Where does the "ToB is too strong" myth come from? [Archive]

Fizban

2021-04-08, 05:26 PM

I'm pretty tired of seeing DMs banning ToB because "it's so broken". Usually I just say "okay" and proceed to roll a full-caster.

Like, have they ever seen a Druid in play? Or a Barbarian? I'm not even going to touch on Wizards and Clerics, because these are classes where you have to actually know what you're doing for them to be broken, but any Druid with half a brain is broken even if you just stick to PHB stuff. And Barbarians can out-damage a ToBer without much effort.
Clearly they are not comparing to Druids or Barbarians built and played at the power level you expect.

You don't often see DMs claiming the Warlock is broken just because they can do stuff at will, so that's not the reason.
Sure they did. But on an optimization focused forum a decade after the fact, those people are either long gone or never have cause to speak up.

Fairly recently even, I was in an extended argument about the simple fact that the base game was not designed with certain at-will abilities in mind, which means that the resource consumption based definition of difficulty used by the DMG, can be violated by some abilities on principle. Regardless of how practically broken they may or may not be for any table, the possibility is something that a DM could decide is not appropriate for their game (or "broken") simply because they want all such abilities to be resource based.

And you can claim to hate the wuxia flavor of ToB, but flavor has no impact on mechanics.
The very first discipline alphabetically is Desert Wind, one of the most obviously supernatural. And mechanics and fluff absolutely influence each other, back and forth: it takes a specific mindset and intent to look at material published with certain pictures, or with Crystal and Manifester every other sentence, or with pages of racial fluff, and blatantly ignore everything that isn't direct numerical text.

I can't help but wonder why do so many DMs think it's so strong.
Presumably you're talking about either local DMs or those found on various gaming sites, 'cause on this forum you're about to get a landslide of people saying it's perfectly fine, barely does the minimum, or that they use homebrew or Pathfinder expansions of the system (which in direct comparison are almost always more powerful, in my experience).

H_H_F_F

2021-04-08, 05:28 PM

There was a thread discussing this at length (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?613742-Why-ban-ToB) some time ago. You can read it if you're interested in seeing a discussion, though I probably wouldn't read the entire thing - it's very long, and gets repetitive.

Kelb_Panthera

2021-04-08, 05:31 PM

ToB has a decent optimization floor. If the Barbarian is straight up core single-class and takes feats like Weapon Focus and Toughness, he's not going to out-damage a basic single-classed Warblade who picks a random stance + strike out of a hat. The Warblade will appear powerful because they are, in such a situation. But as always, player > build > class.

This isn't actually true, btw. A core barbarian's full attack is -very- comparable to the damage output of an equal level core+ToB warblade using whichever of his highest level maneuvers. Once you start optimizing the barbarian flies away and the warblade bangs his head on his class' relatively low optimization ceiling, a fact that is compounded greatly when prestige classes enter the fray.

Calthropstu

2021-04-08, 05:39 PM

Troacctid

2021-04-08, 05:51 PM

Thurbane

2021-04-08, 06:01 PM

There was a big brouhaha when ToB first came out and for a while afterwards.

Honestly, these days very few people argue that ToB is OP.

Some DMs will disallow it based on flavour (they don't like martials having abilities that loosely mimic a spellcasting system, or feel that it is too "wuxia" [and that was the one that sparked the most heated arguments]).

Some disallow it because they don't want subsystems or this particular subsystem in their game (for instance, in my own game I allow ToB, but disallow psionics, MoI, shadowcasting and truenaming, simply because myself and most of my players aren't familiar enough with them).

Also, some people were a bit disgruntled that 3 ToB base classes seemed clearly intended as replacements/upgrades for Paladin, Fighter and Monk, respectively. The Factotum got a similar reaction to being a Rogue replacement/upgrade.

You don't often see DMs claiming the Warlock is broken just because they can do stuff at will, so that's not the reason.

Actually, one DM in my group feels that is exactly the case.

When I first played a Dragon Shaman, he felt a 3d6 breath weapon once/4 rounds was far too OP, because I could "do it all day"!

I think this PoV is most common among older players who started in earlier systems (1E, 2E etc.) where all day abilities, apart from hitting things with a weapon, were unheard of. Even core 3.5 doesn't include much in the way of all day long special abilities - daily limits are far more common.

Ramza00

2021-04-08, 06:09 PM

ToB did three things.

ToB made martials more consistent throughout the encounter. It is harder to build a martial character which "sucks" when you gain abilities game designers are planning out at X consistent damage at HD 4, 6, 8, 10 etc but also save dcs of 10 + 1/2 HD + Mental Ability Score. This is what d20 was design around after all.
ToB made martials have infinite endurance that is limited by healing and the endurance of non ToB classes party members who need a break from battle.
ToB had some upper level feats but any character can have upper level feats once we are talking HD 15+ when 8th and 9th level spells and powers are occuring, and to a lesser extent HD 11+ with 6th level and above spells and powers.

Combine these 3 things at the same time and people craft narratives in their mind that ToB is too strong.

Luccan

2021-04-08, 08:37 PM

I'm pretty tired of seeing DMs banning ToB because "it's so broken". Usually I just say "okay" and proceed to roll a full-caster.

Like, have they ever seen a Druid in play? Or a Barbarian? I'm not even going to touch on Wizards and Clerics, because these are classes where you have to actually know what you're doing for them to be broken, but any Druid with half a brain is broken even if you just stick to PHB stuff. And Barbarians can out-damage a ToBer without much effort.

So, I wonder, where does this myth come from?

You don't often see DMs claiming the Warlock is broken just because they can do stuff at will, so that's not the reason.

And you can claim to hate the wuxia flavor of ToB, but flavor has no impact on mechanics.

I know I can count myself lucky my "main" D&D group allows for it, but I can't help but wonder why do so many DMs think it's so strong.

So, when I first heard about the Warlock when I was younger the person who brought it up labeled it "overpowered". And the thing is, with how we played, that was probably true. Unlimited-use magical abilities seemed ridiculous compared to my low to mid level "I thought it was a good idea to keep burning hands" Sorcerers and melee Bards. So it's not surprising that some DMs, many of whom probably still play with low optimization groups (which I've actually decided is about my preference), look at these full warriors that also get cool powers with progression similar to a caster and are almost unlimited in their use and say it's overpowered. A lot of classes in 3.X have a much lower optimization floor than the ToB classes, which leads to the perception that these classes are better than everything else (they're certainly better than straight levels in any other beatstick class because they can do other stuff). It's an issue of optimization knowledge

MaxiDuRaritry

2021-04-08, 09:12 PM

It's fairly simple; mundanes can't have nice things. ToB is full of pretty darned nice things for mundanes; ergo, they can't have them.

Drelua

2021-04-08, 09:25 PM

Kelb_Panthera

2021-04-08, 10:13 PM

ToB is too strong at low levels. Or if not too strong, then at least extremely strong, to the point where there is a legit argument for warblade and crusader being two of the top three base classes in the whole game.

Most campaigns start at level 1 and don't make it past mid-levels. That's an easy recipe for ToB domination. Who cares if it evens out later on? It's OP now. If that level range comprises the bulk of your experience with the book, I don't see why you'd come to any other conclusion.

A core barbarian doesn't even get a second attack until level 6, by which point the warblade and crusader have been spent the past five levels making her look like a clown because their baseline at-will power level is as good as or better than her 1/day rage power level.

{Scrubbed} There are a bare handful of maneuvers that just give flat extra damage without demanding an extra check to activate, and 2 of those 3 are only 2d6 extra damage. As soon as that second attack comes online, be it from hitting BAB 6, receiving a haste effect from an alied caster or potion, or anything else, you're outdamaging him -without- rage on most rounds. With rage, and you get 2 per day from level 4, the shot-in-the-arm to both accuracy and damage makes things pretty solidly in the barbarian's favor when it comes to making enemies drop.

