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Grynning
2007-10-25, 02:00 AM
I know I may sound like a Luddite, since everyone thinks Tome of Battle is the wave of the future and such (especially considering a lot of the rumors about 4th ed.). But myself, I'm tired of that stupid book getting brought up in every single thread. I've only read through it a few times, never spent the money on it, and for the most part have never allowed it to be used in my games. I just don't like it. It doesn't feel like D&D to me. Given the frequency of it's use for ridiculous cheese builds, I'm just wondering if anyone else agrees with me?
Also, in general, what books do you not allow in your campaigns? I know everyone has that one book that they just think is silly or broken, so bring it up here if you want.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-25, 02:07 AM
A rule that I have seen in a number of PbP recruitment threads that I will be adapting to future games is to restrict sourcebooks by PCs instead of as a whole.

Each PC is restricted to the core 3 (+possibly the PHB and DMG II), + setting book, + 2 sourcebooks of their choice.

I thought I would get that in there before this becomes another ToB debate derailment.

Ted_Stryker
2007-10-25, 02:14 AM
I'm not sure if it's either silly or broken anymore, but I reflexively recoil any time psionics are mentioned. Some scars never heal, I guess.

Enguhl
2007-10-25, 02:16 AM
I personally never liked it much. It just seems too... not D&D.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-25, 02:16 AM
yeah, pre-3rd psionics were awful. The 3.0 psionics handbook wasn't great either.

Dhavaer
2007-10-25, 02:18 AM
I don't actually drop whole books, but I have been dropping a lot of Core from my settings.

Grynning
2007-10-25, 02:23 AM
I had the same twitchiness about psionics for a long time as well...but I have to admit I now keep a 3.5 EPH next to my bed with my core books. It can be a very fun book to play with.
I still don't know if it should be used in a core setting with magic. My group and I are currently of the opinion that if you run a Psionics setting you should exclude magic, or vice versa, just for the sake of simplicity and story.

Temp
2007-10-25, 02:37 AM
I have to disagree. It's used in powerful builds because it introduces a heap of new crunch. The XPH did the same and really, that's the only comprable D&D supplement as far as introducing new game concepts.

People know and are familiar with the old sources of cheese. This is just a fun new interesting book to play with. It does undeniably make Fighter-types a lot more fun to play than they were originally.

As far as books I disallow in my campaigns? The majority of the Player's Handbook, as well as Setting-specific stuff. Most of my world's homebrew and I think Psionics does a better job of portraying Wizards than the Arcane system. I homebrew most of it around a Psionics/ToB frame since they're the two systems of melee and spellcasting that are best balanced against each other. And Binders. I've got Binders in there too.

Kizara
2007-10-25, 02:46 AM
I also dislike ToB, although not because of the concept. The concept is interesting, just like Feats are interesting; cause they are basically the same concept.

It's overpowered, but so are druids, and alot of arcane spells.
It's complicated and has some really bad loopholes, but so is grappling.
It allows warrior-types to do alot of things that are more anime-ish and aren't really in the 'fullplate and fireballs' style of D&D. But so does the Monk class, except that that class allows them to do these things... poorly.

Overall, I dont like it, I feel its gimmicky, and screws with way too many fundamental precendents and mechanics of the game for me to want to touch it.

I think that those who feel this is going to be the way of 4ed are probably right though, and I thus highly doubt I will be updating (everything I've seen of 4ed previews has reinforced this).



As for other books, I've avoided psionics but I actually like their flavour and want to use them in a game. Just as long as you realize psionics= different kind of sorcery, your game isn't screwed over. It really isn't that much harder to adapt your game to then implimenting a class with a new spell list that casts differently: such as the warlock.

I also have a very skeptical view of the PHB II, and the newest complete books (champion and scoundrel), because they are pretty big examples of power creep IMO. Not to say there isn't anything to be had in the phb2, and there's likely something valuable in the newest complete books too.

Oh, and the post above me made me think of something else: I catagorically dissallow anything from a setting-specific source. If you absolutely love it, I'll work with you to ADAPT it, but I'm almost never going to allow it as-is. There's just too much wierd and broken crap if you let people bring in random stuff from Eberron or Faerun into your games.

Machete
2007-10-25, 02:49 AM
Superior Unarmed Strike is pretty much the only thing I use out of it.

Everything else either isn't worth the complication or is too cheesy for my tastes.

Grynning
2007-10-25, 02:50 AM
See, I never thought fighter types weren't fun to play...sure, it was tough to keep up with spellcasters at high levels but I don't think even ToB has solved that problem.
I like hitting things, I don't feel the need to yell out the name of some Anime style maneuver every time I do it :smalltongue: I know that's an overly simplistic view of what ToB is, but that's just how I feel about it. I like describing the way my plain old Fighter swings and leaps and ducks and dodges, and I think feats do a pretty good job of representing that stuff.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-25, 02:54 AM
that's the only comprable D&D supplement as far as introducing new game concepts.

What about tome of magic and magic of incarnum?

Temp
2007-10-25, 02:57 AM
What about tome of magic and magic of incarnum?
Eh, my posts are getting less and less accurate. Perhaps that means I should stop until I've gotten some sleep. I don't remember much discussion on those though, probably because they were generally weaker than the pre-existing system where ToB is considerably stronger than normal melee combat.

bugsysservant
2007-10-25, 03:34 AM
ToB I consider a necessary evil. Sure, I long for the days of first edition, where fighters could hit things with swords and describe it any way they wanted, and still be more balanced, but now one batman can ruin an entire group, especially if they take levels in *shudder* fighter.

As for other books I dislike, I may as well just say I generally don't allow most of BoVD or BoED: both are cheesy, poorly balanced and serve only to reinforce annoying stereotypes, especially the latter.

I also tend not to use psionics, shadow magic, true naming, and incarnum. The only different magic system I really like is that of the binders, though even then I am hesitant about letting all the different magic sources power different classes.

Serenity
2007-10-25, 08:20 AM
And why, exactly, is it 'anime', pray tell? Does it force you to have character art with big eyes and sweatdrops? Hmm, no. Nowhere in the book does it ever say anything about 'yelling out the names of the maneuvers' as you use them--and if that's the standard of anime, then the Giant is writing a web manga here. Nor are unusual maneuver names or the concept of swordplay as a martial art exclusively Japanese or even exclusively Eastern concepts. As for the idea that it just makes fighters into wizards: no. No, it really doesn't. There are three, count 'em, three disciplines that have supernatural maneuvers, and those are semi-exclusive to the mystic swordsman class and the holy warrior class. Complaining about those being supernatural strike me as complaining about the Paladin's lay on hands or smite ability, or the monk training so hard he stops aging and changes species. The other disciplines? Tiger Claw is the art of pouncing on things and tearing them apart. Setting Sun is the art of throwing things. Stone Dragon is the art of hitting things really hard. White Raven is the art of teamwork and leadership.

Is ToB stronger than normal melee combat? Yes, because normal melee combat is demonstratively a terribly sub-par choice. (Though, by the way, I think it's been established that through level six, a Fighter generally outperforms a Warblade.) Tome of Battle provides your front-line fighters with a much needed boost in the form of vastly expanded tactical options.

Swooper
2007-10-25, 08:42 AM
Agree completely with Serenity here. I like the Tome of Battle and encourage my players to use it.

The book I personally don't like, is Magic of the Incarnum. I admit, I haven't read it. I hear it's good, in terms of balance and stuff. I just don't see the niche it's supposed to fill in a fantasy world - shaping soul-stuff into items and all that doesn't make sense without the campaign world complementing it from the start.

StickMan
2007-10-25, 08:54 AM
I don't care much for the Anime style of ToB but I like the ideas in it honestly I think they just need to rewrite the fluff on a lot of it so that your not doing "sword magic". A few of the styles really don't do anything flashing your just god with a sword and know how to use it really well. They how ever are over shadowed in fluff that makes all the different styles seem like your pulling off some crazy anime stuff.

I think ToB is a case of good system bad fluff for what a lot of people want in a medieval Europeanish setting.


Edit: Also I like MoI but its too weak by far it actually fills quite a niche in a few worlds that I have made. I made a world were there is a lot of importance put on the Cycle of Souls (Short version: Reincarnation proses) and Soul binders had a special link to it.

Jayabalard
2007-10-25, 09:00 AM
And why, exactly, is it 'anime', pray tell? isn't it obvious?

Solo
2007-10-25, 09:04 AM
isn't it obvious?

No.

There's a lot of diffent types of Anime.

Prince of Tennis, for example, is diffent from Dragonball Z, which is in turn different from Neon Genesis Evangelion, which in turn is differnt from Vampire Hunter D, which is in turn different from Spirited Away.

Valairn
2007-10-25, 09:22 AM
I have one question in place of a long tirade. Why is it that people let people play wizards, but somehow think that ToB is OP or cheesey?

Toxic Avenger
2007-10-25, 09:44 AM
I have one question in place of a long tirade. Why is it that people let people play wizards, but somehow think that ToB is OP or cheesey?Amen to that. Will someone just ban wizards already?

Geez...

Callos_DeTerran
2007-10-25, 09:48 AM
In general? I disallow Spell Compendium except for a case-by-case review process. I know most of the spells are in other supplements, I mean I disallow the SC only ones and even still some of the others. (Shivering Touch anyone?)

Hmmm...I definitly disallow BoED unless the entire party is willing to put up with exalted status which isn't often. Oddly enough I leave BoVD alone since I like using some things from there and vile PCs generally know when not to step over a certain line...generally but after that their usually put down like a rabid Old Yellar to the amusement of all. (Very un-serious group most of the time)


On the whole though I don't disallow much. Especially not ToB. I love ToB because I generally love melee and unarmed combat and they become a more viable choice with ToB. Even if you get by the supposed 'animeness' of it which I still find vaguely insulting.

Dausuul
2007-10-25, 09:50 AM
I know I may sound like a Luddite, since everyone thinks Tome of Battle is the wave of the future and such (especially considering a lot of the rumors about 4th ed.). But myself, I'm tired of that stupid book getting brought up in every single thread. I've only read through it a few times, never spent the money on it, and for the most part have never allowed it to be used in my games. I just don't like it. It doesn't feel like D&D to me. Given the frequency of it's use for ridiculous cheese builds, I'm just wondering if anyone else agrees with me?

It doesn't feel like traditional D&D fighters to me, and that's a good thing, because traditional D&D fighters bored me silly. Now I have the option to play a melee character who can do more interesting things than roll to hit once a round.

I'm not too fond of the wuxia fluff, but I'll put up with it for the sake of the crunch. I'm looking forward to 4E having similar crunch attached to Western knights-in-armor fluff.


Also, in general, what books do you not allow in your campaigns? I know everyone has that one book that they just think is silly or broken, so bring it up here if you want.

Let's see... I hate psionics fluff, so while I'm open to allowing the Complete Psionics Handbook if somebody really wants it, it's with the caveat that the fluff will be changed to "this is another type of magic."

Book of Vile Darkness and Book of Exalted Deeds are right out.

The only thing I'd allow from Heroes of Horror is the dread necromancer.

Reel On, Love
2007-10-25, 09:55 AM
Man, Daus, how on earth is a Warblade with a greatsword not a great way to make a Western knight? German greatsword schools even taught stances with funny names! There's nothing (inherently) wuxia about Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, White Raven, Diamond Mind--strength of body and mind, brutal combat, force of will, battlefield tactics... Swordsages are the only wuxia-ish class in the book, and even they don't have to be.

VerdugoExplode
2007-10-25, 09:57 AM
Clearly our only course of action is to ban every class besides fighters and rogues, the other classes are far too unrealistic and anime oriented. I mean, a mere man breaking the laws of physics through reading a few arcane books? Blasphemy. A person who received powers from his belief in a deity? Madness! That nature stuff is right out. So is that ridiculous monk class, I mean why would someone brought up in an abbey feel the need to punch people?

I occasionally let someone be a barbarian but ask that they take therapy to deal with their anger issues.

Solo
2007-10-25, 10:03 AM
I mean, a mere man breaking the laws of physics through reading a few arcane books? Blasphemy. A person who received powers from his belief in a deity? Madness!

