend a substantial amount of time under the effects of conditions ranging from "ability drained" to "dead" and/or on sidequests to remove those conditions. Going on one quest to cure a rare disease might be cool. Doing it every second or third fight is not.

Just give the Marshal highlights from the Healer list CHA mod times per day at the appropriate levels or something. Saves a lot of headaches in the long run.


If it can't be mechanically salvaged (and that may very well be the case), I'll drop it before the game starts. But I like the idea of an actual skill based caster and if I can take the foundation and improve it enough to get a working class out of it, I only increase the options available to myself and my players.

The math just doesn't work. Either skills scale with level at a fixed ratio (in which case you're just adding epicycles to a level check), or they don't (in which case the class is broken if the skill check has any impact). In 3e, skill checks don't have tight level based scaling, so the Truenamer is horribly broken. In both directions actually. Without optimization, it can't use its abilities. With optimization, it can't fail even if it stacks all its "metamagic" feats.

[Pleh]

Speaking to the fighter gestalts: something I've really been enjoying recently is a modded E6 rules. You take UA's generic classes, BUT Warrior now gets Maneuvers like a Warblade and Expert gets Invocations as a Warlock (before choosing class features as feats). It really kind of IS a build your own adventurer system.

Keeping it E6 helps keep the Spellcaster from power creeping away from the other classes.

[Nifft]

I kinda want to include gnomes just for Shadowcasters any way, so giving them a more sinister bent is already on the table. And if I'm gonna include kobolds, obviously their vicious little war will be all the better if they're both origins of a martial path... hmm, what if kobolds got Tiger Claw and gnomes Shadow Hand. They are said to have betrayed the other students together, but maybe when that fell through the two groups turned on each other. Does a non-gnome Swordsage get access to Shadow Hand?

If not, how is that playable?

If so, in what way do gnomes "get" Shadow Hand?



I believe the fluff for the Necropolitan states they have a city. Hence the "-politan". I've seen the Bhuka before, though I don't actually have Sandstorm. I'd had an idea for a goblinoids only game and they seemed to fit... but despite their supposed relation to hobgoblins, I've never seen anything that indicates they actually have the [goblinoid] subtype. I'm thinking a lot about the [Dragonblood] subtype: I'll probably end up allowing the Dragon Magic variants, though possibly applied to different humanoids. There's a lot of dragon in this setting. Bhuka flavor text says they're goblin relatives. Their automatic languages are Goblin and Common. They look like goblins. IMHO they should have the subtype, and they can fill a niche if you want desert people.

I don't think Necropolitans need their own city or culture, but they might be more accepted in urban areas. That lets them be "-politan" but not a distinct separate group.


The soulknife suggestion is a solid one. If I include Xeph, I'll take it. I'm still not sure about other psionic races yet. As for Pyrokineticist... I could try to tweak it, but we'll see. Could make the pp requirement "must be able to manifest a mindblade" and make it a soulknife PRC. Or just a "must be psionic" requirement and it benefits from mindblade improvements. I like the idea of applying Mindblade perks to the Pyro's flame whip, but yeah it shouldn't be required.

Personally I don't think Xephs add much to a setting, not compared to a transformational race like Elan or a funky fight-bad-dreams human variant like Kalashtar, but that's just my own taste.


As for artificer... Yeah I was thinking Warlocks could handle it, but they get their "create magic items like a real caster" ability way too late. I don't necessarily want magic item creation to be super common, but I'm not sure there's much else I can do. The thing is, a good number of your chosen classes lean on UMD (some lightly, others heavily). So I think you will want to do something to keep UMD relevant.

IMHO the addition of Artificer won't be bad for your setting -- they're NOT vancian casters, and they're no more of an exploitation risk than a level 12 Binder + a level 12 Warlock, which your setting needs to support anyway. You would need to fix some specific item exploits (wishing for wishes etc.), but you need to do that in every D&D game anyway, or you need to decide that the game is all about that exploit and build your own Tippyverse.


In terms of alternatives, you could use NPC casters:
- Adepts
- Magewrites (ECS)
- Healers (MinHB), but NPC-only
- Spontaneous Divine Casters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) (UA), but NPC-only
- Monsters with spellcasting like Dragons, Couatls, Rakshasa, Aranea, Nymphs, or Planetars


You could make item crafting locations instead of item crafting feats. Use the Touchstone / Planar Touchstone mechanics for location ideas & recharge times, but instead of getting a Touchstone power, the PCs get to craft an item appropriate to the magical location (paying XP and GP as normal). Perhaps the Skull Stump in the Forest of Shadows will allow them to craft an item that's either Necromantic or Shadow-y, and they just need to fight their way through the hag coven which currently claims the site. But what about items that require TWO spells, one of which is shadowy but the other of which is, I dunno, [Fire] or something? Figure it out in advance so you don't have a fight at the table.