Even with only 1 attack a round at level 1-4, the barbarian will consistently be doing more damage on most rounds just for sheer difference in stat priority on anything but random stat generation. Add in the rage and it gets to the point that the warblade -needs- the extra damage output to keep up.

Level 6+ and any degree of optimization starts to -really- favor the barbarian pretty quickly when it comes to sheer damage output. Power attack is more reliable for the barb, for instance, since he can just take the extra accuracy from rage and turn it into yet more damage with the same to-hit odds as, if not better than, the warblade.

So, no, they really -don't- make the barbarian look like a clown, even at the lowest levels. A core only fighter, maybe you're right, not that core only vs ToB is even a reasonable comparison in the first place. ToB gets, at minimum, core plus itself. A more reasonable comparison is the same for the other guy; core plus ToB. The ToB barbarian is -way- better at battering his foes at the lowest levels and still hits harder at later levels although he has fewer overall tricks up his sleeve. Alterantely, ToB plus core martial adepts compare fairly poorly against core plus complete warrior traditional martials if you even have a half-ass idea of what you're doing.

{Scrubbed}

ToB made martials more consistent throughout the encounter. It is harder to build a martial character which "sucks" when you gain abilities game designers are planning out at X consistent damage at HD 4, 6, 8, 10 etc but also save dcs of 10 + 1/2 HD + Mental Ability Score. This is what d20 was design around after all.

Not so. The game was designed around such an absolute minimum of competence that failing to be able to reliably hit system expectations for target numbers almost requires you to actively sabotage yourself when building martial characters.

ToB doesn't actually shift itself from hitting those target numbers, basically at all. What it does is make hitting them a more varied process.

ToB made martials have infinite endurance that is limited by healing and the endurance of non ToB classes party members who need a break from battle.

Lol. Because a fighter used to run out of sword so often. HP were always the limiting factor for martial characters. The only ToB character that puts that in question is the crusader. If you don't have rage, you can still swing your axe. If you don't have smites, your lance still stabs. A crusader that's focused on stone dragon and devoted spirit can be a royal PitA to drop but the dynamics of warrior caste characters is otherwise largely unchanged before and after ToB.

ToB had some upper level feats but any character can have upper level feats once we are talking HD 15+ when 8th and 9th level spells and powers are occuring, and to a lesser extent HD 11+ with 6th level and above spells and powers.

The linear warrior quadratic wizard issue is barely given a side-eye by ToB, much less properly addressed, even if that issue is grossly overstated in this system/forum. Having a few mid and high level specials that are attached to martial base classes rather than demanding you prestige to get them isn't much of a concern.

Combine these 3 things at the same time and people craft narratives in their mind that ToB is too strong.

{Scrubbed} That even people that know the system pretty well and actually like ToB have let themselves come to believe the idea that ToB is more powerful and more versatile than its competition really doesn't help. It's as powerful or more versatile, and virtually never both.

{Scrubbed}

There are, as far as I can tell, two entirely valid reasons to keep ToB out of your game, particularly after all these years:

Simple taste: even after taking a good, honest look at the system it still just ruffles your jimmies somehow. There's no accounting for taste so if a GM just says "I just don't like it and that's it," then there's nothing more to be said.

Constraints of GM capacity: the GM either has no time to spend learning the system, just doesn't want to because GMing is already complex enough for him, or simply can't wrap his head around it. Demanding he deal with something he's wholly inexperienced with and/or that he get familiar with it is just pure entitlement. "Pick something I already know how to deal with" is not an unreasonable position to hold when the system is -this- complex right from the starting line.

{Scrubbed}

rel

2021-04-08, 10:55 PM

The legitimate argument usually starts with 'we generally only use the PHB', ends with 'we tend to stop playing at level 4' and has a body of 'we roll our stats and pick the coolest sounding options when building our characters'.

When compared to the half elf fighter with 12's in strength and con, and dodge and combat expertise as feats, the chad crusader doing more healing than the cleric and more damage than the rogue without ever seeming to run out of spells seems pretty amazing.

Troacctid

2021-04-08, 11:28 PM

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} There are a bare handful of maneuvers that just give flat extra damage without demanding an extra check to activate, and 2 of those 3 are only 2d6 extra damage. As soon as that second attack comes online, be it from hitting BAB 6, receiving a haste effect from an alied caster or potion, or anything else, you're outdamaging him -without- rage on most rounds. With rage, and you get 2 per day from level 4, the shot-in-the-arm to both accuracy and damage makes things pretty solidly in the barbarian's favor when it comes to making enemies drop.

Even with only 1 attack a round at level 1-4, the barbarian will consistently be doing more damage on most rounds just for sheer difference in stat priority on anything but random stat generation. Add in the rage and it gets to the point that the warblade -needs- the extra damage output to keep up.

Level 6+ and any degree of optimization starts to -really- favor the barbarian pretty quickly when it comes to sheer damage output. Power attack is more reliable for the barb, for instance, since he can just take the extra accuracy from rage and turn it into yet more damage with the same to-hit odds as, if not better than, the warblade.

So, no, they really -don't- make the barbarian look like a clown, even at the lowest levels. A core only fighter, maybe you're right, not that core only vs ToB is even a reasonable comparison in the first place. ToB gets, at minimum, core plus itself. A more reasonable comparison is the same for the other guy; core plus ToB. The ToB barbarian is -way- better at battering his foes at the lowest levels and still hits harder at later levels although he has fewer overall tricks up his sleeve. Alterantely, ToB plus core martial adepts compare fairly poorly against core plus complete warrior traditional martials if you even have a half-ass idea of what you're doing.
If you're a warblade, you have Punishing Stance for extra damage on all attacks. It's like a slightly worse rage that's always on. All your maneuvers are on top of that: Steel Wind, Wolf Fang Strike, and Steely Strike can all improve your DPR, while Leading the Attack improves your allies' DPR, and Stone Bones makes you a brick wall for a round. Meanwhile, crusaders don't have Punishing Stance, but they have Martial Spirit, which gives them at-will healing, and Furious Counterstrike, which gives an attack and damage bonus when trading blows. They have Stone Bones and Crusader's Strike to be a brick wall, and they have two different versions of Leading the Attack, as well as heavy armor instead of medium. Most low-level enemies will bounce off a crusader like ping-pong balls off a cinderblock.

And if you get a second attack...you still have the option to full attack, with all the benefits of your stance applying to every hit.

Maat Mons

2021-04-09, 12:12 AM

I tried introducing ToB to players who had no substantial knowledge of 3.5. They concluded that ToB was too weak. They felt that not being able to do something every single round made it lame and that having more than one option available at any given moment was headache-inducingly overcomplicated.

They spent their time salivating over the Weapon Master class from Sword and Fist. Because, clearly, getting x5 damage on a critical hit with a scythe once in a blue moon is the most bonkers-powerful thing ever. I tried to sell them on ubercharger builds, once I found out they liked big numbers and hated versatility. But they rejected those builds as "too situational."

Elves

2021-04-09, 03:24 AM

I tried introducing ToB to players who had no substantial knowledge of 3.5. They concluded that ToB was too weak. They felt that not being able to do something every single round made it lame and that having more than one option available at any given moment was headache-inducingly overcomplicated.

How intelligible do you think they would have found this (https://i.imgur.com/8z7xf5H.png)? I'm doing these sheets to go with a WIP "beginner module" and took a stab at a TOB one.

Asmotherion

2021-04-09, 03:34 AM

ToB is a very nice book, and I like it.

The problem comes from stuff like deleting the sun because it's anoying you that give it a bad reputation.

Overall, I believe it's fine, excluding some obviously broken abilities. Other than that, I believe most DMs don't want to memorise new mechanics, and use the "It's broken" rumor as an excuse, without actually knowing what is broken about it.