Madness?

THIS IS THIRD EDITION!

RTGoodman
2007-10-25, 10:12 AM
I was really skeptical of ToB for a long time, but I finally managed to borrow a copy to read over about a month ago. I still don't think I like it and wouldn't play anything in it (except maybe a Warblade, and only if world was highly ToB-centric), but if I start a new campaign at any point (that isn't Core+Completes only), I'll probably allow it (depending on the makeup of the rest of the party).

I really, really like ToM, especially the Binder and Truenamer. Of course, I've yet to find a viable niche for the Binder (though if I ever get to play a gestalt campaign, I'm going to be a Warlock//Binder just because the backstory would be awesome), and the Truenamer is pretty poorly executed.

I also like Psionics, but I typically don't allow them in campaign with other sources of (arcane) magic, since they're basically just two systems for the same thing. If for some reason I ever end up doing anything in Eberron (evem though I despise that setting), I'd allow it just because it's such an integral part of the world.

I don't know anything about Magic of Incarnum besides a little of what I've read online on various forums, but from what I know about it I have two problems: like the binder, there isn't a specific niche that it fills (that I know of); and the system itself just seems like it would be difficult to fit in with the flavor of a lot of settings.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-25, 10:12 AM
I don't ban whole books, just parts. And it is more of replace than ban. I replace Fighter, Paladin, and Monk with Warblade, Crusader, and Unarmed Swordsage respectfully. I find it really balances the game out and makes it more fun to play. I never found maneuvers more complicated than spells or psionics and I still don't understand incarnum. ToB is my favorite book since it made fighter-types actually fun to play (besides Barbarian) in our group. They actually do something instead of just swinging a sword the same way every round. That's my opinion, if you don't like the mechanics, your aren't in my group so I don't care. If you don't like the "anime" style (whcih I've never really seen in it) then you need to figure out that flavor can be changed one of these days because that excuse just pisses me off.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 12:01 PM
ToB is in no way more powerful than standard melee builds (espeically assuming non-core books are allowed). Just more flexible. The people over at the Wotc forums have shown that a straight Barbarian usually deals out more damage than a Warblade. This becomes even more apparent with Charger builds. The standard action single strikes that most maneuvers offer can't keep up with the damage of full-attacks.

If you're going to ban ToB for being too powerful, then you'll have to ban all casters (except Truenamer maybe) and some other non-caster classes as well.

At the end. C.Warrior Samurai and Soulknife and Monk will be left.

Temp
2007-10-25, 12:22 PM
ToB is in no way more powerful than standard melee builds (espeically assuming non-core books are allowed).
For quite a few people it is. Optimization is more straightforward so players who don't understand the rules well will still wind up making strong characters.

The Tiger Claw jump maneuvers aside, I really don't understand the "It's too anime" complaints. I have to admit to actively avoiding the fluff of the book. Maybe if I were to read that it would bcome more apparent?

Fhaolan
2007-10-25, 12:28 PM
I don't mind ToB. It was just focused a bit more on melee than I was hoping for. I want something for non-spellcasting ranged combatants, like archers, slingers, etc.

I want a Robin Hood book!

:smallbiggrin:

Frosty
2007-10-25, 12:29 PM
That's the fault of the players. Not of the class. Look, I definitely prefer ToB because they ARE easiler to use and easier to optimize, but that doesn't mean more powerful.

Barbarian is easier to use than Fighter, but I definitely consider an optimized fighter is better than an optimized barbarian. Ease of use does not equal power.

It's like the difference between the ak-47 and the m4a1 in counterstrike. The fighter is the ak, and ToB classes are the m4a1. the Ak is harder to aim, but does more damage, where as the m4a1 is more newbie friendly with its less recoil.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-25, 12:29 PM
For quite a few people it is. Optimization is more straightforward so players who don't understand the rules well will still wind up making strong characters.

The Tiger Claw jump maneuvers aside, I really don't understand the "It's too anime" complaints. I have to admit to actively avoiding the fluff of the book. Maybe if I were to read that it would bcome more apparent?

"Sapphire Nightmare Blade!"
"Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike!"
"Giant Killing Style!"
"Strike of Perfect Clarity!"
"Raging Mongoose!"


..F-fighter.... more powerful than... Barbarian? You're kidding, right?

At low-levels... almost. At high levels... God no.

hewhosaysfish
2007-10-25, 12:33 PM
Man, Daus, how on earth is a Warblade with a greatsword not a great way to make a Western knight? German greatsword schools even taught stances with funny names! There's nothing (inherently) wuxia about Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, White Raven, Diamond

A likely story! I know for a fact there's no tigers in Germany! You can't fool me! :smalltongue:

Temp
2007-10-25, 01:04 PM
"Sapphire Nightmare Blade!"
"Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike!"
"Giant Killing Style!"
"Strike of Perfect Clarity!"
"Raging Mongoose!"


Well, the names are ridiculous, but their effects don't strike me as "anime" at all. Like people have been repeating since the book's release, nearly all of them are just swinging swords harder or faster than normal. The dramatic Lightning Throw or Earthquake-thing mneuvers are all high-leveled, when Fighters should start being truely super-human.

This is looking at the Swordsage as a Gish rather than a Fighter. Shadow Hand and Desert Wind are basically Necromancy/Illusion spells and Fireball variants.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 01:28 PM
..F-fighter.... more powerful than... Barbarian? You're kidding, right?

At low-levels... almost. At high levels... God no.

Not kidding. Barbarian Rage at level 20 gives like what...+4 damage and +4 hit (+8 str)? With the high amount of feats a fighter gets, just the feat leading up to and including Weapon Supremacy would be better than that. The high amount of Feats > Mighty Rage

Nerd-o-rama
2007-10-25, 01:39 PM
Barbarians actually get class features that are better than feats, though. Fast Movement, Uncanny Dodge, innate DR...and don't get me started on Lion Totem. And then Mighty Rage itself replaces and is superior to every fighter-exclusive feat before Weapon Supremacy itself, which I'll admit is decent.

Also, Frenzied Berserker, but that's just a silly class.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 01:56 PM
The comparison from the WoTC forums was done before Complete Champion rolled along, so nowadays every charger build even if Fighter-heavy, takes a one-level dip into Barbarian. So in that respect, Barbarian rocks, yeah.

But that's like saying Swashbuckler rocks even though most people just take it for a 3-level dip. Now, Barbarian is nowhere as bad as that, but I just don't see a whole lot of compelling reason to take lots and LOTs of levels in barbarian if you're trying to optimize. Same thing could be said of Fighter, I guess...but at least with Fighter I like to dip 4 levels, not just one like with the Barbarian.

Brawls
2007-10-25, 02:08 PM
I think the whole calling out the name of a particular manuever is not from ToB, but from the Complete Warrior book. They have a section on the variant monk styles: eastern style, northern style, northeeastern style, north-northeaster style :smallwink:. Aside from the names, I don't find the ToB manuevers to be too Anime-ish. Besides, the campaign I play in is entirely homebrewed, so we rarely take any fluff as written from the books, but adapt our character concepts to better fit the world. My fighter level 6 is going to multiclass to warblade at his next level progression. I'm looking forward to the variety. Personnaly, I'm more interested in some of the Diamond Mind boosts that help with poor reflex and will saves, compared with some of the low level attack powers. In that regards, I think ToB does a very good job of making melee classes more adapatable to conditions. Having a mauever that ignores DR, for instance, makes it so at least one attack isn't completely futile, compared with a fighter of similar level. Who knows, my opinion may change after I've played for a bit.

Brawls

RTGoodman
2007-10-25, 02:28 PM
The Tiger Claw jump maneuvers aside, I really don't understand the "It's too anime" complaints. I have to admit to actively avoiding the fluff of the book. Maybe if I were to read that it would bcome more apparent?

I think one of the big ones is "Hey, I'm gonna hit you with this sword and do fire damage!" Or something like that, I'm not entirely sure...

Reel On, Love
2007-10-25, 02:33 PM
I think one of the big ones is "Hey, I'm gonna hit you with this sword and do fire damage!" Or something like that, I'm not entirely sure...

There's a magical enhancement called "Flaming"; you might be familiar with. It does fire damage when you hit people with this sword.
Swordsages are also called "blade wizards" or something like that.
You see where this is going?

Desert Wind is supernatural. It's the next thing to magic.
And there are plenty of non-anime ways to style it.

Even something that you might see in anime--a flaming sword--isn't anime unless you make it so.

Temp
2007-10-25, 02:47 PM
I think one of the big ones is "Hey, I'm gonna hit you with this sword and do fire damage!" Or something like that, I'm not entirely sure...

Yeah, that's why I mentioned that I think of Swordsages as Gish. But their flaming swords shouldn't have to be any more "anime" than the Duskblades' or the Spellswords'.

Reel On, Love
2007-10-25, 02:49 PM
Oh, yeah, and--anime and wuxia aren't the same thing. EFF WHY EYE.

Nero24200
2007-10-25, 02:55 PM
Can't stand Tob myself. If I wanted an asian feel to my campaign, I'd buy Oriental adventures. Personally, I've never liked the idea of a warrior channelling magic through his blade. It doesn't feel like a warrior after that, just a wizard who uses his spells differently.
I don't see how it helps with balance either, though, no one in my group picks their spells purely for power purposes, so we've never really had any problem with the wizard overshadowing the party fighter.

Also, I don't see why everyone feels that Tob makes the warriors in the party do somthing other than "I swing my weapon at them" every round. There are such things as Sundering, Triping, Disarming, alot of things which warrior types can do very easily, and don't expend a spell slot to do it.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 03:00 PM
And how often can you Trip or Sunder or Disarm higher CR monsters? They're typically Huge and have tremendous Strength, and they typically use Natural Weapons. All of those options are out.

These options are only good against other humanoids. If you campaigns are humanoid heavy, then GREAT! Otherwise, no.

You can stick to disarming and tripping if you want. I'll take the fighting class that have ACTUAL SPECIAL EFFECTS AND ABILITIES!

Reel On, Love
2007-10-25, 03:02 PM
Can't stand Tob myself. If I wanted an asian feel to my campaign, I'd buy Oriental adventures. Personally, I've never liked the idea of a warrior channelling magic through his blade. It doesn't feel like a warrior after that, just a wizard who uses his spells differently.
Man, did you actually read the maneuvers? Again, look at, for example, Stone Dragon, White Raven, Iron Heart. Those are "I hit it hard", "battlefield tactics", and "force of will RAAR".
What's so asian about those things? What's so magic about those things?


I don't see how it helps with balance either, though, no one in my group picks their spells purely for power purposes, so we've never really had any problem with the wizard overshadowing the party fighter.
As you get up in levels, you should be finding that fighter types lack mobility and defenses (i.e. check their Will save).


Also, I don't see why everyone feels that Tob makes the warriors in the party do somthing other than "I swing my weapon at them" every round. There are such things as Sundering, Triping, Disarming, alot of things which warrior types can do very easily, and don't expend a spell slot to do it.
Tripping is often effective, but also very repetitive and dull. Disarming and sundering, 9 times out of 10, do nothing for you.

Tome of Battle characters swap stances, use maneuvers, have to think tactically about which maneuvers to use when and when to recover them, and are generally more engaging.

Nero24200
2007-10-25, 03:04 PM
Vareity is the spice of life, it's also the DM's job to ensure the party get alot of it when fighting monsters.

If every monster you fight at higher levels is the same, then of course some classes are going to seem underpowered. Is a ranger overpowered if he only fights his favoured enemies? Is a Wizard overpowered when he fights creatures with poor saves and no protection from spells whatsoever?
I don't think theres really a way around this, if you fight the same monsters over and over, then you will, eventaully, find some classes to be better against them.
We have a good variety in the games I play, so I rarely find fighters to be useless at high levels


Man, did you actually read the maneuvers? Again, look at, for example, Stone Dragon, White Raven, Iron Heart. Those are "I hit it hard", "battlefield tactics", and "force of will RAAR".
What's so asian about those things? What's so magic about those things?
Read the intro to the book, the writers even admit that the book has a heavy asian influence.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 03:14 PM
The point is, the traditional melee types typically have a much narrower list of monsters they can fight effectively against, compared to say...the casters.