[Luccan]

Does a non-gnome Swordsage get access to Shadow Hand?

If not, how is that playable?

If so, in what way do gnomes "get" Shadow Hand?


Bhuka flavor text says they're goblin relatives. Their automatic languages are Goblin and Common. They look like goblins. IMHO they should have the subtype, and they can fill a niche if you want desert people.

I don't think Necropolitans need their own city or culture, but they might be more accepted in urban areas. That lets them be "-politan" but not a distinct separate group.

I like the idea of applying Mindblade perks to the Pyro's flame whip, but yeah it shouldn't be required.

Personally I don't think Xephs add much to a setting, not compared to a transformational race like Elan or a funky fight-bad-dreams human variant like Kalashtar, but that's just my own taste.

The thing is, a good number of your chosen classes lean on UMD (some lightly, others heavily). So I think you will want to do something to keep UMD relevant.

IMHO the addition of Artificer won't be bad for your setting -- they're NOT vancian casters, and they're no more of an exploitation risk than a level 12 Binder + a level 12 Warlock, which your setting needs to support anyway. You would need to fix some specific item exploits (wishing for wishes etc.), but you need to do that in every D&D game anyway, or you need to decide that the game is all about that exploit and build your own Tippyverse.


In terms of alternatives, you could use NPC casters:
- Adepts
- Magewrites (ECS)
- Healers (MinHB), but NPC-only
- Spontaneous Divine Casters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) (UA), but NPC-only
- Monsters with spellcasting like Dragons, Couatls, Rakshasa, Aranea, Nymphs, or Planetars


You could make item crafting locations instead of item crafting feats. Use the Touchstone / Planar Touchstone mechanics for location ideas & recharge times, but instead of getting a Touchstone power, the PCs get to craft an item appropriate to the magical location (paying XP and GP as normal). Perhaps the Skull Stump in the Forest of Shadows will allow them to craft an item that's either Necromantic or Shadow-y, and they just need to fight their way through the hag coven which currently claims the site. But what about items that require TWO spells, one of which is shadowy but the other of which is, I dunno, [Fire] or something? Figure it out in advance so you don't have a fight at the table.

Sorry, I was thinking in terms of background fluff: having gnomes be the creators of the Shadow Hand discipline works for me. No race is going to have exclusive access to their created discipline.

Yeah Bhuka do fill the desert race niche pretty well. I can always slap [goblinoid] on them. I'd need to get a copy of Sandstorm though, because their racial traits rely on some rules from that book.

I'll consider Elan, but I don't want to pull Kalashtar out of Eberron. They just aren't to my taste.

I like the idea of item crafting locations. Scratch the res quests, Cosi's right it'll be a headache. I could even offer some basic ones that don't need you to travel far, for potions and low-level wands. Plus, if they're locations, there's still a possibility that an item might be sold somewhere, there just isn't a huge number of items in circulation. Adding Vancian casters, even as NPCs, is something I want to avoid. I might shift racial casting on creatures over to one of the other magic systems. Isn't there already a rule for dragons to get Invocations instead of sorcerer casting somewhere?

[Zaq]

Didn't Zaq do a lot with Truenamer?


I know he wrote a guide, of sorts, but I don't think he offered any particular ideas on how to improve them. General stuff like "The Laws need to be less harsh" doesn't help me figure out how much they need to be adjusted. Honestly, I'd just been hoping someone had already done the hard work for me, but I should be able to handle it.


It will be a lot less of a pain to just axe truenamer for this campaign. while there are plenty of good rewrites out there, skill based magic will inherently be feast or famine. characters will either be able to pump their rolls so high that it might as well be At-will, or will constantly struggle to get their abilities to work at all.


You rang?

Anyway, yeah, I haven't tried to make my own homebrew fix for the Truenamer, though I've tried to offer (solicited!) feedback to a few other folks who've made their own fixes or revisions. As mabriss lethe mentioned, skill based casting is honestly a pretty terrible idea in the 3.5 paradigm. I could go into more detail, but what's already been said here is a very good summation for its brevity.

If you want to adapt the existing Truenamer with a minimum of fuss, that's actually harder than it sounds when looking at the reality of how the class is played. You're probably safe just removing the Law of Sequence altogether and letting action cost and short durations be the balancing factor, though maybe you could say no more than one instance of a given utterance on a specific creature at once. Dunno if that would break anything, honestly.