Bavarian itP

2021-04-09, 05:40 AM

It's fairly simple; mundanes can't have nice things. ToB is full of pretty darned nice things for mundanes; ergo, they can't have them.

Or it's more like "ToB chars are not mundanes. They make mundanes even more useless. That's bad, because I like mundanes."

Zarvistic

2021-04-09, 06:08 AM

How intelligible do you think they would have found this (https://i.imgur.com/8z7xf5H.png)? I'm doing these sheets to go with a WIP "beginner module" and took a stab at a TOB one.
This looks pretty cool, I'd be curious to see any other sheets you made.

Albions_Angel

2021-04-09, 06:18 AM

Or it's more like "ToB chars are not mundanes. They make mundanes even more useless. That's bad, because I like mundanes."

I dont even think its that. I think its simply that ToB has a high floor, as well as a high ceiling. Martials generally have low floors and low ceilings, casters have low floors and stratospheric ceilings.

But at low levels, for 99% of parties (for whom a martial is someone that hits things hard or pokes things fast, and a caster is someone that goes "pew pew yay damage") ToB characters are just better. Take the sword sage, at low levels, you are multi-hitting, teleporting, making people blind, doing AoEs, and you can keep doing it longer, harder, faster than even the wizard. Sure, by level 5, you are back to being a beatstick and the wizard has fireball, but thats 4 levels away.

And sure, you can make powerful casters at level 1. Hell, you only need level 2 or 3 to achieve Pun Pun. But that requires some serious optimisation. The sword sage does not. Its good out of the box.

So why the hatred? Surely you just replace the bad classes with the new good ones? No one plays truenamer after all. If you want to, you play a wizard with all the power word spells.

Because that high floor is high both for damage/combat utility, but also for skill required to play it. Compared to literally everything else, even very optimised casters, ToB classes require INSANE book keeping. Hell, compared to 4e classes, they required insane book keeping. They were the PLAYTEST for 4e. They STRIPPED OUT the recovery mechanic because it was TOO MUCH.

So you have players and DMs coming across ToB. Most of them are low op tables. If they are 3.5e players, they didnt like 4e, and didnt like 5e, and presumably, if they are tempted by ToB, didnt like Pathfinder, so also wont like Spheres. OR they are 5e players wanting to try something a little more complex but have never seen anything like ToB before.

Most of the table is going to take one look and simply not engage with it. The few players that do are going to outshine everyone else for the first few sessions. Its going to cause arguments and bad feeling.

These are not the players on this forum. These are not people that have folders and folders of complex characters waiting to be played. These are people that think "barbarian smash", "paladin smite", "wizard useless, more complex version of sorcerer" (an actual line I have heard before).

The truth of how broken ToB is after all that doesnt matter. The fact that its for players like us doesnt matter. DMs will ban it because its unfamiliar, causes tension, and yes, at low levels, is a significant power source.

Its not about "mundains cant have nice things" or "this makes mundains useless". Its about "no other mundain can do this, and at level 1, nor can most casters, and its objectively higher numbers, and thats not fair". Its no good saying "just you wait, at level 20 things will even out". They arnt playing past level 10. And if its an unbalanced table, they arnt playing past session 1.

Hell, I have come to LOVE ToB, I STILL lock it away in a tiny region of my world, because if I ever get to run that world, it will be with people that have NEVER PLAYED 3.5E BEFORE and its just too much for them to take on all at once.

ToB isnt too strong. ToB is too strong and too complex at low levels for casual players.

Efrate

2021-04-09, 09:37 AM

The issues are higher floor, too anime, and do not want to learn.

Some see it as too anime, and disallow it.

Some do not want to learn it becuase its too complex.

The higer floor is the power issue. As long as you use manuevers and stances, you will out damage every other martial with more consistency. At the "normal" or "casual" level. Most players are like that, and most will NOT power attack for more than 1 or 2 ever if that. They will not take shock trooper. So your crusader/warblade will be doing the exact same damage as your barbarian or fighter.

Both 2d6 plus 1.5 str. Assuming a 16 strength which i take as normal, 18 on a half orc, thats 2d6 plus 4/6. More likely 1d8 or 1d12. Barbarians with rage is comparable to fighter with weapon specialization, +2 damage. Thats level 1 barbarian vs. level 4 fighter. But level 1 adept gets a d6 for a maneuver, or 2d6 with punishing stance. A d6 maneuver you can use every encounter is 3.5 damage, often with somwthing else as an add on, so already better. Punishing stance increases that to 7 extra damage. So your level 1 outdamages fighter 4 or barbarian 1 every time.

At level 6 you get the extra attack which we will say hits 50% of the time. So its a 1 in 2 chance to do an extra 2d6 + 4/6. Thats 11 or 13 extra damage, but only half the time. so 5.5 to 6.5. You get 7 at level 1. And thats using level 1 stuff.

Again as you level you will not use many level 1 maneuvers. Your 3rd levels do a lot more again with riders at full acuuracy.

Now a full attacking charger with shock trooper will out damage it, but again thats beyond the optimization of most non forum users. Thats at minimum 2 different sources known and allowed versus ToB which does it out the box. You have to know about the existence of the feat from a splat, know about charging and how to deal with it in any and all non open plain fights.

Or just use a maneuver which is contained in the book with your class and is your class feature.

At that level of play, your final iterative attack is most often missing before power attack, so you will get at best 3 attacks that hit. And thats only on full attack and you will not have pounce or the equivilent. Meanwhile you can move and do comparable damage to that always as a ToB characters.

That is the level of MOST players, in my experience, and of a lot of folks coming from 5E.

We here on giant and the like have an encyclopedic knowledge of the system, all the moving parts, and how it can be pushed. Dozens of sources, inside and out. That is too much for most non dedicated fans. I expect maybe 2 books, one of them being core phb, for my players to have a working knowledge of or built a character out of, and thats pushing it depending on the group.

The folks I play with who do have the knowledge usually build tier 4 or 5 and ban anything that is too OP which includes shock trooper, pounce, and often magic marts in general. They like the challenge. And the game functions well at that level and not much beyond it. Last group was knight, soulborn, healer, DFA and warlock. Warlock only did basic blast, never used most invocations, DFA used breath and had immunities thrown left and right for being too strong with a fire breath weapon, DFA stopped using most invocations because draconic knowledge succeeding on all knowledge checks was too OP, just kept to endure exposure.

Thunder999

2021-04-09, 09:56 AM

noob

2021-04-09, 10:04 AM

If ToB classes are worse than a core barbarian, why are they usually ranked better whenever tiers and the like come up? I'm not disputing it, but even on this forum there's a lot of people who consider a warblade to be better than a fighter or barbarian, so it can't just be people crippling their fighter builds.

The crusader is better overall than a barbarian thanks to higher polyvalence and abilities that allows to heal allies or pass saves unless you optimise the barbarian and do not optimise the crusader.
Regardless if you optimise hard enough both are umd using fullcasters once the wbl gets high enough.
So in general comparing classes can get complicated rather fast.

Telonius

2021-04-09, 10:36 AM

I think a lot of the comparisons really come down to what an individual person or table thinks is cheesy, and whether or not they think particular things ought to be considered when making comparisons between classes. To take probably the most famous (and extreme) example: Pun-Pun's earliest entry is through Paladin, but you'll never see Paladin listed as a Tier-1 class in any of those discussions. That's because it's near-universally regarded as theoretical optimization. People discard it as an option, even though it technically has a higher optimization ceiling than anything else.

That's the extreme example. Some people's thresholds are a lot lower. Is a Whirling Frenzy Barbarian with Shock Trooper, Lion Totem, and a Valorous Lance too much for some groups, to be discarded when discussing how powerful the Barbarian class is? Some people would say yes, some would say no. On the forums we've been breaking the game into smithereens for well over a decade; the cheese tolerance among posters is a whole lot higher than your average gamer.