ToB introduces flexibility and options, so you *can* do decently in most fights.

As for Ranger's favored enemy, it is one of the reasons why people consider Rangers underpowered. It's a class feature that depends ENTIRELY UPON THE GM to be effective. If the GM never throws Orcs at you and you've specialzied against Orcs, then your abilities are wasted.

Also, you can re-write fluff however you want. My group uses ToB, and no one considers the swordsage to be anything "Asian." by the way, you do realize that Russia is part of Asia as well? As is India, and Pakistian, and all those other non Wuxia countries. Hell, I think Iran may officially be part of Asia.

Temp
2007-10-25, 03:16 PM
Read the intro to the book, the writers even admit that the book has a heavy asian influence
I believe only the fluff shows the "Asian influence" you mention.

The actual mechanics are very general. Warblades and Crusaders would fit in any setting where people bash each other with swords/spears/sticks/chairs/whathaveyou.


If every monster you fight at higher levels is the same, then of course some classes are going to seem underpowered. Is a ranger overpowered if he only fights his favoured enemies? Is a Wizard overpowered when he fights creatures with poor saves and no protection from spells whatsoever?
I don't think theres really a way around this, if you fight the same monsters over and over, then you will, eventaully, find some classes to be better against them.
We have a good variety in the games I play, so I rarely find fighters to be useless at high levels
I don't understand what you're getting at with this... ToB characters have more options so they're the ones who benefit from multiple enemies. Fighters have to specialize on specific feat trees to be powerful. That's a large part of why they're underpowered.

Reel On, Love
2007-10-25, 03:17 PM
Vareity is the spice of life, it's also the DM's job to ensure the party get alot of it when fighting monsters.

If every monster you fight at higher levels is the same, then of course some classes are going to seem underpowered. Is a ranger overpowered if he only fights his favoured enemies? Is a Wizard overpowered when he fights creatures with poor saves and no protection from spells whatsoever?
I don't think theres really a way around this, if you fight the same monsters over and over, then you will, eventaully, find some classes to be better against them.
We have a good variety in the games I play, so I rarely find fighters to be useless at high levels
So what kind of monsters keep the wizard from contributing? Creatures with *great* saves generally have a 50% chance of failing vs. the wizard's highest level of spells.
Do you really fight golems half the time? Wizards still do fine, there--Solid Fog, illusions, instantaneous conjurations...


Read the intro to the book, the writers even admit that the book has a heavy asian influence.
...yes. Okay. And that influence is present in things like, oh, Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike.
This doesn't mean that everything in the book is somehow tainted by Generic Asian-ness. Again: look at what the disciplines I mentioned actually do. They're perfectly suited to, for example, powerful Western-style knights.

Nero24200
2007-10-25, 03:37 PM
I wasn't saying the wizard is underpowered normally, I was only using him as an example.

Also, it's anime influence is more to do with the fact that the classes in the book say the name of the manouver and it gives them supernatural abilities. The western stances you spoke of never provided any magical powers, nor have I read any fantasy novel or watched a western show in which it does. It is -very- frequent, however, in anime, were wizard spells usally happen in the background and large-scale anime battles revole more around two warriors clashing and throwing several differnet magical, yet still martial, skills and manouvers at each other

kamikasei
2007-10-25, 03:42 PM
Also, it's anime influence is more to do with the fact that the classes in the book say the name of the manouver and it gives them supernatural abilities.

No they don't. They don't do that at all.

Temp
2007-10-25, 03:43 PM
Also, it's anime influence is more to do with the fact that the classes in the book say the name of the manouver and it gives them supernatural abilities. The western stances you spoke of never provided any magical powers, nor have I read any fantasy novel or watched a western show in which it does. It is -very- frequent, however, in anime, were wizard spells usally happen in the background and large-scale anime battles revole more around two warriors clashing and throwing several differnet magical, yet still martial, skills and manouvers at each other

Read the book before you pass this sort of judgement. At least 90% of the stances and maneuvers are entirely mundane. You don't need to use the stupid names--they're ridiculous, but the maneuvers need tags of some sort.

You could have your character scream out "Ancient Mountain Hammer Strike!" and have the ridiculous sort of setting that you'd despise or you could just describe your hero making a powerful spear-thrust into his foe.

Most of ToB's fans do the latter and love the book for the versatility it gives their characters.

Nero24200
2007-10-25, 03:48 PM
Sorry, forgive me for thinking that the stupid names are what the manouvers are actually called. I mean, it's not like a wizard ICly calls his magic missile spell "Magic Missile" or anything, that would be silly.

And, for the record, I -have- read the book, I am free to pass this kind of judgement.

At the end of the day, I look at the book and think "anime". I showed the book to a bunch of friends, they thought the same. Quite alot of folk in the forum and on this topic thought the same too. Are all these folk basing their ideas on absolutly nothing?

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-25, 03:50 PM
Martial maneuvers are not magical, unless they're Desert Wind and Shadow Hand (which are both only available to Swordsages... who are often described as 'blade wizards' and have a variant in which they can learn evocation spells instead of maneuvers). Other maneuvers and stances are entirely mundane.

There are, in fact, many stances in reality that would, say, give you a bonus against being bullrushed, or let you avoid a charge and counter it, or make it easier to catch people off-guard when they move... real world fighting resolves around stances and maneuvers, unless it's just a street brawl.

Yes, that's actually what the maneuvers are called. But many real world martial arts techniques and stances have really stupid names, too.

Solo
2007-10-25, 03:52 PM
Sorry, forgive me for thinking that the stupid names are what the manouvers are actually called. I mean, it's not like a wizard ICly calls his magic missile spell "Magic Missile" or anything, that would be silly.

And, for the record, I -have- read the book, I am free to pass this kind of judgement.

At the end of the day, I look at the book and think "anime". I showed the book to a bunch of friends, they thought the same. Quite alot of folk in the forum and on this topic thought the same too. Are all these folk basing their ideas on absolutly nothing?

Quite a lot of people thought segregation was a good thing too.

Just because a lot of people agree with you doesn't automatically make you right.

Green Bean
2007-10-25, 03:55 PM
Sorry, forgive me for thinking that the stupid names are what the manouvers are actually called. I mean, it's not like a wizard ICly calls his magic missile spell "Magic Missile" or anything, that would be silly.

Yes, but does your wizard scream "Magic Missile!" as a verbal component when he casts? Does your fighter yell "Trip Attempt!" when he tries to knock people over? Because that's how necessary yelling out names is in ToB.

kamikasei
2007-10-25, 03:58 PM
Sorry, forgive me for thinking that the stupid names are what the manouvers are actually called. I mean, it's not like a wizard ICly calls his magic missile spell "Magic Missile" or anything, that would be silly.

Sure, in-character a Warblade may well describe his maneuvers known according to their book names, so if anyone asks he'll say "I have studied under masters of the Iron Heart school of swordsmanship, and have learned the Steel Wind technique", just like a wizard would say "I learned the Magic Missile spell from an evoker". That doesn't mean the Warblade's going to shout "Steel Wind!" whenever he uses the maneuver, any more than the wizard will shout "Magic Missile!" This statement: "the classes in the book say the name of the manouver and it gives them supernatural abilities" - is completely incorrect. Nothing in the book requires or even suggests that your character say anything other than "Ha!" or "Eat steel, cur!" when using a maneuver, and most maneuvers do not grant any kind of supernatural ability. You were wrong, and shifting the goalposts to obscure that doesn't make you look any better.


And, for the record, I -have- read the book, I am free to pass this kind of judgement.

You implied earlier that you had only read the introduction, actually, and your arguments don't betray any great knowledge of the contents either, so you can see where confusion would set in.

Temp
2007-10-25, 04:08 PM
Completely aside the topic at hand:


You implied earlier that you had only read the introduction, actually, and your arguments don't betray any great knowledge of the contents either, so you can see where confusion would set in.


Read the intro to the book, the writers even admit that the book has a heavy asian influence.


I guess this just means people should be completely overspecific when they type on the internet... I wasn't the only one to read this as "[ I ] read the intro to the book..." instead of interpretting the implied "You should" in the statement.

[/nonsensical tangent off]

Kioran
2007-10-25, 04:23 PM
What pisses me off so bad about ToB and most things in general is that almost everything a class can do is based upon one single class Feature.

Thatīs what makes the Wizard "Twinky McBl**hard", Wizard 7/Fatespinner 4 Gray Elf, who has DCs of
+6 for Int 22: 18 base, 2 gray elf, 2 ab increases
+3 for int: +6 headband of intellect
+1-6 Spell level
+1 School Focus for two schools (Archmage perliminary, might as well use it for DC twinkage), preferrably Enchantment, Transmutaton or necro
+1-4 Spin Fate

That means a whopping DC 30 for a save-or-die/suck/"flop around on the ground without dignity while otherīs kick your ass" spell. And Iīm very sure there is even more evil twinkage around the corner which makes this look tame. The bad thing about this? Itīs not a special case you have prepared for and are thus allowed to rule (The cleric with the Phylactery of turning and improved Turning against a horde of wights for example), but a power you use 85% of the time, making optimization far too easy.

Rogues? Do not exist. Theyīre called SADD (Sneak attack delivery device).

And ToB is just the same. Your inherent Warbladitude and thatīs it. Thereīs little point to the classe beside that. And that pisses me off so bad. Itīs just bad game design and over simplistic. Classes lose customizability. if you want to customize, you mulitclass. 6 times. Before lvl 15. Argh.
ToB as is is not that bad, but definitely a step in the wrong direction. Itīs like removing a torn meniscus - It feels a lot better right now and restores mobility, but you know somewhere down the road itīs all going to ****........

triforcel
2007-10-25, 04:27 PM
There are a few books I don't really care for, and most of those are the newer ones. I usually only allow spells from the Spell Compendium if I have a chance to look the spell over well before the session. I also don't like the PHBII, while it has a few interesting feats, it also has several that I just don't see as useful, not to mention new spells that are completely unnecessary by now, Beguiler and Duskblade which are overpowered classes IMO, there's a large section dedicated to instructions on how to roleplay your character, and finally there are numerous things that make the basics of character creation and advancement irrelevant (fretting over what spell to pick for your sorcerer? Don't worry you can just change your choice anytime you level up).

Finally we come to the Tome of Battle. First off let me make clear that I have not read the entire book, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon. I have read several of the maneuvers and haven't found any that are too powerful. However, I still don't care for it. The majority of what I read indicates that it was written to replace the basic melee classes, which I doubt you can argue, especially considering that allowing the Warblade alone makes taking any levels in Fighter pointless. I know that a large portion of people like to go on and on about how the classes are horribly balance, but if you want to make melee combat more viable they should release new more viable options for the already existing classes instead of trying to replace them completely outside of another edition change.

Starbuck_II
2007-10-25, 04:37 PM
The problem Temp is the english language uses same word: Read
as 2 different meanings at the same time.
Read (reed) means read this.
Read (Red) means I read this.

On the internet, no one can tell your context without making it very clear.

Anyhoo, I have ToB, but I have yet to use it. Maybe the next campaign I'll get the chance.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 04:50 PM
There are a few books I don't really care for, and most of those are the newer ones. I usually only allow spells from the Spell Compendium if I have a chance to look the spell over well before the session. I also don't like the PHBII, while it has a few interesting feats, it also has several that I just don't see as useful, not to mention new spells that are completely unnecessary by now, Beguiler and Duskblade which are overpowered classes IMO, there's a large section dedicated to instructions on how to roleplay your character, and finally there are numerous things that make the basics of character creation and advancement irrelevant (fretting over what spell to pick for your sorcerer? Don't worry you can just change your choice anytime you level up).

Finally we come to the Tome of Battle. First off let me make clear that I have not read the entire book, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon. I have read several of the maneuvers and haven't found any that are too powerful. However, I still don't care for it. The majority of what I read indicates that it was written to replace the basic melee classes, which I doubt you can argue, especially considering that allowing the Warblade alone makes taking any levels in Fighter pointless. I know that a large portion of people like to go on and on about how the classes are horribly balance, but if you want to make melee combat more viable they should release new more viable options for the already existing classes instead of trying to replace them completely outside of another edition change.