For the Law of Resistance, I'm not sure what to do about it. I think WotC's heart was in a somewhat reasonable place with the LoR, obnoxious as it is: if you don't want to make the abilities basically usable at-will, then you need to have something preventing people from just getting up to autosuccess levels and never worrying about it ever again. If you DO want to just have them usable at-will, then the weird part there is actually metautterances like Quicken. Because the printed utterances are often somewhat behind the curve when it comes to being level-appropriate, the fact that Quicken offers native action economy (and especially native action economy on your highest-level stuff) is one of the only things that makes the Truenamer interesting enough to be worth the headache. If you just remove the concept of Truespeak entirely and make utterances usable at-will, there isn't an obviously fair way to allow Quicken and its brethren into the mix (without just lunging straight for the boring and underpowered feats that are designed to modify generic SLAs in vaguely metamagic-y ways).

If you keep the idea of TS but remove the LoR, you're effectively just saying "you need to optimize your TS mod to get to XYZ level, and then you don't need to roll at all ever again," which is semi-workable but strikes me as kind of dishonest (or at least not what the devs likely originally intended). That's honestly not that far from how things work as-written even with the LoR in place (and I'm not actually convinced that utterances need that much of a failure rate most of the time), but still, if we're intentionally tinkering to make things better, we need to be intentional about the results and consequences, and that's kind of what the consequence would be.

As it stands, at the optimization levels I've experienced the most, a Truenamer of high enough level to have Quicken will indeed autosucceed on non-Quickened utterances (after all, that has to be true by definition to use Quicken as written, as you take a -20 to the check) and may or may not autosucceed (or will come really close to doing so) on Quickened utterances at the start of the day, but the LoR presents a challenge to Quickening late in the day. So it puts a cap on whether you can casually toss out an utterance as a swift action over and over, but it doesn't really put much of a cap on how often you can use it as a standard action. Which isn't actually the worst possible result, i suppose, but we can talk about whether that's your desired end result or not. And of course there's the fact that a successful Quickened utterance is basically identical in effect to a successful non-Quickened utterance, so if the LoR is interfering with your chances of Quickening only one of the two utterances you plan to use on a given round, you can easily Quicken the other one and use the LoR-beset one as a normal standard action with no net loss of effectiveness, which again may or may not be a desirable end result.

At lower op levels (where you can't autosucceed), I think the LoR is pretty unnecessary and could be safely axed, but since Quicken is such an undeniable part of Truenamer relevance for a long time, it kind of needs to be addressed.

(We also have to take another Law into consideration: specifically, Grod's Law. Being honest, tracking the LoR is actually really bloody annoying at the table, so if it's a primary balancing mechanism, that's not always great design. But that's a little different when adapting an existing class with existing annoying balancing mechanisms rather than making a new one from the ground up.)

If you remove the TS check entirely and just make utterances available like invocations (and therefore remove the assumption that a Truenamer will have to spend a large portion of their build resources getting their TS check up), the class is different enough that I'm not really sure I feel comfortable judging what it would play like. It'd probably be about on par with a Warlock, plus or minus a few weird edge cases (and of course you have to come to terms with an at-will level 1 ability giving access to unlimited out-of-combat healing, but that's not actually a really terrible thing most of the time even if WotC was horrified at the concept), but I can't really say for sure. You might try it and find out, I guess?

If you want to make other minor tweaks to the existing class rather than just starting fresh, you might also look at rebalancing the levels of some utterances, because many of them are drastically overleveled. (For example, there are no fewer than two different level 4 LEM utterances—not available prior to ECL 10—that mimic the effects of level 1 spells. There are many other examples as well.) LCT/LPM utterances are also generally pretty terrible and are either way overleveled or hamstrung by unnecessary restrictions, so generally buffing them and allowing them to become available earlier would be unlikely to break anything (yeah, yeah, something something Conjunctive Gate—just axe it or keep it as a true capstone or something). And you could just offer little minor boosts like improving the weird skill list, making See the Named and Sending easier to use (the personal truename rules are beyond awful), making Speak Unto the Masses available earlier, and so on, but those are very clearly secondary issues.

[Cosi]

I think the interesting part of the Truenamer is the reversible nature of the utterances. That's actually cool and recognizably distinct from other kinds of caster. The skill stuff is just not mechanically viable. If I were to make a Truenamer fix, I would try something like "Utterances have a X round cooldown, or you can immediately recharge them by using the reversed form" as the class's mechanical "hook". Then you've got something that encourages you to think about sequencing your abilities, rather than something that encourages you to think about how many kinds of bonus exist.

You'd still have to make the utterances better though.


Sorry, I was thinking in terms of background fluff: having gnomes be the creators of the Shadow Hand discipline works for me. No race is going to have exclusive access to their created discipline.

One thing that might be interesting is allowing each race access to their created discipline regardless of class. I don't think that's a huge buff, and in any case you can either set things up so that there aren't races that don't get the buff, or so that whatever other races get a similar buff (or just have 1-2 races per discipline).