I'd strongly suspect that there's a lot of overlap between people who discard more options, and people who think ToB classes are overpowered. Regardless of how high the ToB classes' optimization ceilings are, I think most people could agree that their floors are a lot higher than Core melee. It's really hard to screw up a build for a ToB class if you aren't actively trying to. Even if you take nothing but Stone Dragon maneuvers, they're still useful in some situations. So if you discard the higher-op options for regular melee classes, and stack them against the ToB classes, of course ToB's going to look more powerful in comparison.

Morty

2021-04-09, 10:40 AM

On low levels, ToB can certainly feel overpowered. When fighters and rogues are making their one attack per round and casters are wondering if they want to use one of their 5 spells per day - and if they're a wizard or sorcerer, hoping an enemy doesn't give them a mean look and kill them - a martial adept is busting out several maneuvers every encounter.

Lilapop

2021-04-09, 11:12 AM

Compared to literally everything else, even very optimised casters, ToB classes require INSANE book keeping.

Huh? All three recovery mechanics be played as a trading card game, just slamming the cutout for your maneuver on the table. Crusaders are literally a TCG with stash, hand and graveyard. And we are effectively talking about the before times here, so how clunky or not Roll20's card system is doesn't apply.

Meanwhile, a level 9 sorcerer has a total of 22 spells known compared to the initiators' 9/14/8 maneuvers known. Much less paper to read through every time your initiative comes up.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-09, 11:22 AM

People got very mad at me for comparing crusaders to Magic the Gathering last time this discussion was had, but I agree that it's a lot like a card game. More complex than a core only Barbarian for sure though - most casual players find tripping redundant and confusing, and use magic missile, burning hands and fireball.

I tend to agree with the line of thinking saying that people calling ToB OP do so because of the high optimization floor.

The main thing I dislike about it is the flavour evoked by the mechanics, has nothing to do with power- but it'd be way to OP for the table I'm DMing right now, and I suspect for a lot of other tables too.

Most people who are "fine with Barbarians" would NOT be fine with CC lion totem, either.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2021-04-09, 11:55 AM

This isn't actually true, btw. A core barbarian's full attack is -very- comparable to the damage output of an equal level core+ToB warblade using whichever of his highest level maneuvers. Once you start optimizing the barbarian flies away and the warblade bangs his head on his class' relatively low optimization ceiling, a fact that is compounded greatly when prestige classes enter the fray.The short answer here is that I'm very explicitly talking about low-op. I actually agree that ToB's op ceiling is relatively limited (which IMO makes it good game design). But let's revisit this Barbarian "advantage" of doing slightly more damage on a full attack at level 6+, in a low-op environment:

At higher levels when full attacks are more relevant, it's not like the Warblade can't full attack - more that he doesn't have to. Yes, he'd have to take punishing stance to equal the barbarian's damage output, but it's not a huge difference. The key, though, is that relying on the full attack action to be effective is a problem, because you won't always start your turn near an enemy. One of the biggest low-op boons of ToB is that you don't need to go find a source of free movement to do your thing. We all know how to make this a relatively minor distinction with pounce and travel devotion and chronocharms and such, but again, not so for the noob.

I've never seen a "broken druid" even on this forum. In fact, I personally consider them to be fairly weak sauce. They had an advantage in summoning in 3.5, but could not apply templates. Their spell lists were devoid of anything even remotely useful. Their wildshape ability lost out to polymorph, and their animal companions are just shy of useless.

Sure, they can focus on any one of those to make them stronger, but I honestly put druids below bards.I disagree on all counts. I could talk about Greenbound Summoning (which is a template), or Enhance Wild Shape, or Aberration Wild Shape, or Fleshrakers with Venomfire, but how about we stick to low-op low-level core to keep it simple? A lack of optimization weakens a druid, sure, but a falling tide sinks all ships. First, compare a designer-intended fighter with a riding dog. With the elite array, Tordek has +4 to hit for 1d10+2 damage, 17 AC, 13 HP, and some situational dwarf bonuses. A riding dog has +3 to hit for 1d6+3 damage, 16 AC (no barding in low-op), 13 HP, and a free trip on hit. Is Tordek better? Probably; he has +1 more attack/average damage/AC, which probably makes up for the free trip. But he's not so much better as to render the AC "useless." The most important benefit of the AC, of course, is that it's not a huge deal if it dies.

The same goes for summoning. The animals a druid will summon at any particular level aren't going to match what the Fighter is doing, but it's going to be close enough to matter. And combined with the AC, just summoning once per encounter will out-meat-wall the PC meat wall. The one drawback of SNA is that it has fewer utility forms than SM, but that matters less when you cast it spontaneously.

This also gets into spells. At level 1, the core druid gets Entangle, which is an entirely thematic choice for a noob to take. Then they realize what it does. Does the druid have great core winners at every level? Would I take his list over a wizard? No, but (a) with the spontaneous summoning there is a decent floor on the combat-effectiveness of each spell, and (b) since the bar is apparently Bardic spellcasting, barring a mostly-social campaign, I'll take Druid spellcasting any day of the week.

Finally, at low op, Polymorph isn't that much stronger than Wildshape for pure combat. And the Druid gets her feature 2+ levels sooner, it doesn't cost spell slots, and it lasts for hours (soon enough, all day) with an investment of one obvious core feat. And a class feature "losing out to" one of the best spells in the game isn't as bad as you make it out to be.

Ramza00

2021-04-09, 01:05 PM

Not so. The game was designed around such an absolute minimum of competence that failing to be able to reliably hit system expectations for target numbers almost requires you to actively sabotage yourself when building martial characters.

ToB doesn't actually shift itself from hitting those target numbers, basically at all. What it does is make hitting them a more varied process.

My arguement is beginners who have no system mastery and barely understand how to play the game will be more consistent with Tome of Battle instead of picking fighter feats which is more overwhelming with choice but also you can make lots of bad choices that do not synergize.

I argue this is a good thing. But some people see this as overpowered (they are wrong but this is subjective stuff. Demonstrating they are wrong requires “showing the numbers and various builds”, yet people can voice they can just “tell” their instincts without crunching the numbers.)

Lol. Because a fighter used to run out of sword so often. HP were always the limiting factor for martial characters. The only ToB character that puts that in question is the crusader. If you don't have rage, you can still swing your axe. If you don't have smites, your lance still stabs. A crusader that's focused on stone dragon and devoted spirit can be a royal PitA to drop but the dynamics of warrior caste characters is otherwise largely unchanged before and after ToB.
Agreed but the people arguing against feel this way for ToB feels like spells. I argue they are wrong but I am also explaining why they feel this way even if I disagree.

It almost always comes down to prejudice and ignorance. That even people that know the system pretty well and actually like ToB have let themselves come to believe the idea that ToB is more powerful and more versatile than its competition really doesn't help. It's as powerful or more versatile, and virtually never both.

Yes. It is prejudice and ignorance yet the opinion remains.

Particle_Man

2021-04-09, 01:10 PM

I can see the low optimization reason. I have been in a campaign where my vanilla warlock gave up my chasuble of fell power (which I created) because it made my character too powerful. My current dm bans the book and, given the optimization level of my party, I can see it.

Twurps

2021-04-10, 08:54 AM

gijoemike

2021-04-10, 12:15 PM

I think part of it is that while a Barbarian may be able to do more damage, that's pretty much all they can do. Warblades are almost as good as Barbarians, and they can also use Diamond Mind to shrug off certain conditions, Crusaders can heal themselves, Swordsages can shoot fire out of their hands and turn invisible. Most Mundane classes have very little versatility, and can do basically nothing but hit stuff, or maybe shoot stuff. Oh, and they can probably climb and swim, or maybe jump, which might barely ever come up depending on the DM.