You think DUSKBLADES are overpowered? Holy hell...you must be playing either only low level campaigns, or you guys really don't know what you're doing with the Casters in the group.

Duskblades being overpowered means virtually very single full-caster class is overpowered too. Do you ban Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, Artificer, Warmage, etc? Because that's what you gotta do if you think the Duskblade is overpowered.

Ponce
2007-10-25, 04:53 PM
Good book. I've seen it being used to build on existing core classes to great effect. I find people like to blend core and ToB together.

I wouldn't mind seeing some new fluff or nicer names in some cases, but its otherwise ok. I would also like to see the system adapted to the Power Point system instead of the slot system. Martial Points? Kickarse Credits? Something like that.

kamikasei
2007-10-25, 05:10 PM
What pisses me off so bad about ToB and most things in general is that almost everything a class can do is based upon one single class Feature.

Kioran, I'm not sure I follow. How would you prefer things be done, without having a classless system altogether?


I wouldn't mind seeing some new fluff or nicer names in some cases, but its otherwise ok. I would also like to see the system adapted to the Power Point system instead of the slot system. Martial Points? Kickarse Credits? Something like that.

Eh, I don't know. Don't a lot of people complain about the bookkeeping power points entail for psionics, even if conceptually they're simpler/cleaner than Vancian slots? If the abilities are well-balanced I don't see the need to limit them per day anyway, a per-encounter mechanic does the job.

Reel On, Love
2007-10-25, 05:24 PM
Sorry, forgive me for thinking that the stupid names are what the manouvers are actually called. I mean, it's not like a wizard ICly calls his magic missile spell "Magic Missile" or anything, that would be silly.
It might be what they're actually called (although they're likely to have regional variations--I think the book mentions that). It does NOT mea


And, for the record, I -have- read the book, I am free to pass this kind of judgement.
Then you'd know they don't have to scream the names out.


At the end of the day, I look at the book and think "anime". I showed the book to a bunch of friends, they thought the same. Quite alot of folk in the forum and on this topic thought the same too. Are all these folk basing their ideas on absolutly nothing?
And at the end of the day, your judgement is wrong and baseless. These folks are getting caught up on a couple of superficial aspects.

Seriously, stone dragon maneuvers are "I hit it. HARD." That's all they do. What's is anime about that? What's anime about small unit tactics (White Raven)? About Sheer Force of Will?

triforcel
2007-10-25, 05:28 PM
You think DUSKBLADES are overpowered?

Yes, I believe that a single base class that gets two good saves, a full base attack bonus, the higher end of half casting, and the ability to cast without penalty in medium armor with a heavy shield is a scant bit overpowered.

Jannex
2007-10-25, 05:34 PM
Yes, I believe that a single base class that gets two good saves, a full base attack bonus, the higher end of half casting, and the ability to cast without penalty in medium armor with a heavy shield is a scant bit overpowered.

Just to put that in perspective, that's a Ranger with two extra spell levels, and arcane instead of divine.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 05:37 PM
Then what do you think of Cleric, who get 3/4 BAB, Casting in Heavy Armor without failure, have Full Casting, and with a bit of optimizing can be Full BAB all day long? I mean seriously, Duskblade is decent, but nowhere near overpowered. It has good burst damage against single targets...that's the entire gimmick of the class, and we all know how damage starts to pale in higher levels, and save-or-sucks rule.

Besides, casting in medium armor is too hard to get. Warmages and battle sorcerers can do it if they take a feat. Gishes can regularly get 17 BAB and 9th level spells and do it all in armor (albeit light armor, but still armor). Duskblades are more like un-optimized Gishes in my opinion, who only focus on damage.

TimeWizard
2007-10-25, 05:45 PM
Man, Daus, how on earth is a Warblade with a greatsword not a great way to make a Western knight? German greatsword schools even taught stances with funny names! There's nothing (inherently) wuxia about Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, White Raven, Diamond Mind--strength of body and mind, brutal combat, force of will, battlefield tactics... Swordsages are the only wuxia-ish class in the book, and even they don't have to be.

Haven't you heard? You can't be a western combatent unless you follow the "Get a Bigger Sword and Hit The Other Guy Very Hard with Sword" schoolof fighting. There was a memo.

Mr.Moron
2007-10-25, 05:55 PM
Seriously, stone dragon maneuvers are "I hit it. HARD." That's all they do. What's is anime about that? What's anime about small unit tactics (White Raven)? About Sheer Force of Will?

I think trying too hard to defeat the "Anime" statements, is a bit pointless; that the book as a whole is intended to draw from anime (among other sources) is explicitly stated in the introduction. That alone makes it pointless to try and deny the influence it had.

Instead, I'd argue that anime and the other sources it draws from are far from being wholly incompatible with an otherwise "Traditional" fantasy environment, even one that's making a decided effort to maintain a distinctly "Western" feel. I, at least, can honestly buy a guy doing some crazy stuffed armed with distinctly European weapons without having my mind immediately thinking "OH CRAP THAT GUYS FROM JAPAN!". Just because the exact inspiration comes a certain source doesn't mean it can't be adapted to fit comfortably in other settings.

Sometimes it just seems to me, that the reaction given to allowing martial types a few extraordinary combat techniques is so strongly opposed, you'd think what was being suggested was turning fighters and the like into sword-wielding mecha (http://youtube.com/watch?v=lV1uCdfK1tE) of some sort. Which isn't to say I'm trying to put words in anybodies mouth and say they were making that claim. It just really feels like they're fighting against something of that magnitude sometimes.

I mean come on, is it really so hard to imagine that in a setting where guys can throw around meteors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/meteorSwarm.htm)(without it even being their strongest trick) that the guy with the big enchanted sword just, might be able to just be able to find some new ways to swing it?


That said, if people don't like something. I'm going to try and avoid getting too riled up about it, even if I don't understand it exactly. I mean, we're all entitled to our opinions, right? On the subject of my opinions, I've got some personal problems with the Complete Champion. It's got some nice stuff, but much of it seems rushed and poorly-thought out. More so than usual, for those of you opinion that's the norm.

EDIT:


Haven't you heard? You can't be a western combatent unless you follow the "Get a Bigger Sword and Hit The Other Guy Very Hard with Sword" schoolof fighting. There was a memo.


Just don't let the sword get too big, heh.

Temp
2007-10-25, 06:13 PM
I think trying too hard to defeat the "Anime" statements, is a bit pointless; that the book as a whole is intended to draw from anime (among other sources) is explicitly stated in the introduction. That alone makes it pointless to try and deny the influence it had.

By dropping the fluff, though, you don't really have anything that's too anime beside several specific maneuvers from two certain schools available only to the one class that is mentioned as basically being a spellcaster.

The mechanics don't conflict with the concept of the Western swordsman at all for the Warblade or the Crusader.

I generally agree with the rest of what I think you're saying.

Reel On was right, though. Stone Dragon maneuvers should be fine in all settings--they are just swinging/thrusting/whatever weapons really really hard. Diamond Mind is just a mechanic for focusing on the fight. Iron Heart is just a measure of skill--it's incredibly generic. Setting Sun is just throwing baddies around (I think it should have been a Warblade school, to be honest). Tiger Claw maneuvers are the equivalent of a Barbarian's Rage. White Raven maneuvers are basically just mechanical support for the concept of teamwork and inspiration. Devoted Spirit is basically just Paladin/Favored Soul-ness.

There are several maneuvers that break possibility--Lightning Throw, most of Desert Wind and Shadow Hand. Aside from those, I don't see many problems with using the book for any sort of fighter.

Dragor
2007-10-25, 06:28 PM
Alright, let's try and get rid of the arguments here.


"Tome of Battle has an anime style; it doesn't fit in my games."

Edit the fluff. Swordsages don't need to be called 'Blade Wizards', just like 'Strike of Perfect Clarity' doesn't need to be called by its name. What makes D&D unique is that the DM can edit what is not to his liking, unlike, say, in a video game. As said before, most of the schools and their maneuvers can be edited without harming your campaign.

And here's an argument of my own FOR Tome of Battle: it makes people who like to swing swords feel special.

I remember my first character, a Dwarven Fighter (see avatar, helpfully.) Earlier levels were great fun, smacking zombies this was and that, getting the odd critical hit. But, as later levels set in, I realized all I was really doing was "Roll to hit. Roll for damage. You did (this much damage). Next player." The next player would cast a fireball, or do something equally as supernatural. I felt small by comparison- he could cast a fireball, go invisible, even goddamn fly! What could I do? Swing my Greatsword and keep the Warmage safe.
With ToB, it's the complete opposite. My Half-Orc Warblade gets the limelight sometimes, and not just the casters who are nuking the enemy with fireballs. And call it 'blade magic' or whatever all you like, but hell, who says the supernatural is bad? I certainly enjoy playing a character who sweeps his blade through a foe while it blazes with supernatural fire, rather than going up to the enemy and tripping him.

ToB gives the Fighter a more keen edge- what he needed all along. Maybe not in statistical terms, but in roleplaying terms, I've got the edge over the casters now. And that's just the way I like it....

Karma Guard
2007-10-25, 07:11 PM
The only book I don't like is the Book of Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds.

The BoVD is just hilariously over-evil and makes evil conform to stereotypes. It's just ridiculous.

Masochism is evil (It also implies any nonstandard sex is evil, too.)? The way they present bestiality is hilarious because then that makes basically all dragons suffer the fault, not to mention all the other not-humans races that like to crossbreed. LOL EVIL HUMAN AND HALFLING RACES :B, most of those evil diseases except for Warp Touch, most of these evil feats including Lichloved, which is just hilarious.

I'm actually okay with most of the PrCs, but Vermin Lord isn't very evil at all, much less Evil. I mean, even the feat you need to qualify isn't that evil. I'd make it unevil and just make it icky. :V

Exalted deeds goes in the other direction. It presents a good that is unobtainable by Joe Adventurer and his Party. The 'Poison and diseases are always evil so here's some Special Renamed poisons and diseases' thing is silly. The Vows are either ridiculously easy to keep (Abstinence), or hamper you or your party unduly, for minor effect (Obedience, Nonviolence). I'm okay with the classes, but most of them suffer from the 'But that's not terribly Exalted/Vile :smallconfused:' problem that the BoVD does.

Both books just don't seem to contribute much to the game besides lolevil and lolgood. They're also 3.0 but that's besides the point.

Randomly: Also, why can't a Unicorn buddy up with non human/half-elf/elves? Why can't a Half-orc have a Unicorn buddy? That's just silly. They should just retire the racial aspect of the requirements and keep it female (virgin, I want to say) only.

Frosty
2007-10-25, 07:19 PM
The virgin requirement is kind of wierd. I mean, how does the unicorn KNOW? I wonder if the Univorns themselves are virgins too.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-25, 07:22 PM
I like how people are saying Duskblades aren't overpowered because they aren't as good as clerics, druids, etc.

You do realize that clerics, druids, etc. ARE overpowered, right? More so that duskblade, but that is not a valid argument for duskblades not being overpowered.

I haven't looked at duskblade, but I know a fallacy when I see one.

Ponce
2007-10-25, 07:28 PM
Eh, I don't know. Don't a lot of people complain about the bookkeeping power points entail for psionics, even if conceptually they're simpler/cleaner than Vancian slots? If the abilities are well-balanced I don't see the need to limit them per day anyway, a per-encounter mechanic does the job.

There wouldn't be a per day limitation. I'm sure it could be made up so that you gain scaling power points that can be refreshed in the same way the readied maneuvers can. The main benefit being that you can increase the power of a particular maneuver by expending extra points. Stances would remain unchanged, of course.

Karma Guard
2007-10-25, 07:28 PM
The virgin requirement is kind of wierd. I mean, how does the unicorn KNOW? I wonder if the Univorns themselves are virgins too.