I could even offer some basic ones that don't need you to travel far, for potions and low-level wands.

My suggestion would be to have criteria rather than fixed locations, and have those criteria scale with the item being created. So making a potion of cure light wounds requires water from a river that flows past a tree that's at least a hundred years old, but creating a staff of meteor swarm requires you to prepare dragonhide and starmetal, then perform a ritual in a volcano caldera. I also think stepping up Weapons of Legacy, both in frequency and effect would be a good idea for this setting. The idea of warriors having mythical weapons with magical effects is a good one, and it will allow you to back door in some things that help people's character concepts.


Adding Vancian casters, even as NPCs, is something I want to avoid.

I don't think you need them at all. You just need to think carefully about the effects they provide, and ensure that those are either present, or have their absence accounted for. Healing is the big one, but travel magic also has a large impact. As long as people can get raise dead cast without any more effort than they need in a world with Clerics, the world doesn't need actual Clerics.


I might shift racial casting on creatures over to one of the other magic systems. Isn't there already a rule for dragons to get Invocations instead of sorcerer casting somewhere?

If there's not, I see no reason that "Warlock/Dragonfire Adept level = Sorcerer level" wouldn't be sufficient. That said, I think giving Dragons (or at least some creatures) magic beyond mortals is something worth considering, depending on exact specifics of setting fluff.

[Luccan]

Well, with everyone chiming in, including the author of the Truenamer guide, and rereading said guide (as well as a fix I did eventually find), I can say I'm confident I don't have the chops to fix it. Someone might, but they either haven't tried or their fix is tough to find (what I found is good, but everyone's right that the skill checks are the problem). I should've probably come to this conclusion earlier, but I was really hoping it could work. However...


I think the interesting part of the Truenamer is the reversible nature of the utterances. That's actually cool and recognizably distinct from other kinds of caster. The skill stuff is just not mechanically viable. If I were to make a Truenamer fix, I would try something like "Utterances have a X round cooldown, or you can immediately recharge them by using the reversed form" as the class's mechanical "hook". Then you've got something that encourages you to think about sequencing your abilities, rather than something that encourages you to think about how many kinds of bonus exist. You'd still have to make the utterances better though.

The fix I did find had an expanded list of utterances, as well as lowering the levels of some current utterances and gives the truenamer a better skill list. I'll probably borrow those fixes. I like the suggestions here, just using their abilities won't be a skill check. I agree, the actual cool part of their abilities is flipping them around. I'm thinking combining your suggestions while looking through what Zaq posted should help me decide what to do, exactly. What do you think about allowing Truespeak checks to increase DCs and caster level, as before? That way True Names and the actual Truespeak skill still have a purpose. I'd lower the target DCs, of course. I suppose meta-utterances could require the check as well*? So you can Quicken your utterance, for instance, but only if you pass the check. If you don't you just use it regularly. What do people think of that? Keeping in mind that using their abilities normally will no longer require a skill check. Or do people think I should just throw Truespeak out entirely?



One thing that might be interesting is allowing each race access to their created discipline regardless of class. I don't think that's a huge buff, and in any case you can either set things up so that there aren't races that don't get the buff, or so that whatever other races get a similar buff (or just have 1-2 races per discipline).


Maybe. I can offer Martial Study at level 1 in a specific discipline, at the very least. I was thinking of switching the gnome's spell-like abilities for a Shadow Magic Fundamental (usable once per day).



My suggestion would be to have criteria rather than fixed locations, and have those criteria scale with the item being created. So making a potion of cure light wounds requires water from a river that flows past a tree that's at least a hundred years old, but creating a staff of meteor swarm requires you to prepare dragonhide and starmetal, then perform a ritual in a volcano caldera. I also think stepping up Weapons of Legacy, both in frequency and effect would be a good idea for this setting. The idea of warriors having mythical weapons with magical effects is a good one, and it will allow you to back door in some things that help people's character concepts.


Good idea. Item components, basically. You could research the exact details to create magic items, but once you know it you can attempt it (assuming you have the proper feat, which I'll change the requirements for so anyone can take it). The Warlock's ability they get at level 12 lets you make an attempt without actually having to meet the criteria.



I don't think you need them at all. You just need to think carefully about the effects they provide, and ensure that those are either present, or have their absence accounted for. Healing is the big one, but travel magic also has a large impact. As long as people can get raise dead cast without any more effort than they need in a world with Clerics, the world doesn't need actual Clerics.


If there's not, I see no reason that "Warlock/Dragonfire Adept level = Sorcerer level" wouldn't be sufficient. That said, I think giving Dragons (or at least some creatures) magic beyond mortals is something worth considering, depending on exact specifics of setting fluff.