Most people aren't going to look at a Warblade and compare it to Druid, they'll compare them to Fighters, or Paladins, which I would say are straight up weaker than anything from ToB, or Barbarians, who can do decent damage, in one encounter/day. When they're not raging, which is most fights at that point, they're just a strong guy with a sword and no class features. When they work less often, and have way less tools available, they don't really compare well.

BAM. Warblade is at least 3 times better than Fighter, Crusader at least 2 times better than a paladin, and swordsage makes a better Rogue or Monk Mechanically and Thematically. So in these comparisons ppl assume the base is fighter/pally/rogue/monk and they say the TOB class is better in every way, therefore it must be broken because if something is much better with no downsides it must be broken.

BUT I SAY TO YOU, the base is NOT the fighter or barbarian, or even the rogue. The base is warblade, swordsage and crusader. We must ask ourselves how did the developers fail so miserably as to create a worthless class like fighter. They don't even get the skills to be a sloped foreheaded meat shield.

BoNS: ToB was the developers finally correcting a design mistake in the martials. They finally gave them options and nifty but not broken stuff/powers. They gave them easy GISH like powers yet they could remain straight class. TOB is in my opinion one of the best 3.X books.

Gnaeus

2021-04-10, 01:28 PM

We have seen a lot of discussion about the power of ToB at 1-3 and I don’t disagree.

What I haven’t seen discussed is the power of ToB dips at later levels. A level of Warblade, taken at 9, is strong on almost any martial build. Stronger than any other dip or one level PRC I can think of with the possible exception of the 1 level class that is chargepounce Barbarian. 2 levels of swordsage, taken at 5 and 8, are a big power up to a rogue, ranger or scout. It’s easy for a DM, who is used to a 1 level cleric dip giving first level spells, to be overwhelmed by the added power of a 1 level dip providing second and third level maneuvers.

Zancloufer

2021-04-10, 01:55 PM

Only 2d6? That might not be a lot for you, but at our table, that's at least double your normal damage at lvl's 1-3. I do agree that the extra attack puts the 'regular melee' guys much closer to the TOB classes, but (again at least at our table) that doesn't consistently happen untill lvl6. And if it happens earlier through haste etc, a TOB class can still 'just' do a normal attack, sure he won't have rage, but he'll still have a (presumably) decent stance to work with.

I get that +2d6 isn't completely useless at low levels but to call it double damage is a bit misleading. You average level 1 frontline PC will have 16-18 Str, maybe a +4 from rage and could very easily be packing a two handed weapon for as much as 2d6+9 damage. Also most level 1 stances are at best +1d6 damage, or some other minor advantage, the only one that can add upwards of 2d6 reliably at level 1-2 is one that essentially double your damage with disadvantage which is a functionally 1/encounter ability most of the time.

Anyway most level 1 stances are either utility/team work based or are weaker than rage but without limited usage per day. Either way I would argue the issue isn't that ToB is too powerful, but that core melee is too weak and ToB was made much later into the life of the system when the designers themselves gained some system mastery and wanted to present things that lacked bad options and were more fun to play.

Rater202

2021-04-10, 03:35 PM

noob

2021-04-10, 04:46 PM

I think most people who haven't taken the time with it look at Iron Heart Surge, the maneuver most cited in conversation due to it being a meme, and assume it's the standard.

And Iron Heart Surge is a meme because interpreted by Strict Raw instead of the obvious intention, it makes you a reality warper whose power approaches nigh-omnipotent levels.

Only matched by comparably silly interpretations of the truename dispel spell and by the alter shape ability from sarrukhs.

Morphic tide

2021-04-10, 04:49 PM

The basic thing of it is that ToB bundles everything that Martials need for basic competence up front without any catches, but doesn't plug into higher Ubercharger optimization so we look at it as middling. The common suggestion of Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian is a Champions of Valor AFC, while Valorous Weapon is from Unapproachable East, getting mounted combat to work properly for lances and Spirited Charge to be useful is Paladin or Ranger work unless you do another round of splatbook diving...

It's remarkably difficult to put together a Martial keeping up with a ToB class in just damage output from 1-20 with core +1, even if the ToB classes can't get much use of the Martial content outside their requisite core +1. And the ToB classes all get plenty of other things they're doing in addition to damage. Pretty much only the Paladin with the backing of at least three splatbooks+web enhancements keeps up as a single-class character with the ToB pile thanks to the versatility demands, and has harshly limited endurance in comparison.

Twurps

2021-04-10, 05:32 PM

I get that +2d6 isn't completely useless at low levels but to call it double damage is a bit misleading. You average level 1 frontline PC will have 16-18 Str, maybe a +4 from rage and could very easily be packing a two handed weapon for as much as 2d6+9 damage. Also most level 1 stances are at best +1d6 damage, or some other minor advantage, the only one that can add upwards of 2d6 reliably at level 1-2 is one that essentially double your damage with disadvantage which is a functionally 1/encounter ability most of the time.

Anyway most level 1 stances are either utility/team work based or are weaker than rage but without limited usage per day. Either way I would argue the issue isn't that ToB is too powerful, but that core melee is too weak and ToB was made much later into the life of the system when the designers themselves gained some system mastery and wanted to present things that lacked bad options and were more fun to play.

I must admit I didn't really factor in the flat bonus from strength when making my earlier statement. Then again, your average front line melee might also be sword and board, with a 17 strength (because he didn't roll any 18's) and without rage, doing 1d8+3. ToB on the other hand doesn't only have maneuvers, it also has stances. Punishing stance is a very easy 1d6 extra, and an addtional 1d6 from a maneuver isn't hard to find. (also: 'utility' could also mean you can actually make 2 attacks right at lvl 1, without needing haste from a caster) At lvl3 mountain hammer comes in, and the TOB guy actually swings for an extra 3d6 (including punishing stance), so my 2d6 was a conservative estimate as well.

Anyway: I do agree that TOB isn't overpowered, core melee is too weak.
My only complaint about TOB would be that it ups the power mostly at early levels, where melee actually needs the help more at higher levels.

Darg

2021-04-10, 07:51 PM

I think most people who haven't taken the time with it look at Iron Heart Surge, the maneuver most cited in conversation due to it being a meme, and assume it's the standard.

And Iron Heart Surge is a meme because interpreted by Strict Raw instead of the obvious intention, it makes you a reality warper whose power approaches nigh-omnipotent levels.

White raven tactics is another one that people misunderstand the rules for. When an effect says "ally" it means someone other than yourself. When an effect says "allies" you are considered your own ally and can benefit. It's right there in the glossary in the PHB under "ally."

Zombimode

2021-04-11, 03:27 AM

White raven tactics is another one that people misunderstand the rules for. When an effect says "ally" it means someone other than yourself. When an effect says "allies" you are considered your own ally and can benefit. It's right there in the glossary in the PHB under "ally."

This is the actual text:

ally: A creature friendly to you. In most cases,
references to “allies” include yourself.

Your reading is definitely not explicit. But neither is the common "you are you own ally" reading. I will still go with the later. That the singular is a subset of the multiple feels like a more consistent reading.

icefractal

2021-04-11, 04:52 AM

Unless the rest of your party sucks in combat, whether White Raven Tactics can target yourself is a relatively small difference in power. It's an extra turn either way.

As for the OP, I think it's a combination of the higher-floor / all-in-one aspects that people have mentioned, and also that you need to consider how things look through non-mechanics-grokking goggles:
* The quickest guide to an ability's power is how many dice get rolled. 10 dice is a lot stronger of an ability than 1-2 dice plus some static bonus, you can say that for sure! 10d6 is like 60 points right there.
* You can't always get a full attack, so how the single attack compares is at least equally important. (This one is true to an extent.)
* Since you don't know what magic items you'll end up with, there's no point considering them when thinking about balance.
* Being able to go cross-role (melee as a mage, heal as a warrior, do elemental damage as a warrior) is really powerful.
* Casters are mainly balanced by having limited spells/day, whereas a Fighter or Rogue never runs out of resources. So a 'caster like' ability that wasn't limited in uses would be insanely powerful, if someone were foolish enough to write such content.