The virgin requirement comes from the mythology; Unicorns were terrible and wild beasts that could only be calmed by a virgin maiden's hands (And they could tell magically if the maiden was still a virgin, too). Then again, the unicorns in mythology were also comprised of only males. It's all metaphorical. :smalltongue:

de-trick
2007-10-25, 07:32 PM
I dont like book of vile darkness, this book is why people think D&D is evil

Temp
2007-10-25, 07:41 PM
You do realize that clerics, druids, etc. ARE overpowered, right? More so that duskblade, but that is not a valid argument for duskblades not being overpowered. Fair comparison or not, the Duskblade's at an equivalent power level to the Psychic Warrior or Warblade in a middle-ground between the full Core spellcasters and the Paladin/Fighter.

Was this point especially relevent? Probably not. Am I still posting it? Absolutely.


Oh, I agree on the alignment book ban. Both of them are mostly drivel.

Starbuck_II
2007-10-25, 07:41 PM
I like how people are saying Duskblades aren't overpowered because they aren't as good as clerics, druids, etc.

You do realize that clerics, druids, etc. ARE overpowered, right? More so that duskblade, but that is not a valid argument for duskblades not being overpowered.

I haven't looked at duskblade, but I know a fallacy when I see one.

True, we need a standard for Comparison.
Rogue, Ranger (about there), Barbarian, and Psychic Warrior are the best for balance.
1. Duskblades do less than TWfing Rogue, but require less work.
2. Do less than a Raging Barbarian without casting spells, but more with spells (otherwise why have spells).
3. Duskblades aren't as good as ranged weapons. Also can't heal like Ranger.
4. Psychic Warrior is buffs make the man versus spells make the better damage.
However, The Psychic Warrior with the right combos can sometimes beat or equal the Duskblade.

So the Duskblade is where I'd put the balance. Not too Strong, but not weak.

Caduceus
2007-10-25, 07:49 PM
I dont like book of vile darkness, this book is why people think D&D is evil

Doubtful. Just...doubtful. DnD was considered "evil" long before WotC jumped in and made it what it is today. Back in the 70s and 80s, it was considered evil. Before a lot of us were born. People thought DnD was evil because it featured polytheism, magic, and powerful devils and demons.

On the topic of Tome of Battle, I love it. I hate to burst a lot of your bubbles, but I don't really see it as being "anime" at all, and I'd have to say that claiming anything as anime is a horrible argument for not liking it. Anime covers so many genres: pulp, fantasy, ninjas, history, horror, gothic, comedy. You can point at just about anything and call it "anime" these days. Does that mean that it's anathema to any Dungeons and Dragons game? No. It just means that the Japanese have created an animated series based around that particular aspect of the world. Honestly, I find the arguments of "it's too Wuxia" to hold more water than "it's anime, I hate it."

Frosty
2007-10-25, 07:53 PM
I like how people are saying Duskblades aren't overpowered because they aren't as good as clerics, druids, etc.

You do realize that clerics, druids, etc. ARE overpowered, right? More so that duskblade, but that is not a valid argument for duskblades not being overpowered.

I haven't looked at duskblade, but I know a fallacy when I see one.

You call them overpowered (and maybe they are, a little bit), but maybe it's some of the other classes that are underpowered?

I mean, EVERYTHING is overpowered when compared to the Healer..or the Samurai...or the Commoner. That just menas those 3 classes are underpowered.

Temp
2007-10-25, 07:55 PM
Doubtful. Just...doubtful. DnD was considered "evil" long before WotC jumped in and made it what it is today. Back in the 70s and 80s, it was considered evil. Before a lot of us were born. People thought DnD was evil because it featured polytheism, magic, and powerful devils and demons.

The BoVD certainly won't do anything to help an argument against Jack Chick-influenced thought. But I suppose nothing really would.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-25, 08:02 PM
You call them overpowered (and maybe they are, a little bit), but maybe it's some of the other classes that are underpowered?

Nope, they are overpowered, A LOT.

The ranger, rogue and bard are pretty much the only classes in 3.5(core) that got done right, in terms of being at the right power level. Barbarians, too, unless you include the feats in source books that make them broken.

On a related subject, why is it that crappy feats like Weapon Specialization require fighter level X, but actual strong feats like Leap Attack do not?

TimeWizard
2007-10-25, 09:38 PM
Nope, they are overpowered, A LOT.

The ranger, rogue and bard are pretty much the only classes in 3.5(core) that got done right, in terms of being at the right power level. Barbarians, too, unless you include the feats in source books that make them broken.

On a related subject, why is it that crappy feats like Weapon Specialization require fighter level X, but actual strong feats like Leap Attack do not?

It goes back to Fighters having this thing where all they get is feats so someone thought maybe they should have some special ones.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-26, 12:13 AM
My point was that fighters should get the really good feats as unique to them, not the sub-par/near useless Weapon Spec. tree.

Fighter exclusive feats aren't necessarily bad game design, it just wasn't implemented well.

Stam
2007-10-26, 12:44 AM
Back onto the topic of ToB...

My biggest beef with the book is that if it's allowed in tandem with the base melee classes, the base melee classes are going to cry. Loudly. With extra whinging added.

Fighter, monk, barbarian, paladin...swashbuckler, definitely the hexblade, samurai, and anything else that hits stuff for a living? They're all completely outdated, not worth even attempting. The Ranger still lives by virtue of his out-of-combat usefulness, but can just pick his nails in melee while the flashy guys go to work.

If the ToB stuff is used as a total replacement of the majority of those classes, then you can start talking.

And yes. I would toss out the entire fluff section of the book, completely. Rename most of the maneuvers and stances. Etcetera. When playing a regular, focussed fighter, I'd pick stuff that was appropriate and non-belief-tearing and go with that. When playing the focussed swordsmaster, I'd pick stuff that's a little more beyond the norm. For a Judo-style fighter, I'd go for Setting Sun school. Etcetera. And for a certain blade-dervish from the desert sands by name of Sand-Tiger, I'd no doubt pick up a skipload of Desert Wind maneuvers and toss fire around a lot.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 01:54 AM
The Barbarian is competitive with the Warblade, damagewise if not in terms of adaptability. The Fighter is still the best archer (except maybe Clerics, but... y'know, Cleric). Rangers can also do archery, and they still have their skills.
Paladins can still pull off charge builds, and, like monks, weren't really good for much in the first place. Hexblades get spells. Swashbuckler works well with Warblade; both are Int based, lightly armoured melee classes. Samurai... yeah. It was obsolete before it was printed.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-26, 02:03 AM
How is fighter the best archer? All it gets are feats. You don't need very many feats to be an archer.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 02:13 AM
How is fighter the best archer? All it gets are feats. You don't need very many feats to be an archer.

No other class gets anything better than feats. Ranger is close, but they get less hp and Favoured Enemy is too situational.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-26, 02:27 AM
How about spot as a class skill? Archers can easily push their range increment past what a fighter can see with cross-class spot. Rangers get woodland stride, which allows you to put terrain in between the archer and his foes. Entangle is great for slowing down approaching enemies, thus increasing the amount of time you have to shoot.

Rogue's get sneak attack, which they can apply with Greater Manyshot from surprise.

Even monks are better archers than a fighter, because they have a high movement rate. Archers are all about keeping wanting the opponent away from you so you can attack them w/o being attacked back.

Fighters are notoriously bad at battlefield control. The ranger has woodland stride, which gives him a tactical advantage at archery in some terrains, and can cast entangle. Rogues can deal lots of damage from stealth via G.Manyshot and sneak attack. Monks can shoot and move really fast.

Fighters just get a bunch of feats that don't make them better archers after
8th level. Which means they have likely every single archery feat by 8th level, but most of them aren't any good anyway.


Class Features are better than feats. Monk and CW Samurai come close to defying this principle, but the point still stands. Heck, fighters aren't considered to be better than monks because they get feats, it is because they can wear armor, prioritize STR, and power attack with a full BAB and a
2-H weapon.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 02:44 AM
Rogues are good archers within 30ft., but a range that short generally defeats the purpose of archery.
Monks are bad at archery for the same reason they're bad at melee; they can survive just fine, but they don't do a lot else. At least Rogues get sneak attack to make up for medium BAB.

Karma Guard
2007-10-26, 03:01 AM
I'd like to interrupt the ensuing argument with a vote against Savage Species in the stead of a friend of mine.

She despises the book. Apparently it was ill-balanced?

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 03:03 AM
I'd like to interrupt the ensuing argument with a vote against Savage Species in the stead of a friend of mine.

She despises the book. Apparently it was ill-balanced?

It was dull, too.

Grynning
2007-10-26, 05:33 AM
Savage species was an interesting, if failed, attempt to get rid of the LA and Racial hit-die mechanics that often make playing "monsters" such a disappointment. Unfortunately, the rules they gave only allowed you to make lower-level versions of the existing monsters so you could start at any ECL. There was no real effort made to balance any of the monster abilities (whether they were really, really powerful or really, really lame) with class features so you could make good monsters with class levels.
I do like some of the PrC's out of the book; while cheesy, they have sparked fun conversations, like how to make an Illithid Savant with the Tarrasque's regeneration :smallbiggrin:
(I think we decided you had to eat a Wu Jen, a Bard, and another monster of some kind first, can't remember how exactly it worked out).

Roderick_BR
2007-10-26, 05:54 AM
Clearly our only course of action is to ban every class besides fighters and rogues, the other classes are far too unrealistic and anime oriented. I mean, a mere man breaking the laws of physics through reading a few arcane books? Blasphemy. A person who received powers from his belief in a deity? Madness! That nature stuff is right out. So is that ridiculous monk class, I mean why would someone brought up in an abbey feel the need to punch people?

I occasionally let someone be a barbarian but ask that they take therapy to deal with their anger issues.
You win the internets!

Seriously, I don't know why people get so upset with ToB. They claim it's "too anime" (I don't think it's too anime, and even if it where, it's not a bad thing).
Many say that it doesn't feel like D&D. I strongly disagree. It actually helps warriors do what they should do in D&D: Fight.
I'm homebrewing a campaign for some friends, and I'll use a nerfed version of the warblade (some maneuvers ARE a bit too much) as fighters, and giving a nerf for spells so they are still powerful, but not game breaking.

Answering to the OP: I don't ban whole books, just parts that I feel are overpowered or underpowered (that I can homebrew something), or doesn't fit the campaign.

Kioran
2007-10-26, 06:26 AM
You win the internets!

Seriously, I don't know why people get so upset with ToB. They claim it's "too anime" (I don't think it's too anime, and even if it where, it's not a bad thing).
Many say that it doesn't feel like D&D. I strongly disagree. It actually helps warriors do what they should do in D&D: Fight.
I'm homebrewing a campaign for some friends, and I'll use a nerfed version of the warblade (some maneuvers ARE a bit too much) as fighters, and giving a nerf for spells so they are still powerful, but not game breaking.

Answering to the OP: I don't ban whole books, just parts that I feel are overpowered or underpowered (that I can homebrew something), or doesn't fit the campaign.

Maybe we get upset because it crappy game design? Oh, and the descriptions and stories suck.

What did you say? "Fluff" is malleable? So are rules, so if your Fighters suck, ToB is not the only option. If you say you rework the "fluff" so it actually works for the western knight, you might as well rework the combat mechanics so Fighters donīt suck.
Anyone who claims "ZOMG altering fluff consistently and well is so much easier than making some good houserules" is either:
- totally incapable of understanding the rules and their effects at a fundamental level
- relatively new to the game
- eligible for getting slugged with a hammer by me
- on WotCīs payroll
- or any combination thereof

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 06:28 AM
Or:

-Realizes that the fluff is almost always Greyhawkish, and as such, subject of being changed into another official campaing's theme.

Grynning
2007-10-26, 06:32 AM
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with liking anime (or wuxia, for that matter). I love Asian culture, anime, etc. as much as the next geek.
However, ToB just feels a bit too goofy, and as I said before, I don't see anything wrong with melee classes as they are. I suppose a lot of people may see them as underpowered, but I still love fighter builds, and even the Paladin isn't too bad. Even when I play an Asian themed game, I use mostly Core base classes. IMO most Samurai are going to be multi-class Fighter/Aristocrats (that's right, the dreaded NPC class), the CW class is not really a good representation of what they were historically. Similarly, most martial arts (Western or Eastern) focus on fairly simple concepts and are very close to one another when you break them down fundamentally. As far as portraying realistic fighting capabilities, the core skills and feats do a pretty good job of covering the basics, and I'm comfortable with them.

