Tome of Battle Book of 9 Swords Classes & Maneuvers as Prestige Classes?

[Mars Ultor]

My DM only allows the core classes from the PHB but he's pretty lenient regarding official book and original Prestige Classes. I'm only somewhat familiar with the Tome of Battle but I'm wondering if it might be possible to turn those classes into Prestige Classes.

To make them equivalent to other Prestige Classes the numbers of maneuvers and stances would have to be limited, but would it be possible?

Has anyone ever done anything like this?

Can you offer suggestions as to how this might be done?

[Particle_Man]

Maybe use the prestige paladin/ranger/bard as guidelines.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm

That said, there are already prestige classes in the Tome of Battle, most of which do not strictly need the base classes in that book to get into them, due to the Martial Study/Martial Stance feats. You just have no recovery mechanic for the maneuvers you gain, so they would each be "once per encounter" deals. Stances would still work fine though.

[Thunder999]

I suppose you could take an Ur Priest style approach and crush the progression down into 10 levels, a new level of maneuvers every level but 10 (which can have a capstone, warblade's dual stance already works, not too sure about the others).

So maximum level of maneuver known is just PrC level.

Warblade starts with 2 known, gains a new maneuver every level, can swap one out every even level.
Starts with 2 readied, gains an extra maneuver readied every odd level.
Ends up with 12 known, 6 readied, compared to 13 and 7 of the full class.
Stances are at 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 8th level, to keep the same access to higher level stances.

Swordsage starts with 4 known, gains 2 new maneuvers every level, can swap one every even level.
Starts with the 4 readied, gains an extra at 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10.
Ends up with 22 known and 9 readied compared to 25 and 12 of the full class.
Gains a stance at 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10.

Crusader starts with 3 known, gains a new maneuver every level, swaps out at even levels. (i.e. one more known than a warblade, just like the base class)
Starts with 3 readied, gains another at 5 and 10.
Starts with 2 granted, improving to 3 at 5 and 4 at 10.
Stances at 1, 2, 4, 7.

That's the maneuvers sorted.


For warblade class features are easy, remove 2 of the bonus feats and ditch all the dead levels, now it's 10 levels long.

For swordsage class features are a little harder, remove dead levels, AC bonus and insightful strike are both at the same level, evasion and the first defensive stance at the same level, improved evasion and the second defensive stance also at the same level.

For crusader class features, remove dead levels, start steely resolve at 10, steely resolve 25 and your second smite can both come at the same time.

[Elves]

I suppose you could take an Ur Priest style approach and crush the progression down into 10 levels [snip]
along similar lines here's an ur priest style homebrew PRC (https://docs.google.com/document/d/16RwD41OlByBJfDrf7wTVJMhj6Z5Qacu80G5AoUZMnNA/edit?usp=sharing). Advances initiator level faster instead of specifying maneuver level.

[RNightstalker]

Try to talk to your DM about why he rules that way, and you might gain some understanding from his point of view. Personally, it will be a while (if ever) until I allow the Incantatrix PrC or Persistent Spell: when even the boss gets hit on anything over a 1 and misses the PCs with anything less than a nat 20, that defeats the purpose.

The simplest way of incorporating the ToB base classes as PrCs, might be to simply consider them 20-level PrCs that need a certain BAB to join. Halve the maneuvers and stances at each level (rounding up) and that should help with any presumed imbalance.

[Gnaeus]

The problem (actually a feature) of making ToB classes PRCs is that the higher level you take them, the stronger they are. Because half your other class levels count towards IL. If you take your first swordsage level at 1, you get level 1 maneuvers. If you take at 5, you get level 2 maneuvers, 3 if you start at 9. So if your DM is already dubious about their power level, it’s just going to look stronger when you start late.

[gijoemike]

I fully support trying to get your GM to expand his horizons. I love Bo9S.


But here is something you need to understand and make perfectly clear to your GM for transparency. Gnaeus has already explained it. Your GM actually considers Fighter as a base class to be acceptable as he limits class choices to 8 or 9 base classes out of ~40 that have existed in the game for over a decade. There are 1000's of builds you aren't allowed to even try? That is absurd. The classes in Bo9S are multiple times better than Fighter, Monk, Paladin( and I will toss in Rogue too) ever hope to be. B09S is around the place were the martial classes SHOULD have started. I consider Bo9S classes a full replacement for most of the PHB martial classes.

The core classes in the PHB are the least balanced in the entire game as they came out too early and were not at all play tested worth crap. Sword Sage depending on powers is a better monk ( martial artist), monk ( wuxia chi fighter), rogue ( backstabber/assassin), and ninja ( shadow striker with magic) than anything the first several books can come close too. Wizards, Druids, and Clerics are still T1 best of the best and Bo9S will not hold a candle to them. But Bo9S classes will walk all over a monk, fighter, ranger without trying. That is not because they are overpowered, the fighter and monk are so poorly designed and weak they cannot compete.

Also, Bo9S classes work beautifully with multi-classing as 1/2 of martial levels count as initiator levels. So leaving a poorly designed class to go with a base class from Bo9S gives you a boost over starting a Bo9S class from level 1. Once again, good game design as prior character experience actually helps you when you shift focus.

[LordCharlemagne]

While it isn't exactly what you are looking for, a small project I once threw together was a ToB splice on system that laid out potential guidelines of splicing ToB maneuvers & stances onto any non ToB prestige class to help make them slightly more viable for those using ToB.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKDIJjUpHAWPlR7R6NjzmTqNjbyFrr7giFlTQRt5HF4/edit?usp=sharing

You should just be able to copy & paste it to access the google doc.

[Aracor]

The most obvious answer is to use the Martial Study and Martial Stance feats to make yourself a mini-initiator, and then use the prestige classes from the book to enhance it.

Maybe a homebrew feat to give yourself a recovery method...