Looking at it that way, ToB starts to look crazy strong. And judging by comments I've seen, that's how a fair number of people view things.

tiercel

2021-04-11, 04:53 AM

noob

2021-04-11, 06:04 AM

It’s possible that a DM who’s read one too may character advice threads might develop an allergy to ToB as a knee-jerk response to exchanges like:

“So, I’m trying to build <melee concept> character and—“

“LOL USE TOB INSTEAD!”
“TOB”
“In b4 ToB opps lol swordsaged”
“Can you use ToB?”
“If your DM thinks ToB is overpowered, he is wrong”
“You should at least dip ToB”
“I hate to just say ‘use Tome of Battle,’ but....”
“IRON HEART SUUUUUURGE I TURN OFF THE SUN”
“Iron Heart Surge I’m immune to this thread!”
“White Raven Tactics I replay this whole thread again!”
“Have you accepted Spheres of Power as your personal Lord and Savior?”
“In 5e, bounded accuracy....”

The only one I disagree with is the last one.
5e sadly fails at bounded accuracy.

Unless the rest of your party sucks in combat, whether White Raven Tactics can target yourself is a relatively small difference in power. It's an extra turn either way.

As for the OP, I think it's a combination of the higher-floor / all-in-one aspects that people have mentioned, and also that you need to consider how things look through non-mechanics-grokking goggles:
* The quickest guide to an ability's power is how many dice get rolled. 10 dice is a lot stronger of an ability than 1-2 dice plus some static bonus, you can say that for sure! 10d6 is like 60 points right there.
* You can't always get a full attack, so how the single attack compares is at least equally important. (This one is true to an extent.)
* Since you don't know what magic items you'll end up with, there's no point considering them when thinking about balance.
* Being able to go cross-role (melee as a mage, heal as a warrior, do elemental damage as a warrior) is really powerful.
* Casters are mainly balanced by having limited spells/day, whereas a Fighter or Rogue never runs out of resources. So a 'caster like' ability that wasn't limited in uses would be insanely powerful, if someone were foolish enough to write such content.

Looking at it that way, ToB starts to look crazy strong. And judging by comments I've seen, that's how a fair number of people view things.
{Scrubbed}

Automatically winning all the fights and being useless otherwise is tier 4.
This is why bard which seems underwhelming in many aspects is tier 3: it have something a tier 4 class often lacks: being useful in many situations.
Most of your stuff is assuming that dealing damage is more important than it actually is.
Being able to heal people can be more useful than damage as can being able to teleport 30 feet away or succeeding saves (useful when triggering traps for example) because all of those can be used outside of battle more often than damage unlike you really like digging and breaking walls.
Even then if you can still deal a few hundred damage to walls in a turn does it matters that it is not a few billions per turn?
The vast majority of the time this damage difference does not matters.
Tob classes gives significantly more out of battle utility than the fighter and the barbarian.(you have skills as barbs and fighters have + a bunch of extras)
Paladin often matches or exceeds tob classes in out of battle utility at the slight disadvantage of being limited in spells per day so tob does not exactly obsoletes the paladin.
The rogue is not in competition with the tob but some tob abilities are very tempting for rogues so dipping can be attractive.

If all you ever do is fight things that are killable by an ubercharger then barbarian will seem the best class ever but the more different situations you encounter the more likely you are to figure out that polyvalence is useful.

Gnaeus

2021-04-11, 08:13 AM

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
Automatically winning all the fights and being useless otherwise is tier 4..

That’s not really true. Automatically winning fights would be at least high T3. Arguably T2 as a campaign nuke if you could win all fights enough.

High T4 (like an ubercharger) is can kill anything it can hit. You can absolutely lose fights with a charger on your team.

You can easily, and ToB classes are among the best examples, hit T3 by pure combat ability. If your combat ability (like ToB) contains counters to a significant subset of combat problems. Like obstacles, invisible things, incorporeal threats, battlefield control etc.

noob

2021-04-11, 08:27 AM

That’s not really true. Automatically winning fights would be at least high T3. Arguably T2 as a campaign nuke if you could win all fights enough.

High T4 (like an ubercharger) is can kill anything it can hit. You can absolutely lose fights with a charger on your team.

You can easily, and ToB classes are among the best examples, hit T3 by pure combat ability. If your combat ability (like ToB) contains counters to a significant subset of combat problems. Like obstacles, invisible things, incorporeal threats, battlefield control etc.

{Scrubbed} above tier 4 you must have a minimal amount of polyvalence and problem solving as more than just fighting.
Also I did specify that uberchargers did not win all the fights I also told that winning all the fights is not what a high tier is.
What makes tob classes tier 3 is not their fighting ability(if that was the only thing they would be tier 4): it is that they get a lot of things useful outside of fighting too.

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Tier 4: Good at one thing but useless at everything else, or mediocre at many things.

So by definition willing all the fights ever but doing nothing else is tier 4.

Drelua

2021-04-11, 10:17 AM

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I believe their point was that someone who doesn't really understand the game's mechanics might say those things, so for the purpose of that comment knowing how tiers work would be something of a contradiction. If someone showed me ToB when I was 15 or 16 and had just started playing, I probably would have thought it was broken for similar reasons.

Gnaeus

2021-04-11, 10:49 AM

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
above tier 4 you must have a minimal amount of polyvalence and problem solving as more than just fighting.
Also I did specify that uberchargers did not win all the fights I also told that winning all the fights is not what a high tier is.
What makes tob classes tier 3 is not their fighting ability(if that was the only thing they would be tier 4): it is that they get a lot of things useful outside of fighting too.

So by definition willing all the fights ever but doing nothing else is tier 4.

Dude, I helped write the tier definitions. I wrote some of the original why each class is in its tier definitions. There is exactly one of us who doesn’t understand how tiers work. You sound like someone trying to explain to Mark Zuckerberg that computers use something called binary, which is composed of 0s, 1s and 2s.

Your definition of does one thing is flawed. Winning a fight is a whole bunch of things, most of which are among the most important things in the game. An Ubercharger is T4, even if he can do infinite damage per hit, but that is because hitting things hard is one thing, a small section of combat. If the ubercharger could also natively engage flying opponents, ethereal opponents, invisible opponents, could just nope hostile effects, bypass and practice battlefield control, break action economy, trigger SoLs on any save, etc, it would be tier 3. ToB isn’t higher tier because of their amazing non combat utility, which isn’t much above a Barbarian. They are tier 3 because if “hit things with stick” isn’t a good combat option, they can go with “choke enemy with shadow” or “give cleric another turn” or “teleport past this wall”, “blast target with fire” etc.

Elves

2021-04-11, 12:17 PM

White raven tactics is another one that people misunderstand the rules for. When an effect says "ally" it means someone other than yourself. When an effect says "allies" you are considered your own ally and can benefit. It's right there in the glossary in the PHB under "ally."

Your reading is definitely not explicit. But neither is the common "you are you own ally" reading. I will still go with the later. That the singular is a subset of the multiple feels like a more consistent reading.

More to the point, banning self-targeting doesn't actually nerf the power of the maneuver since there's no reason other party members would be weaker than yourself (and some may be stronger). A more effective nerf is to cap it at 1/round per person, since that's where it gets wacky and the infinite loops start.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-11, 01:07 PM

You did not read the same definition of tier as I did.
Go and reread tiers: above tier 4 you must have a minimal amount of polyvalence and problem solving as more than just fighting.
Also I did specify that uberchargers did not win all the fights I also told that winning all the fights is not what a high tier is.
What makes tob classes tier 3 is not their fighting ability(if that was the only thing they would be tier 4): it is that they get a lot of things useful outside of fighting too.