Well, item formulas as treasure could let players make their own Altar of Raise Dead, or something. A higher level utterance for raise dead might be appropriate; inverse for a not-too-powerful death effect? Since Shadowmages are going to have such a presence in this game, travel by portal through the Plane of Shadow offering a quicker but potentially more dangerous form of travel could be one way to do travel magic. Actually it's kind of weird Shadowmages don't have a mystery for fast travel. Some kind of step-through-shadows thing. Edit: They do, actually, it's just weird. Obviously this can be partially solved with items as well, but I'll see if I can think of another way to possibly make it available.

As for spell casting creatures, magic beyond mortals is always something I'm down for. For Dragons specifically, I might not have them develop true casting until some of the upper age categories. Maybe only Dragons that live at least four centuries unlock their true powers. But if it's something like an Aranea, I'll probably just figure out some standard invocations to throw on it.


*Edit: I'd probably just set target DCs for each meta-utterance, btw. Not trying to use the old system.

[Pleh]

Maybe. I can offer Martial Study at level 1 in a specific discipline, at the very least. I was thinking of switching the gnome's spell-like abilities for a Shadow Magic Fundamental (usable once per day).

EDIT: I got confused about sources this morning. Instead of giving them 1 automatic Maneuver, you could give them automatic access to a whole discipline.

For example, gnomes get Shadow Hand, but they only really benefit if they choose a class that actually grants maneuvers readied and known. What it really means is that Gnome Crusaders and Warblades can mix Shadow Hand into their repertoire. Strikes me as comperable to the Elven proficiency with swords and bows. It only really matters when you wanted those specific weapons anyway.

As for Truenamer skill based casting, maybe you could hijack Star Wars Saga Use the Force mechanics. The system was 3.5esque, so would need very little effort to port over.

It would make utterances 1/encounter abilities (which you can add more than once to your repertoire to gain extra uses per encounter). The skill DC is set based on how strong the effect is, but most utterances would trigger reliably with a namer that keeps up with the skill ranks (optimization shouldn't be necessary to do the thing your class is named for). So mostly optimizing TS would be to maximize the variable effects of your utterances. Not, "do you do the thing you wanted," rather, "how well do you do the thing you wanted?"

But instead of using repertoires, you could tip the hat to LoS and LoR by having the DC for each utterance increase every time you use it in the encounter and decrease every time you reverse it. I could see an interesting "rubber band" mechanic from truenamers repeatedly buffing allies in a minor way just to decrease their reverse utterance DC so when they finally debuff the boss, they get easier access to the strongest save DCs and most powerful effects.

[Draz74]

There are two classic Truenamer fixes from GitP that have both gathered quite a bit of praise: Kyeudo's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217713-A-Book-of-Words-An-Expanded-Truenamer-Fix-PEACH) and Kellus's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?90961-The-Way-Words-Work-(or-Truenaming-that-doesn-t-make-me-cry-myself-to-sleep-at-night)).

Kellus re-writes the whole system more, while Kyeudo stays surprisingly close to what's in the book while still fixing.

Neither has been updated in years, but ... that's 3.5e for you.

[Cavir]

May not be a big help or might give some inspiration, but there is an active high level game (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?561874-Masters-of-the-Nine-Swords-OOC-Take-2) that is focused on ToB lore. Maybe the house rules there will offer ideas.


In general, this campaign assumes that all of the people, places, gods, organizations, and the like mentioned in Tome of Battle definitely exist exactly as presented (including PrC Adaptation sections, sample characters, etc.), and no other setting information from other settings (or even the core books) is guaranteed to exist.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

So it looks like the Hobgoblins are pretty much the only race called out in ToB...........



ToB says in the Bloodstorm Blade Description that bloodstorm is of Githyanki origin. And some of the nine swords are in WoL with lore on their origin so there's that.

[Cosi]

What do you think about allowing Truespeak checks to increase DCs and caster level, as before?

It is very easy for people's skill checks to vary by more than the entire length of the RNG by mid levels, even between characters with the same nominal level of competence. I don't understand how you could come up with a system for turning skill checks into power that was simultaneously useful for low-op characters and not broken for high-op characters (barring things like fixed DCs everyone can hit which are essentially cop outs).


Maybe. I can offer Martial Study at level 1 in a specific discipline, at the very least. I was thinking of switching the gnome's spell-like abilities for a Shadow Magic Fundamental (usable once per day).

That's actually more of an advantage though. Discipline access doesn't do anything unless you're a Warblade, Swordsage, or Crusader. Martial Study is always an advantage (however marginal).