So, with regard to the whole "Asian vs. Western" thing, Asian influence is not really my core complaint. I think the mechanics aren't very realistic, for one thing, and they certainly are major departure from what I think of as D&D combat. Just like one can say that the over-the-top kung fu maneuvers from the book can be equated with western combat styles, I can say that the allegedly "Western" style feat system applies easily to Eastern martial arts combat. So I see no need for what is essentially two different combat systems, and I like the original one better. So, no ToB for me, thanks.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 06:35 AM
Heaven help you. Stay away from the homebrewing forums, please, you might suffer some kind of shock.


BTW, you DID check the feats in ToB, 'aight? They're tremendously more westerny than the rest of the book, and certainly not over the top. Einhander won my heart once I saw it's name, and with some reworking, it became a good feat.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 06:36 AM
Even when I play an Asian themed game, I use mostly D&D base classes.

This isn't surprising; most people mostly use base classes. I think you mean core classes, which is an entirely different kettle of mechanics.


Einhander won my heart once I saw it's name, and with some reworking, it became a good feat.

Einhander is from the PHB2, not ToB.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 06:40 AM
Oh, and I'm snipping a question from the "Mistaken perception" test:

1) Do you, by chance, think that swords that look like cutter tools are Anime or Wuxia?

If yes, you evidently don't know jack about RL or fantasy, since those swords are german and known as Zweihanders.

If no, congrats, you're enlightened.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 06:41 AM
Oh, and I'm snipping a question from the "Mistaken perception" test:

1) Do you, by chance, think that swords that look like cutter tools are Anime or Wuxia?

If yes, you evidently don't know jack about RL or fantasy, since those swords are german and known as Zweihanders.

If no, congrats, you're enlightened.

What's a 'cutter tool'?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 06:44 AM
A little tool for cuttin' hard materials that looks like this:





_________________________
/_______
_______/
_______________________/


With the small thingy being a blade.


And I'm REALLY sure Einhander was in ToB.

D'oh, stoopid forum! It screws a good drawing up!

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 06:46 AM
I think I get what you mean. A little mini blade in the back of the big one?

And Einhander is definately in the PHB2.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 06:49 AM
I'll take a look.

And naw, it's actually a big plastic thing with a blade sticking out. And the blade looks like a Zweihander blade.

Nope, Einhander is in ToB. At least, my copy of it has it.

Neon Knight
2007-10-26, 06:49 AM
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with liking anime (or wuxia, for that matter). I love Asian culture, anime, etc. as much as the next geek.
However, ToB just feels a bit too goofy, and as I said before, I don't see anything wrong with melee classes as they are. I suppose a lot of people may see them as underpowered, but I still love fighter builds, and even the Paladin isn't too bad. Even when I play an Asian themed game, I use mostly D&D base classes. IMO most Samurai are going to be multi-class Fighter/Aristocrats (that's right, the dreaded NPC class), the CW class is not really a good representation of what they were historically.

I also tend toward a bit more "realism" in my games (that I run, when I play in other people's I go nuts with magic and whatnot). Hell, in the last one I ran there was very little 'magic' at all, casters were largely replaced with sleight-of-hand artists using alchemical items and hallucinogens in place of spells (based heavily on Robert E. Howard's writing). As far as portraying realistic fighting capabilities, the core skills and feats do a pretty good job of covering the basics, and I'm comfortable with them.

So, getting back to the whole "Asian vs. Western" thing, Asian influence is not really my core complaint. I think the mechanics aren't very realistic, for one thing, and they certainly are major departure from what I think of as D&D combat. Just like one can say that the over-the-top kung fu maneuvers from the book can be equated with western combat styles, I can say that the allegedly "Western" style feat system applies easily to Eastern martial arts combat. So I see no need for what is essentially two different combat systems, and I like the original one better. So, no ToB for me, thanks.

First, its verisimilitude, not realism.

Secondly, I don't see Feat as Western. I see them as generic and applying to any culture, from the Ancient Rus and other Slavic peoples to the Zulu and Bantu to the Persians and Saracens.

I view ToB in the exact same light.

Mechanics? Realistic? What an utterly bizarre complaint. I haven't seen a single combat mechanic I would call realistic, because they are all abstracts.

Grynning
2007-10-26, 06:49 AM
Quasi-ninja'd, I was already correcting my post before you mentioned I should have said core.

Also, I must admit I don't much care for most people's homebrew stuff.

Also, where do you think from my post that I have some kind of misconception about real-life weaponry? That was a bit off-topic. I am well aware of the origins of most blade designs....however, if you're talking about 10 foot tall angular bladed swords wielded by disproportionately small people, then yes, I'd call that an anime standard.

And since you brought it up, you are aware that "Zweihander" does not apply to one particular blade style, right? It's just German for "Two-hander"...it could be generically applied to any large sword. I think you're playing a bit too much Soul Calibre.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 06:54 AM
Nope, Einhander is in ToB. At least, my copy of it has it.

My copy is Einhander-free. Where is Einhander in your ToB? The only tactical feats in my copy are the discipline specific ones.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 06:59 AM
Hmm...odd. You say Einhander is not in ToB? Really odd. Must have a faulty copy.

Grynning
2007-10-26, 07:02 AM
Kasrkin: I wasn't saying feats were exclusively Western, I said they were universally applicable. The purpose of my post was to explain that my complaint was not that the mechanics in ToB were to "Eastern/Asian Influenced" but rather that they were too "Silly Anime/Video Game" influenced.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 07:04 AM
Such as which game or anime? Name two.


Oh, and the "classic image" of Zweihander is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_sword

The buster sword is a Zweihander, one of the famous ones.

Grynning
2007-10-26, 07:06 AM
Regarding the origin of the Einhander feat: first I saw it was in PHBII as well. I would point out that WotC sometimes does stealth revisions of the books without announcing it. For instance, find a first printing PHB and a "Special edition" printing (they look exactly the same). The text for a few spells is different, and there are other minor editorial changes.

kamikasei
2007-10-26, 07:07 AM
A little tool for cuttin' hard materials that looks like this:

Do you mean a box cutter (http://images.google.ie/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&q=box+cutter&btnG=Search+Images)?

I'd be curious to see the link where you took that line from.

Grynning
2007-10-26, 07:10 AM
Name Two? Well, I already mentioned Soul Calibre, and Inuyasha comes to mind as an Anime where the hero uses quasi-magical melee attacks with funny names.

Also, it absolutely cracks me up that you link a picture of Cloud's Buster Sword when discussing real-life weaponry. If you read that article further it actually says that while that weapon is loosely based on real-life weaponry (the one it mentions is actually Chinese IIRC), but is not really practical or realistic.
Edit: sorry, it's not in that article. Click the link for over-sized blade in the first paragraph for the "historical" origins of the design.

kamikasei
2007-10-26, 07:11 AM
Such as which game or anime? Name two.

The Dragon Slayer from Berserk. Nightmare's weapons in Soul Calibur (and Cervantes', too, to an extent). Zabuza's sword in Naruto. Ichigo's sword in Bleach.

Absurdly oversized weapons are strongly associated with anime and/or JPRGs, and have little or nothing to do with Tome of Battle (it's the perennial "Monkey Grip does not work that way!" issue that relates to them).

edit: Whoops; thought that was in reference to big swords. Well, Naruto is the big one I have any familiarity with in the "Calling Your Attacks (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallingYourAttacks)" school. Of course, there is no reason to use the names in-game. That your Warblade's attack is called Sapphire Nightmare Blade matters as much as that your Fighter's is Whirlwind Attack - you tell the DM so he knows what rule you're using, that's all.


Oh, and the "classic image" of Zweihander is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_sword

The buster sword is a Zweihander, one of the famous ones.

Ngrk.

That ain't your German daddy's Zweihander (http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html), boy. You're hurting your own case if you're arguing that the Buster Sword is a realistic weapon with roots in Germany.

Dhavaer
2007-10-26, 07:12 AM
The feat compilation (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats) lists Einhander as PHB2 only.

Serenity
2007-10-26, 07:37 AM
Name Two? Well, I already mentioned Soul Calibre, and Inuyasha comes to mind as an Anime where the hero uses quasi-magical melee attacks with funny names.

Only Desert Wind, Shadow Hand, arguably Devoted Spirit, and Lightning Throw are at all 'quasi-magical'. Diamond Mind is a quick, focused warrior who can find holes in enemies' defenses. Stone Dragon is a warrior who can hit stuff really hard. Tiger Claw is a warrior who jumps around and rends enemies to pieces. White Raven is a warrior who uses small group tactics. Setting Sun is Judo. Iron Heart, with the exception of Lightning Throw, is just sheer willpower and skill with a blade. As for the names, any number of Western sword styles/martial arts have moves with funny names, and ToB does not partake of the practice of calling out attack names, any more than the core fighter has to shout 'Whirlwind Attack' or 'Great Cleave.'

As for this whole 'oversized weapon' business, there's none of that in ToB, so I'm not sure how that's relevant...

Grynning
2007-10-26, 07:51 AM
Weapon Finesse, Quick Draw, Flick-of-the-Wrist, Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes, etc: quick, focused warrior who can find holes in his enemies defenses.
Power Attack, Improved Sunder, Cleave, Etc: Warrior who can hit stuff really hard.
Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack , Two-weapon fighting, etc: Warrior who jumps around and rends enemies to pieces
Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw etc: Judo
Iron Will, Weapon focus tree, Improved Disarm, maybe the Combat Focus feats from PHBII: Sheer Willpower and skill with a blade
And that's just off the top of my head without going to books for more specific examples.
As I said, there is no need for another, mechanically different system, when description combined with existing material will serve just as well.

The big sword thing came up because another poster thought that knowledge of the origin of IRL weaponry was relevant to the discussion, so we side-tracked a bit.

Edit: Wow, it's 8 a.m. I am going to bed, so I won't be responding for quite some time.
Oh, love your sig, btw. Best show Fox ever canceled.

Fhaolan
2007-10-26, 08:15 AM
Such as which game or anime? Name two.


Oh, and the "classic image" of Zweihander is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_sword

The buster sword is a Zweihander, one of the famous ones.

What? Oh dear lord no. That's not a zweihander. That's an joke.

Zweihanders were real world weapons. In appearance typically like http://www.yatego.com/mittelalter-laden/p,461c8b643e4e0,419daee41d4ca6_6,zweihänder-mit-flammenklinge?sid=03Y1193402396Yf101513f41b4b907b6 . However, any greatsword could technically be called a zweihander. In the same way any large sword could technically be called a claymore. These terms may be popularly applied to specific weapons, but originally they just meant 'big sword'.

The stupid-sized sword popular in many anime/manga is completely infeasable. Not only due to straight inertia, which could be overcome by someone of sufficient strength, but mechanics. Without a sufficiently long grip, the wielder simply doesn't have enough leverage to move that sword in any controlable way in battlefield conditions. Also, the join between the grip and the blade is a weak spot, and the smaller the grip relative to the size of the blade the weaker that spot is. While there were wide-bladed swords in RL, none approach the ratio of grip:blade that those anime swords do. Hit something hard with one of those, and the blade will snap right off. You can buy steel replias of this sword with the blade half the size usually pictured, and it still suffers from this failure point. [This has been discussed in the Real Life Weapons and Armor thread in more detail. I've simplified the issue for brevity, but I think I've still covered the concept.]

Sucrose
2007-10-26, 08:27 AM
Weapon Finesse, Quick Draw, Flick-of-the-Wrist, Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes, etc: quick, focused warrior who can find holes in his enemies defenses.
Power Attack, Improved Sunder, Cleave, Etc: Warrior who can hit stuff really hard.
Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack , Two-weapon fighting, etc: Warrior who jumps around and rends enemies to pieces
Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw etc: Judo
Iron Will, Weapon focus tree, Improved Disarm, maybe the Combat Focus feats from PHBII: Sheer Willpower and skill with a blade
And that's just off the top of my head without going to books for more specific examples.
As I said, there is no need for another, mechanically different system, when description combined with existing material will serve just as well.