So by definition willing all the fights ever but doing nothing else is tier 4.

By that definition, a sorcerer that can shut down anything, and create a ton of battle minions, but has no impressive diviniation or social spells is tier 4.

It's fine to discuss thoughts about the relative importance of combat etc, but insisting that everyone else understands tiers "wrong" doesn't create helpful discussions. You want to discuss the out of combat utility of ToB? Do that! I'll be glad to read it, as this is an aspect I don't really see (except for the swordsage)

Quertus

2021-04-11, 01:13 PM

More to the point, banning self-targeting doesn't actually nerf the power of the maneuver since there's no reason other party members would be weaker than yourself (and some may be stronger). A more effective nerf is to cap it at 1/round per person, since that's where it gets wacky and the infinite loops start.

Infinite loops? How's that work?

Gnaeus

2021-04-11, 01:20 PM

Infinite loops? How's that work?

WRT resets initiative. You can build an idiot crusader which recovers maneuvers every round. Whether you can do it to yourself or need another crusader to trade back and forth with you can keep recovering WRT and then giving another round. (For TO use only. I do not endorse this as a meaningful thing crusaders can do

Kitsuneymg

2021-04-11, 01:35 PM

Infinite loops? How's that work?

Idiot crusader uses WRT on self. Takes move and standard. Since the regain all maneuvers every initiative, they can just use it again. Since there is no minimum initiative in the game, they just take as many turns as they want

icefractal

2021-04-11, 02:49 PM

Do you know how tier ranking works?
...
I'm not sure if you mean the points I listed were wrong (which I know, hence the blue text), or that they're right and I'm wrong in saying that they're wrong.

Well, #1 is factually incorrect.
#2 is partially correct as mentioned, but you need to take AoOs and extra "attacks" from things like Snake's Swiftness into account, not just standard-action attacks.
#3 is wrong in most campaigns IME; you can't simply ignore the substantial impact that magical items will have.
#4 is only wrong in that it's labelled really powerful. Versatility is good, but getting a 1st level effect at 10th level usually isn't, and that's how WotC balanced a lot of the early cross-role options.
#5 is not entirely wrong, but IME the casters aren't the only ones to want to rest, and at-will abilities aren't inherently that strong, it's entirely dependent on the ability.

Would I rather play a ToB class than a Fighter? Yes, pretty much always. Does that mean they're broken? No, it means Fighter is. Because in the absence of ToB, I still wouldn't be playing a Fighter.

Particle_Man

2021-04-11, 03:34 PM

Idiot crusader uses WRT on self. Takes move and standard. Since the regain all maneuvers every initiative, they can just use it again. Since there is no minimum initiative in the game, they just take as many turns as they want

Huh, I thought that initiative reached a minimum of where a character could only voluntarily lower its initiative to –10 minus their initiative bonus but maybe that was only a 3.0 thing that got dropped for 3.5. In any case, it would still give a ridiculous number of extra turns to the idiot crusader (or if one doesn't allow one's own WRT to affect oneself, to a pair of such crusaders).

Elves

2021-04-11, 05:06 PM

Here's another loop (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=12814.msg432950#msg432950) using wu jen's body outside body spell.

Thunder999

2021-04-11, 08:39 PM

By that definition, a sorcerer that can shut down anything, and create a ton of battle minions, but has no impressive diviniation or social spells is tier 4.

You absolutely can pick your spells badly enough to drop a sorcerer to tier 4, but you can make almost any class perform far worse than expected and it's not generally taken into consideration.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-12, 02:54 AM

You absolutely can pick your spells badly enough to drop a sorcerer to tier 4, but you can make almost any class perform far worse than expected and it's not generally taken into consideration.

I didn't say "bad spells", though. As a sorcerer, you could take 90% of the spells that are considered the best options, including cheesy ones. Color spray and power word pain at level 1, wings of cover and glitterdust for 2, etcetera.

You'd be able to absolutely demolish anything even close to being level appropriate without any significant risk to the party or yourself - and still be not very useful at trapfinding, social events and what not.

Picking the best and moat broken sorcerer spells there are, and maybe dropping polymorph, doesn't suddenly drop the sorcerer 2 tiers until he gets wish at 18 because he didn't take charm person, disguise self, or locate object.

Gnaeus

2021-04-12, 07:46 AM

Picking the best and moat broken sorcerer spells there are, and maybe dropping polymorph, doesn't suddenly drop the sorcerer 2 tiers until he gets wish at 18 because he didn't take charm person, disguise self, or locate object.

Polymorph is a straight up combat spell. Yes, it has some out of combat uses that can generally be done better with lower level spells. But when people say Polymorph is broken strong they don’t mean as a disguise or a source of swim speed. They mean “I’m going use one combat action to turn the fighter into a huge weapon using form with additional natural attacks and 30 strength and fire subtype and flight so he can go own this combat”. If you changed the duration to “until end of combat” it would still be a top 4th level spell.

noob

2021-04-12, 08:44 AM

Polymorph is a straight up combat spell. Yes, it has some out of combat uses that can generally be done better with lower level spells. But when people say Polymorph is broken strong they don’t mean as a disguise or a source of swim speed. They mean “I’m going use one combat action to turn the fighter into a huge weapon using form with additional natural attacks and 30 strength and fire subtype and flight so he can go own this combat”. If you changed the duration to “until end of combat” it would still be a top 4th level spell.

You have used polymorph vastly differently from how my team used to.
It was mostly "polymorph in something very small and inconspicuous" "polymorph creatures with contingent spells in small stuff to have easily transportable masses of contingent spell triggering at once" "polymorph in something big and strong to throw stuff in teleportation circles(very efficient in terms of logistics for thieving)" and a dozen of other shenanigans like that.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-12, 09:28 AM

Polymorph is a straight up combat spell. Yes, it has some out of combat uses that can generally be done better with lower level spells. But when people say Polymorph is broken strong they don’t mean as a disguise or a source of swim speed. They mean “I’m going use one combat action to turn the fighter into a huge weapon using form with additional natural attacks and 30 strength and fire subtype and flight so he can go own this combat”. If you changed the duration to “until end of combat” it would still be a top 4th level spell.

I agree Polymorph is a huge combat spell, but it's still useful ooc. My point was that you could easily create a sorcerer taking 90% of the cheesiest spells and great spells otherwise, to be a combat machine capable of winning any and all encounters, and not be very useful ooc. That does not, in my view, make you equivalent to a tier 4 martial like an ubercharger, that could destroy almost any single enemy he can charge. Being able to win combat, full stop, is NOT tier 4 in my opinion, and that was the view I was arguing against.

Gnaeus

2021-04-12, 11:47 AM

You have used polymorph vastly differently from how my team used to.
It was mostly "polymorph in something very small and inconspicuous" "polymorph creatures with contingent spells in small stuff to have easily transportable masses of contingent spell triggering at once" "polymorph in something big and strong to throw stuff in teleportation circles(very efficient in terms of logistics for thieving)" and a dozen of other shenanigans like that.

So....
something easily done with lower level spells....
Something polymorph with it’s one minute/level is bad at, which is also borderline cheating, and which is also essentially a combat use because the main time you need masses of spells triggering at once is combat, so thank you for proving my point to the extent this is viable...
So it makes you good at throwing stuff. That’s nice. I’ve never felt the need to throw things quickly. I’m sure that’s actually why people polymorph. To throw gear faster.

noob

2021-04-12, 12:00 PM

Something polymorph with it’s one minute/level is bad at, which is also borderline cheating, and which is also essentially a combat use because the main time you need masses of spells triggering at once is combat, so thank you for proving my point to the extent this is viable....