Good idea. Item components, basically. You could research the exact details to create magic items, but once you know it you can attempt it (assuming you have the proper feat, which I'll change the requirements for so anyone can take it). The Warlock's ability they get at level 12 lets you make an attempt without actually having to meet the criteria.

Yeah. It also has the advantage that you can modulate pretty heavily the impact it has. If low level items have minimal requirements, the market for them would be essentially unchanged. On the other hand, high level items with more stringent requirements could be made essentially arbitrarily difficult to obtain.


A higher level utterance for raise dead might be appropriate; inverse for a not-too-powerful death effect?

Certainly reasonable. slay living and raise dead are the same spell level.


There are two classic Truenamer fixes from GitP that have both gathered quite a bit of praise: Kyeudo's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217713-A-Book-of-Words-An-Expanded-Truenamer-Fix-PEACH) and Kellus's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?90961-The-Way-Words-Work-(or-Truenaming-that-doesn-t-make-me-cry-myself-to-sleep-at-night)).

Kyeudo's doesn't really seem like it solves the problem. 15 + 2 * Level + CR still works out to roughly 15 + 2 * level, which means your abilities stop working without outside investment unlike literally every other character, and at a glance the utterances don't look much better than they already were. And keying metamagic off skill checks still allows anyone who knows Item Familiar exists to blow out the power curve.

Kellus drops the scaling on skill checks which is smart, but also means that your abilities very rapidly go from "inconsistent" to "at will". It's not hard to scrounge up a +10 bonus to a skill check, and in that system such a bonus is the difference between an at-will ability and one with a worse failure chance than a Wizard in Full Plate. Making Truenaming arbitrarily not subject to existing mechanisms for resistance is dumb and will causes compatibility problems, as well as setting bad precedents. Also the utterances still seem kinda bad. Like, is "-10 ft movement speed, min 5ft" really a useful ability for even a 1st level character?

Overall neither of those fixes seem great, though it's entirely possible I skipped some stuff because I wasn't reading super closely and definitely didn't read all the way through.

[OgresAreCute]

Eternal Blade is elf specific. In chapter 3 there is a picture of an elven desert wind user (seems a good fit), a devoted spirit user which is a woman with some lumps on her head (goliath?) and a diamond mind drow. On the next page is an iron heart using dwarf, setting sun halfling and shadow hand gnome (all seem reasonable enough, though someone said iron heart was a hobgoblin thing which I couldn't find anywhere). On the page after there is yet another picture, though this one seems to have the picture text in no particular order compared to the picture. I think at least that its supposed to be some form of scythe-slinging elf woman for tiger claw, very spiky human guy for stone dragon and some weird bird abomination for white raven.

[Luccan]

It is very easy for people's skill checks to vary by more than the entire length of the RNG by mid levels, even between characters with the same nominal level of competence. I don't understand how you could come up with a system for turning skill checks into power that was simultaneously useful for low-op characters and not broken for high-op characters (barring things like fixed DCs everyone can hit which are essentially cop outs).

Well, I don't expect a super high-op in my games and I usually make that clear. Keep in mind this is just a fix for my game, not necessarily for all games. I'm just looking for a way to make the skill useful, while not being totally necessary. I basically want it to be possible if all you do is put a few points in the skill (though not necessarily likely), with the meta-utterances rewarding actual investment in the skill. If no one thinks that'll work, though, I'll reconsider it.

Think of it like UMD. If all you do is invest ranks in it, you'll hit the DCs occasionally, but if you actually focus on the skill you'll reach a point where you can't fail. High-op lets you break that well before expected levels, but that doesn't make UMD an over-powered skill anymore than a 1st level kobold sorcerer is an overpowered race/class combo. So I don't think that's too broken in this instance either, I just need to figure out reasonable DCs



That's actually more of an advantage though. Discipline access doesn't do anything unless you're a Warblade, Swordsage, or Crusader. Martial Study is always an advantage (however marginal).

Good point. I guess it can't really break anything, as long as everyone gets something of equal use.



Yeah. It also has the advantage that you can modulate pretty heavily the impact it has. If low level items have minimal requirements, the market for them would be essentially unchanged. On the other hand, high level items with more stringent requirements could be made essentially arbitrarily difficult to obtain.

Yeah. I think this is the best way to do it: you simply don't but powerful enough magic items because the requirements mean its only attempted by the brave, desperate, or foolhardy.



Certainly reasonable. slay living and raise dead are the same spell level.

Yeah, I think I'll use those as the basis for the utterance.



Kyeudo's doesn't really seem like it solves the problem. 15 + 2 * Level + CR still works out to roughly 15 + 2 * level, which means your abilities stop working without outside investment unlike literally every other character, and at a glance the utterances don't look much better than they already were. And keying metamagic off skill checks still allows anyone who knows Item Familiar exists to blow out the power curve.