The big sword thing came up because another poster thought that knowledge of the origin of IRL weaponry was relevant to the discussion, so we side-tracked a bit.

Edit: Wow, it's 8 a.m. I am going to bed, so I won't be responding for quite some time.
Oh, love your sig, btw. Best show Fox ever canceled.


Well, the main issue is simply that those feats, while descriptive, generally are (quite) inferior to the Tome of Battle options, and to most melee builds (with the obvious exception of the stuff in "hit stuff really hard").

Thus, given the general board consensus that spellcasters are more powerful than meleeists, it's a good idea to give them a bit of power creep.

Also, you're not getting the point: of course those things are recreated by feats- they're elements of mostly Western fantasy combat, mentioned to make the point that Tome of Battle characters are not supernatural, just very good at what they do. It was not trying to prove that Tome of Battle makes it possible to make a character that does new things- those things (as you pointed out) generally are possible with existing mechanics as well. The ToB just makes it more powerful, and thus a more acceptable option, if your group believes in the fighter pulling his weight.

Beyond all that, there is the issue of resource allocation. It's an aspect of the game that spellcasters and barbarians got to partake in, but most meleeists didn't, leading to them just using their best option over and over, except in rare situations with more interesting/battle-useful terrain. This can get boring.

A Tome of Battle character, on the other hand, has to ration his/her abilities, and do something different every round. Sure, some guy could spam his highest-level maneuver again and again, but he'll waste a round in between refreshing it, making him less effective than the guy who runs through lots of different techniques before refreshing his maneuver pool. This makes the game much more fun, because now the choice that is mechanically rewarded is to fight with some variety.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 08:37 AM
I'd like to point something.

OF COURSE Cloud's sword is brutally oversized. That was not the point of that at all, but rather how the sword looked.

And it is, in fact, an archetypical Zweihander. There are records, documentation, paintings, heck, there might even be a mural or two, that depicts german soldiers wielding similar swords. Though it's true that kind of Zweihander was ironically used more by mercs.

jameswilliamogle
2007-10-26, 08:40 AM
I hate Spell Compendium. It used to be easy to keep the reigns on casters until high level w/ one house rule: bring any sourcebook for anything you use. Now forget about it...

kamikasei
2007-10-26, 08:44 AM
I'd like to point something.

OF COURSE Cloud's sword is brutally oversized. That was not the point of that at all, but rather how the sword looked.

And it is, in fact, an archetypical Zweihander. There are records, documentation, paintings, heck, there might even be a mural or two, that depicts german soldiers wielding similar swords. Though it's true that kind of Zweihander was ironically used more by mercs.

Could you provide examples of these archetypes (historical, not game-derived) to counter the (http://www.yatego.com/mittelalter-laden/p,461c8b643e4e0,419daee41d4ca6_6,zweih%E4nder-mit-flammenklinge?sid=03Y1193402396Yf101513f41b4b907b6 ) examples (http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html) provide by Fhaolan and myself?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 08:52 AM
If I can find the links to it, sure.

Fhaolan
2007-10-26, 09:08 AM
If I can find the links to it, sure.

Actually, I'll be satisifed with names of the books, tapestries, etc. I know several professional archeologists, military history researchers, as well as modern swordsmiths and armorers who do museum reproductions, and can verify claims through them.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 09:09 AM
Aye-'kay. 'l be digging them up.

Leon
2007-10-26, 09:18 AM
Hmm...odd. You say Einhander is not in ToB? Really odd. Must have a faulty copy.

surely not in a WotC product.....

Valairn
2007-10-26, 09:38 AM
This thread deserves six or seven cat macros, maybe eight.

Also, its well within anyones rights to not include a book in their campaign settings, even if they have flawed reasoning for why they may do so, or even if their reasoning makes perfect sense.

Now to my response as Sucrose pointed out the reasons that ToB is a good book is because all of the options it offers players are competitive advantages throughout the whole life-span of a character. Of course as usual there are some things that are too good, or are not good enough. But that has always been part of DnD and any other RPG for that matter. If you want to see an example simply read the PHB. So saying you don't use ToB for that reason is a flawed one.

Maybe you don't like the flavor. Honestly I'm not a particular fan myself of the Nine Swords flavor, but I still use the book. The argument focused on the realism of the book is definitely faulty, I mean seriously Dungeons and Dragons says that reality has left the building from the very title.

Now there are good reasons to not use the ToB, I'm not gonna go into those, cause they have to do with world building and more detailed concepts then just somethign as simple as DO NOT WANT.

Here are the reasons you should use ToB.

First, it offers options to character development that are otherwise very sparse for melee characters, and not always beneficial.

Second, the classes offered are unique and well balanced within their frame work, and when used as replacements warblade -> fighter, paladin -> crusader, swordsage -> ?, are very solid at creating a better overall flow and combination of abilities that open up solid creative venues for combat, which is a primary focus of most DnD mechanics.

Third, they do not get overshadowed horribly(but still a little) in higher levels by the full caster power plant of doom, they multi-class very well, and overall are some of the best work WoTC has ever done if you ignore the flavor, I believe PHBII is just slightly better.

Fourth, it gives melee characters the ability to overcome obstacles without having to rely on equipment entirely. There are manuevers to hit things hard to overcome DR, there are manuevers that give you that little bit of extra speed you need to catch up, there are manuevers that let you take blows better. In fact the majority of manuevers are completely mundane and correlate directly to "real life" fighting.

Honestly I consider it a silly notion that people have a problem with this book. Its a very very good book, and I think its does you a disservice to not use its extremely well thought out mechanics and wonderful way it can make combat flow for melee characters.

I can understand that something may not be for you, but arguments against the book based on game design criteria are going to fall on extremely deaf ears, especially with those of us who actually played using it rather than just having read the book. This book as far as crunch is concerned is a HUGE SUCCESS.

On a side note the manuevers have "names" but that's just for easy game use, instead of saying, "DM I USE MANUEVER 4 FROM LIST 9 ON PAGE 123 USING ITS SECOND OPTION!", you get to say, "I use Time Stands Still." Its just good book keeping. Also the manuevers are gathered together logically, which is very convenient for referencing, another part of good book keeping.

So without anymore blabbing, Tome of Battle is a great book, in fact its a fantastic book, in fact its in the top 5 best books ever released by Wizards of the Coast, you should use it.

Fhaolan
2007-10-26, 10:20 AM
So without anymore blabbing, Tome of Battle is a great book, in fact its a fantastic book, in fact its in the top 5 best books ever released by Wizards of the Coast, you should use it.

I still want a Tome of Battle: Arrows of Fate. Too late now I guess, with 4th coming out. :smallsmile:

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 10:37 AM
Hell no, more ToB is on the way. Apparently, ToB was popular enough so as to produce a line of books.

Caduceus
2007-10-26, 10:48 AM
Hell no, more ToB is on the way. Apparently, ToB was popular enough so as to produce a line of books.

Sources, perhaps?

Starbuck_II
2007-10-26, 10:52 AM
Sources, perhaps?

I think he means since 4th edirion took inspiration for the successes of ToB.

Valairn
2007-10-26, 10:57 AM
The wikipedia article had a link to this in regards to new books related to ToB: http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13457928&postcount=177

I can't read it at work, but I hope it helps.

Ralfarius
2007-10-26, 11:57 AM
I don't think this has been given specific examples - I may have missed it in my perusal - but funny names for martial art maneuvers is so very not eastern only.

I briefly studied the Italian school of Swordsmanship, specifically the manuscripts of Fiore dei Liberi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flos_Duellatorum). If you look at that page provided, it describes the aspects of an adept swordsman as various animals.

In fact, if I recall correctly, most of the stances in Fiore's manuscript had names like...
- Boar's Tooth; upward pointing, like a tusk in a boar's mouth, can be moved down to block low or pushed forward into a thrust.
- Half Iron Door; downward pointing, like the view of an open door, can be brought up to Boar's Tooth in defense or as an upward slice.
- Full Iron Door; down and to the side, like a closed door. Guards the side, can be brought half iron for a complete swing to Boar's tooth.
- The Lady; "Like a woman, gives the impression of weakness while being quite deadly", held over the shoulder, either above or below the eye depending on the side to allow a full field of vision. Gives the appearance of being open to attack, but easily brought down in an attack or parry to Half Iron Door

These are just a barely-educated explanation of the stances involved in Fiore's work. What's interesting is how the stances translate to unarmed, Rondel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondel_%28dagger%29), arming sword and buckler, longsword, cudgels, and so on. I regret not pursuing that further...

Anyhow! All of the manuscripts of any sort of western martial art use names that are reminiscent of nature, so they can be better explained and taught. If the problem someone has with ToB is the 'eastern' fluff... Then re-imagine it as he western equivalents. A problem with the mechanics is a different story, of course.

It's a very prolific (and quite incorrect) view in the modern world that "martial arts" means oriental fighting technique, and anything that pertains to them is by proxy Asian in style. This is, at least in part, because most European martial arts very quickly fell out of use with the advent of firearms, whereas Asian martial arts remained deeply ingrained in their cultures, and were eventually able to emigrate to the western world and fill that void left behind by the loss of European equivalents.

ToB may be 'professedly' oriental influenced, but remember: not every martial art is Asian, and seemingly silly stance and maneuver names are standard to basically any codified fighting practice.

Frosty
2007-10-26, 12:20 PM
If the ToB stuff is used as a total replacement of the majority of those classes, then you can start talking.

DING DING DING!

We have a winner folks! You understand the entire point of ToB. I see it as a replacement for most other melee classes. Sure I'll still take some levels of Fighter for bonus feats, but those other classes exist to make your ToB melee-people better.

Of course, as far as Archers go, Fighter-centric builds still rock.

Morty
2007-10-26, 12:25 PM
Of course, as far as Archers go, Fighter-centric builds still rock.

Lack of archery is ToB's biggest fault.
Me, I don't like ToB and I'm a bit tired with overhyping and praising it, but accusations of being "manga" or "anime" make little sense. Could anyone come up with an explanation of why is it anime?

VerdugoExplode
2007-10-26, 12:39 PM
Could anyone come up with an explanation of why is it anime?

They say its too much like anime as it allows people using melee weapons to be capable of amazing and unbelievable feats of martial prowess, which is somehow completely different from someone capable of shaping reality to his will because he's smart and someone who can bring back the dead because god loves him more than everyone else.

They also work under the assumption that they yell out their maneuvers prior to using them, like a core barbarian running into battle yelling "POWER ATTACK! POWER ATTACK! LIONS POUNCE FULL POWER ATTACK! UH...MORE POWER ATTACK!"

Mr.Moron
2007-10-26, 12:40 PM
Lack of archery is ToB's biggest fault.
Me, I don't like ToB and I'm a bit tired with overhyping and praising it, but accusations of being "manga" or "anime" make little sense. Could anyone come up with an explanation of why is it anime?

Because the book itself says so? It's right in the introduction, on the list of things it was meant to draw from, along with Final Fantasy, The Matrix, and martial arts movies. As I stated earlier, I think it's somewhat silly try and debate the existence of elements that material itself plainly admits it has.

The main issue (for me at least) is when people go and define those things as:

A) A singular, narrow concept. Anything even loosely associated with "Anime" is a clone of "Dragonball Z".

B) Inherently negative and/or inferior to previously existing concepts. Anything even loosely associated with "Anime" will always be inferior and beneath that which has no association with it.

C) Impossible to adapt for other settings and styles. Anything even loosely associated with "Anime" can never possibly be tweaked to fit in different types of scenarios and settings.

Morty
2007-10-26, 12:56 PM
They say its too much like anime as it allows people using melee weapons to be capable of amazing and unbelievable feats of martial prowess, which is somehow completely different from someone capable of shaping reality to his will because he's smart and someone who can bring back the dead because god loves him more than everyone else.

If martian adepts were performing magic on a constant basis, those accusations would be true. But Warblades, for one, aren't doing anything supernatural. Up to high levels, they aren't even doing anything particulary extraordinary.