Kellus drops the scaling on skill checks which is smart, but also means that your abilities very rapidly go from "inconsistent" to "at will". It's not hard to scrounge up a +10 bonus to a skill check, and in that system such a bonus is the difference between an at-will ability and one with a worse failure chance than a Wizard in Full Plate. Making Truenaming arbitrarily not subject to existing mechanisms for resistance is dumb and will causes compatibility problems, as well as setting bad precedents. Also the utterances still seem kinda bad. Like, is "-10 ft movement speed, min 5ft" really a useful ability for even a 1st level character?

Overall neither of those fixes seem great, though it's entirely possible I skipped some stuff because I wasn't reading super closely and definitely didn't read all the way through.

Kellus's was the one I'd seen before. At the very least I can use these for inspiration, even if I don't actually end up using anything present in them.


Eternal Blade is elf specific. In chapter 3 there is a picture of an elven desert wind user (seems a good fit), a devoted spirit user which is a woman with some lumps on her head (goliath?) and a diamond mind drow. On the next page is an iron heart using dwarf, setting sun halfling and shadow hand gnome (all seem reasonable enough, though someone said iron heart was a hobgoblin thing which I couldn't find anywhere). On the page after there is yet another picture, though this one seems to have the picture text in no particular order compared to the picture. I think at least that its supposed to be some form of scythe-slinging elf woman for tiger claw, very spiky human guy for stone dragon and some weird bird abomination for white raven.

The lore blurb on page 5 mentions Reshar going to the hobgoblin monastery, mastering Iron Heart, and then going out to master the other disciplines. I'm not sure The pictures showing the disciplines in chapter 3 are meant to represent the founders of those disciplines. I think they're just visual representations of the sort of weaponry and physical characteristics of a typical user of a discipline. I think the bird thing is supposed to be the winged race from RotW, but I'm not sure what that has to do with White Raven.

[OgresAreCute]

The lore blurb on page 5 mentions Reshar going to the hobgoblin monastery, mastering Iron Heart, and then going out to master the other disciplines. I'm not sure The pictures showing the disciplines in chapter 3 are meant to represent the founders of those disciplines. I think they're just visual representations of the sort of weaponry and physical characteristics of a typical user of a discipline. I think the bird thing is supposed to be the winged race from RotW, but I'm not sure what that has to do with White Raven.

I didn't mean to tell you what to do, but if most of the disciplines don't have any real implications as to founding races, I figured those pictures could give you some ideas. I imagine the Raptorian + White Raven connection came to be about like this:

Guy 1: "Hey, I'm making some pictures showing dudes from various disciplines, but I'm stumped on what race to pick for White Raven."
Guy 2: "Wasn't there some bird guys in Races of the Wild? Ravens are birds."

And so it was.

[Nifft]

Thinking about it, gnomes feel a bit dissonant -- they've got two racial bonus perks based around illusion magic, which isn't going to be as much of a thing in your game due to the class restrictions. They've also got three racial cantrips with Vancian-ish casting mechanics.

I like gnomes normally, but normally their context is a setting where Illusion-using spellcasters exist.


Kobolds have some spellcasting racial perks (Rite of Draconic Passage) which might also be dissonant, but those perks are optional and more easily severed from the main race.

[Luccan]

Thinking about it, gnomes feel a bit dissonant -- they've got two racial bonus perks based around illusion magic, which isn't going to be as much of a thing in your game due to the class restrictions. They've also got three racial cantrips with Vancian-ish casting mechanics.

I like gnomes normally, but normally their context is a setting where Illusion-using spellcasters exist.


Kobolds have some spellcasting racial perks (Rite of Draconic Passage) which might also be dissonant, but those perks are optional and more easily severed from the main race.

I already think I'm replacing their spell-likes with a shadow magic fundamental (usable 1/day). It wouldn't be hard to say their illusion magic perks apply to shadow magic with the illusion descriptor. In fact, shadow magic already says that it applies to defenses versus certain schools. Or even just apply it to shadow magic in general, since it would apply to exactly one class.

And yeah, I'd have to either changes the Rites (DFA stuff?) or get rid of them.

Edit: Although, spell-like abilities don't really function the same as actual spell casting. And invocations are already spell-like abilities, as are most mysteries, eventually. You could basically just refer to them as "magic powers" and just refer to the spell for their effect.

[torrasque666]

I feel like the bird person used for White Raven is supposed to be one of those Winged Elves.

[Luccan]

I didn't mean to tell you what to do, but if most of the disciplines don't have any real implications as to founding races, I figured those pictures could give you some ideas. I imagine the Raptorian + White Raven connection came to be about like this:

Guy 1: "Hey, I'm making some pictures showing dudes from various disciplines, but I'm stumped on what race to pick for White Raven."
Guy 2: "Wasn't there some bird guys in Races of the Wild? Ravens are birds."

And so it was.

Ah, I misunderstood you, sorry. That's a good point, but I was hoping for lore-specific stuff when I started the thread. That's apparently fewer and far between than I realized, so I'm less worried about pulling from the book for races. Although apparently there is a bit more lore in the description of the actual 9 swords.

[Dusk Raven]

I once tried to create a setting for a ToB-inspired campaign, where (as seems to be the case here) I forbade full casters or spellcasters of any sort. The idea never actually went anywhere, so I can't provide much help other stating what I found reasonable.

Mine was much more explicitly Eastern in setting - although I think a lot of it was "Western fantasy with Eastern trappings" like Japanese media that take place in a western setting such as JRPGs. If you don't mind going that route, maybe take a look at some of the Oriental Adventures races. Beyond that, I never really familiarized myself with the Tome of Battle stuff, so I can't say what would fit lore-wise.

For classes, you really don't have many options if you want to go pure martial. I decided to include classes that were supernatural in nature but weren't on the level of spellcasters, so I included Monk and Ninja - which I rather liked for the "ki" flavor, which was sort of how I imagined the less mundane Maneuvers to work. I hadn't considered Warlocks, though they're a good choice if you're fine with magic as long as it isn't spellcasting. There are also non-spellcasting variants of Ranger and Paladin, found in Complete Warrior. They're not great, but they don't suffer as much from MAD, and of course removing spellcasting helps with flavor in some cases.

To be honest though, the Maneuvers and other ToB stuff were really the focus of my setting, so martial classes without them - or that have some sort of other supernatural power - felt a little weird. Things like the Fighter, Barbarian, Scout, etc. easily represent warriors who never got the formal esoteric training that the ToB classes had, and make do in their own way. Rangers and Paladins, have some sort of supernatural power that doesn't involve Maneuvers, , but if you're willing to account for that than it should work out. But things like Monk and Ninja... I dunno, they feel like archetypes that should get Maneuvers, but don't. It really depends on how fundamental the ToB Maneuvers are to your setting - in mine, they were pretty much the highest form of combat, so I had to account for why other classes didn't have them.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Ran through WoL and ToB this afternoon quick. Desert wind is the only one in both books actually.

A few of the 9 say specific races involved in their history, Elf, githyanki, dwarf, Goliath, hobgoblin and raksasha; and also enemies of their legacy founders such as giants, orcs, and lizardfolk. One seemed to allude to halflings (eventides edge), and desert winds lore speaks of a desert city where djinn and efreet walk the streets so I'd say genasi would also fit the setting for pcs.

[Luccan]

Ran through WoL and ToB this afternoon quick. Desert wind is the only one in both books actually.

A few of the 9 say specific races involved in their history, Elf, githyanki, dwarf, Goliath, hobgoblin and raksasha; and also enemies of their legacy founders such as giants, orcs, and lizardfolk. One seemed to allude to halflings (eventides edge), and desert winds lore speaks of a desert city where djinn and efreet walk the streets so I'd say genasi would also fit the setting for pcs.

I'll have to check WoL, then. It has a different set of 9 swords than the actual Nine Swords book?

Edit: Also, in ToB, Eventide's Edge has a young human wielder, not a halfling.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

WoL has lots of weapons. 8 of the 9 from ToB do not appear in WoL. Only desert wind is in both books. The races I posted I got from reading the lore of the 9 in ToB.

Edit: the halflings thing I felt was eluded to, most of the lore human is assumed, not stated. The fact that it resizes for small characters was part of why I felt it could be inferred.

[Cosi]

Well, I don't expect a super high-op in my games and I usually make that clear. Keep in mind this is just a fix for my game, not necessarily for all games. I'm just looking for a way to make the skill useful, while not being totally necessary. I basically want it to be possible if all you do is put a few points in the skill (though not necessarily likely), with the meta-utterances rewarding actual investment in the skill. If no one thinks that'll work, though, I'll reconsider it.

It's not really a question of high optimization. The problem is that the difference between, say, buying a +10 item and not doing that is half the RNG. If you set things up so that a guy with full investment gets Quicken half the time, him taking Item Familiar or buying an Amulet of the Silver Tongue or having a Marshal ally with Motive Whatever Truespeak Uses makes him auto-pass or close to it. None of those are necessarily high optimization, but they're all a pretty huge swing in success chance. Conversely, if you assume the character will have those things, the system is almost useless to any player who doesn't figure that out. Basically, the problem isn't necessarily optimization level per se, but the very rapid rates of return on skill check optimization.