Because the book itself says so? It's right in the introduction, on the list of things it was meant to draw from, along with Final Fantasy, The Matrix, and martial arts movies. As I stated earlier, I think it's somewhat silly try and debate the existence of elements that material itself plainly admits it has.

Those are just usual nonsenses written in introduction. Nothing in the mechanics implies that.


A) A singular, narrow concept. Anything even loosely associated with "Anime" is a clone of "Dragonball Z".

B) Inherently negative and/or inferior to previously existing concepts. Anything even loosely associated with "Anime" will always be inferior and beneath that which has no association with it.

C) Impossible to adapt for other settings and styles. Anything even loosely associated with "Anime" can never possibly be tweaked to fit in different types of scenarios and settings.

Those three might make sense, or they might not, if ToB was associated with anime in any way other than author's comments. But since it doesn't it's not very relevant.
I, for one, dislike anime. But I dislike it as graphics style. I don't like ToB either, but claims that it's too anime or asian don't make much sense.

KIDS
2007-10-26, 01:01 PM
I am really sick of all the "asian/anime" hate or whatever the **** everyone seems to be mentioning. What's the matter, is someone allergic to foreign cultures? Democracy? Ideas? Humility? Anyone?

But NOOOOOOOO, we are the true "Western" people and have thought of all the good ideas already so there is no room left for imagination of anyone who lives past a certain set of coordinates. Because, the SUN SETS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE WORLD in there!!!

None if it is exclusive to one setting, a vast majority of maneuvers is completely normal or at best supernatural and it's a positive change for the game. And honestly, while "I don't want to learn a few new mechanics" is a good and valid excuse for not using a book, "it's broken" or "it's anime" isn't. Heck, most people who are now whining about Tome of Battle have been whining about 2nd edition when it came out, about 3E as well, 3.5 impressively so and Complete Warrior caused a major avalanche. Well let me tell you, I'm sick of it. Adapt and leave room for others' opinions.

And yes I live in Europe and love many things about culture. But I respect other cultures and see that there are as many good things about them as about mine (and no, I don't like anime in general even if I admit that it has some good ideas). For the love of God (whichever you like), get some humility and stop whining about "asian" and worse.

For myself, I don't use the landscape series (Frostburn, Stormwrack, Sandstorm) because I find really too many new rules in there to learn. I've been planning to get to it but still haven't even if the books themselves have some good concepts - or I'm told so.

p.s. great treatise Ralfarius, thanks for writing it up. And cookie to Valairn for explaining things, PHB2 was an excellent book too.

Mr.Moron
2007-10-26, 01:05 PM
Those three might make sense, or they might not, if ToB was associated with anime in any way other than author's comments. But since it doesn't it's not very relevant.
I, for one, dislike anime. But I dislike it as graphics style. I don't like ToB either, but claims that it's too anime or asian don't make much sense.

This goes back to point A). It sounds like your definition of what constitutes "Anime" is somewhat narrow. If I may ask, what are the properties something must have before you'd be willing to consider it influenced by "Anime"?

Morty
2007-10-26, 01:12 PM
This goes back to point A). It sounds like your definition of what constitutes "Anime" is somewhat narrow. If I may ask, what are the properties something must have before you'd be willing to consider it influenced by "Anime"?

Something needs to display features I consort with anime, i.e spiky hair, oversized weapons, somewhat uproportional bodies, overall flashiness and so on. Yes, those are purely graphical features. But I don't know anything non-graphical that'd make me think "anime" apart from maybe yelling the names on attacks. At least, nothing I can see in ToB.

Temp
2007-10-26, 01:13 PM
Oh, as far as stuff in ToB that I abandon--Martial Scripts. Thery're absurd. And White Raven Tactics gets nerfed to what it was probably intended to be (not being able to target the user).

Mojo_Rat
2007-10-26, 04:16 PM
As far as the Tome of battle goes it was an 'okay book' presenting an alternate view of the fighting concepts. the functional problem I had with it is It seems to essentially change some Fundamental concepts in the game for melee combatants without actually changing the official game mechanics.

this essentially comes down to the need for a melee in the core rules to use a full attack option to do lots of Damage.

with ToB this changes n that many of the maneuvers let a person do aproximately the same damage as a full attack option would allow as a standard action.

So while the Fighter and (theoretically) the barbarian are subject to needing the full attack option to do the most damage. the new ToB classes do not. The barbarian then gets often used for a class variation to get around this.

the perception of the Tob classes as being Anime is functionally about the fluff. the fluff sites references such as Ki frequently and there seems to be a deliberate attempt to suggest imagery from shows like naruto. (To be honest i dont need to explain this the people asking , what do you mean too anime Know exactly /what/ anime is being referenced they choose to be ignorant when asking these questions for some reason)

I bought the book read it cover to cover and it is nclear if our group will use it. The Dm seemed to have the most issue with the mechanical construction of the new classes like warblade's getting d12 hps etc. Which i agree with.

Is the swordsage getting 6+intx6 sp at first level a typo or a deliberate design concept that essentially breaks away from the games functional game design for the rest f the game?.

Neon Knight
2007-10-26, 04:22 PM
As far as the Tome of battle goes it was an 'okay book' presenting an alternate view of the fighting concepts. the functional problem I had with it is It seems to essentially change some Fundamental concepts in the game for melee combatants without actually changing the official game mechanics.

this essentially comes down to the need for a melee in the core rules to use a full attack option to do lots of Damage.

with ToB this changes n that many of the maneuvers let a person do aproximately the same damage as a full attack option would allow as a standard action.

So while the Fighter and (theoretically) the barbarian are subject to needing the full attack option to do the most damage. the new ToB classes do not. The barbarian then gets often used for a class variation to get around this.

the perception of the Tob classes as being Anime is functionally about the fluff. the fluff sites references such as Ki frequently and there seems to be a deliberate attempt to suggest imagery from shows like naruto. (To be honest i dont need to explain this the people asking , what do you mean too anime Know exactly /what/ anime is being referenced they choose to be ignorant when asking these questions for some reason)

I bought the book read it cover to cover and it is nclear if our group will use it. The Dm seemed to have the most issue with the mechanical construction of the new classes like warblade's getting d12 hps etc. Which i agree with.

Is the swordsage getting 6+intx6 sp at first level a typo or a deliberate design concept that essentially breaks away from the games functional game design for the rest f the game?.

Swordsage skill points are a typo.

Also, the removal of the necessity for a full attack to get maximum combat power is a good thing, since it is hideously easy to deny a Fighter his full attacks. That's why Fighters are considered weak.

Valairn
2007-10-26, 04:23 PM
Here is a short description. Fighter charges gets one mediocre attack. Wizard moves at his speed and casts a quickened spell + another spell. All of this was one round. It didn't change the fundamental concept so much as fix a pretty bad design flaw.

Temp
2007-10-26, 04:34 PM
(To be honest i dont need to explain this the people asking , what do you mean too anime Know exactly /what/ anime is being referenced they choose to be ignorant when asking these questions for some reason)
I disagree. I admit to being completely ignorant of anime of any sort, but I don't see much of ToB that doesn't fit into a pointedly European setting. I don't think the people who claim them not to be "anime" are saying that the maneuvers do not reflect anime influence. I think that they're saying that the end result is very general and, except in very few instances, can be used to portray decidedly non-"anime" characters in decidedly non-"anime" settings.

Mojo_Rat
2007-10-26, 05:10 PM
Swordsage skill points are a typo.

Also, the removal of the necessity for a full attack to get maximum combat power is a good thing, since it is hideously easy to deny a Fighter his full attacks. That's why Fighters are considered weak.

I did not mean to imply the change was a good or bad one. The problem is It Functionally breaks a key design concept of the Game without officially breaking it. They should have either a) stuck to the origonal design concept of needing the full attck or b) officialy changed the Rule per raw.

To Temp:

I dont think the mechanics of them are too anime. But i do feel that the fluff of a number of them seems to imply that. It isnt an eastern Vs western thing the fact that Anime is eastern for this example is to be honest Irelivent. It is just easier for people to write than to say the book is too much naruto (or DBZ or whatever youw ant to specifically pick)

To the thread though

To be honest I dont actualy have an issue with any of the maneuvers. It is minly the classes that get the maneuvers I have an issue with. Strange as that may seem.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 05:18 PM
They say its too much like anime as it allows people using melee weapons to be capable of amazing and unbelievable feats of martial prowess, which is somehow completely different from someone capable of shaping reality to his will because he's smart and someone who can bring back the dead because god loves him more than everyone else.

They also work under the assumption that they yell out their maneuvers prior to using them, like a core barbarian running into battle yelling "POWER ATTACK! POWER ATTACK! LIONS POUNCE FULL POWER ATTACK! UH...MORE POWER ATTACK!"It's just the first part; yelling the attack names doesn't really enter into it.

Arcane magic and Divine Magic are fine.
"amazing and unbelievable feats of martial prowess" not so much.

Temp
2007-10-26, 05:25 PM
Arcane magic and Divine Magic are fine.
"amazing and unbelievable feats of martial prowess" not so much.

So would you disallow players using PC class fighters too?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 05:30 PM
Or features like unleashing a fiery blast on a critical hit (Flaming burst enhancement)?

Frosty
2007-10-26, 06:55 PM
Here is a short description. Fighter charges gets one mediocre attack. Wizard moves at his speed and casts a quickened spell + another spell. All of this was one round. It didn't change the fundamental concept so much as fix a pretty bad design flaw.

Actually, virtually all decent charge builds nowadays have do a Full-attack on the charge. Just one level of Barbarian can do it thanks to getting Pounce in return for giving up Fast Movement. And don't talk about Core only, since ToB isn't core either. You also can't ban it for power reasons, or else you should ban full casters.

Neon Knight
2007-10-26, 06:59 PM
Actually, virtually all decent charge builds nowadays have do a Full-attack on the charge. Just one level of Barbarian can do it thanks to getting Pounce in return for giving up Fast Movement. And don't talk about Core only, since ToB isn't core either. You also can't ban it for power reasons, or else you should ban full casters.

The charge, while more flexible than the full attack, is still less flexible than the standard action, and more easily denied.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 07:07 PM
So would you disallow players using PC class fighters too?No, but they just do ordinary great feats of martial prowess rather than amazing and unbelievable ones.


Or features like unleashing a fiery blast on a critical hit (Flaming burst enhancement)?is that from an item created via arcane magic?


magic breaks the laws of physics because it's magic. fighters and meleers shouldn't do so because they're swinging a weapon really well. granted many manuvers don't but to compare the two misses something important. Likewise complaining that there are enchantments that do the same thing makes no sense. Enchantments are permenant magical effects that a SPELLCASTER has to create, not a guy that can swing a weapon really hard or really fast. /agree.


For the record i don't think ToB is particularly anime in it's crunch, or overtly supernatual in many of the manuvers. and it's about damn time the meleers got some lovin, now for the ranged charactersTo each their own... I prefer the magic >>> non-magic that D&D seems to currently favor by default.

mostlyharmful
2007-10-26, 07:07 PM
So would you disallow players using PC class fighters too?

magic breaks the laws of physics because it's magic. fighters and meleers shouldn't do so because they're swinging a weapon really well. granted many manuvers don't but to compare the two misses something important. Likewise complaining that there are enchantments that do the same thing makes no sense. Enchantments are permenant magical effects that a SPELLCASTER has to create, not a guy that can swing a weapon really hard or really fast.

For the record i don't think ToB is particularly anime in it's crunch, or overtly supernatual in many of the manuvers. and it's about damn time the meleers got some lovin, now for the ranged characters

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-26, 07:16 PM
So, summoning a warhorse or other mount from nowhere is also okay, no? Argue all you want, but almost all classes have some kind of magic in them, and the ones that don't have to swing again and again.

Roderick_BR
2007-10-26, 07:18 PM
So, you prefer an unbalanced system, that punishes players for choosing their preferred style of playing?
I think that many things that high level wizards do should be pushed to epic.

Temp
2007-10-26, 07:21 PM
No, but they just do ordinary great feats of martial prowess rather than amazing and unbelievable ones.

But Warblades and Fighters both do the same things--almost exactly. The difference is that ToB classes are based on a mechanic that is better balanced against the 3.5 spellcasting system.