It was used for infiltrating a building by destroying a bunch of enchantments thus allowing to teleport in then flee away right after stealing a bunch of things.
And can you tell me which low level spell allows you to sneak in despite guards with see invisibility or high detection checks?
Anything that is invisible is extra suspicious.

Drelua

2021-04-12, 06:53 PM

It was used for infiltrating a building by destroying a bunch of enchantments thus allowing to teleport in then flee away right after stealing a bunch of things.
And can you tell me which low level spell allows you to sneak in despite guards with see invisibility or high detection checks?
Anything that is invisible is extra suspicious.

Just in core, dimension door's the same level, alter self or disguise self might work, major image is 3rd. Polymorph only works if they have see invisibility up but not detect magic, since it's not gonna work out great if a squirrel jumps in through the window and it has a magic aura. It's certainly a viable use of the spell, there's probably easier ways to do it but if you don't have any of those handy it works. Just probably not what most players would think of first when you could just turn the Barbarian into a raging 7-headed hydra at minimum caster level.

Smegskull

2021-04-12, 07:16 PM

It lets you have infinite turns in a round.
Also the abilities were not given counters like with magic and psionics (counter spell, anti-magic field, etc)
Also there aren't proper use limits like spell slots per day or power points.

Elves

2021-04-12, 07:34 PM

It lets you have infinite turns in a round.
To be clear, the infinite turn loops are niche charop builds.

Also the abilities were not given counters like with magic and psionics (counter spell, anti-magic field, etc)
The supernatural maneuvers are prey to antimagic field just like any su ability. The others are primarily instantaneous.

Also there aren't proper use limits like spell slots per day or power points.
The effects can't be used on subsequent turns and have action costs to refresh, so in some ways they're more use-limited. And there are no maneuvers that are unbalanced to use repeatedly the way many spells would be. Add to that it lacks many of the problems of per-day resources, like the 15-minute adventuring day.

Smegskull

2021-04-12, 08:02 PM

To be clear, the infinite turn loops are niche charop builds.
.....
And there are no maneuvers that are unbalanced to use repeatedly the way many spells would be.
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

The effects can't be used on subsequent turns and have action costs to refresh, so in some ways they're more use-limited.

In some ways yes, it will depend on the DM play stile and campaign... Just like allowing or banning the book does.

Add to that it lacks many of the problems of per-day resources, like the 15-minute adventuring day.
That is a problem with a character blowing his wad. Allowing a 15 min adventuring day is also a DM's choice (like allowing the book)

It's almost like balancing all this is the DM's whole job 🤨

I like to think of ToB as 4e alpha.

Elves

2021-04-12, 08:26 PM

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
The white raven tactics loops mean that you use obscure gimmicks to use that maneuver over and over again within single turn.

That's different from being able to use an effect an unlimited number of times per day, but within the normal action and recovery framework. (Which in practice usually amounts to no more than twice per encounter.)

Unlimited also means a lot less than you'd think when you have maneuvers that are primarily useful in combat. Remember, a typical day with 4 encounters will only have 10-20 combat rounds. Spellcasters are casting a spell every round by mid levels, and their spells are both stronger and wider in scope than maneuvers.

I like to think of ToB as 4e alpha.
The funny part, which I've said it before, is that the maneuver recovery system is probably better designed than the AEDU framework 4e chose.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2021-04-12, 08:27 PM

noob

2021-04-12, 08:48 PM

alter self or disguise self might work, major image is 3rd. Polymorph only works if they have see invisibility up but not detect magic, since it's not gonna work out great if a squirrel jumps in through the window and it has a magic aura. It's certainly a viable use of the spell, there's probably easier ways to do it but if you don't have any of those handy it works. Just probably not what most players would think of first when you could just turn the Barbarian into a raging 7-headed hydra at minimum caster level.

Alter self and disguise self are heavily restrained in what it can make you look like and can not fill the purpose I indicated unless you have the right type or are initially very small (an humanoid getting close is more suspicious than a small bird).
Detect magic is extremely limited in range which means that they need you to get close(60 feet something like that) to a guard to find you that way also it takes concentration and works in a cone so they will be restrained to moving one move action per turn and detect only in one direction.
If they have that spell that allows to see magical auras without concentration they could detect you easily but it is something like level 5 I believe.

Ignimortis

2021-04-12, 09:06 PM

If a whole book should be banned for a few broken tricks (instead of just banning the tricks), we should ban the PHB first, all Faerun books second. Also, use limitations aren't such a big deal; otherwise Warlocks and reserve feats would be a big deal, and they're not. The real question is, on average, what are you doing with your action in combat? "Something decent every turn" isn't necessarily better than "something way too good in round 1 and then sipping tea letting the mooks mop up."

Basically, this. The PHB sets a terrible precedent for anything called "balance", and banning 50% of it is more conductive to building a more balanced and fun game than banning any other sourcebook (even the Faerun ones).

It lets you have infinite turns in a round.

So, one broken maneuver that is still up to DM's interpretation (does WRT allow you to target yourself?) and needs you to circumvent the recharge mechanic somehow. You'd have to be a Warblade with multiple Swift actions per turn, or somehow be able to do anything but move without your Standard+Swift actions. Like Elves said, it's a very niche charop build that is very easily countered by any GM permanently by saying "you can't WRT yourself".

Also the abilities were not given counters like with magic and psionics (counter spell, anti-magic field, etc)
Also there aren't proper use limits like spell slots per day or power points.

Does a weapon swing need a counterspell to counter it? Does a Fighter need a "swings per day" mechanic? Turning every single power source into X/day akin to spellcasting is boring and unfun. BTW, Binders basically have their stuff at-will with a "cooldown" of a few rounds, which results in basically the same rate of use as maneuvers.

noob

2021-04-12, 09:10 PM

So, one broken maneuver that is still up to DM's interpretation (does WRT allow you to target yourself?) and needs you to circumvent the recharge mechanic somehow. You'd have to be a Warblade with multiple Swift actions per turn, or somehow be able to do anything but move without your Standard+Swift actions. Like Elves said, it's a very niche charop build that is very easily countered by any GM permanently by saying "you can't WRT yourself".

No it is not easily cancellable with this change: just get two martial initiators with WRT and a way to recover it in a single round and have them WRT each other.
But you can fix it by instead saying any given creature can benefit from the effect of WRT only once per turn.
Or write that WRT does not allows to decrease the initiative of the target so that it is closer to what was probably intended: a way to help an ally with a low initiative to play before the opponents.

Drelua

2021-04-12, 10:04 PM

Alter self and disguise self are heavily restrained in what it can make you look like and can not fill the purpose I indicated unless you have the right type or are initially very small (an humanoid getting close is more suspicious than a small bird).
Detect magic is extremely limited in range which means that they need you to get close(60 feet something like that) to a guard to find you that way also it takes concentration and works in a cone so they will be restrained to moving one move action per turn and detect only in one direction.
If they have that spell that allows to see magical auras without concentration they could detect you easily but it is something like level 5 I believe.

You didn't explain the exact circumstances, alter self would be less reliable but if you scope the place out and use disguise self to look like someone important who just left, that's one way to infiltrate a building. I'm not saying polymorph doesn't work, but usually infiltration can be done with lower level spells, if you happen to have them available. Detect magic is a cantrip with a duration of concentration, and it can be used as a trap trigger I think, so it's not hard to have it up.

Sometimes the guards have see invisibilty but not detect magic or true seeing, so polymorph works. It works, it's just not the first thing I'd want it for. If I had it prepared and a situation like that comes up, great, but I'd have prepared expecting to turn one of my friends into a hydra.

No it is not easily cancellable with this change: just get two martial initiators with WRT and a way to recover it in a single round and have them WRT each other.
But you can fix it by instead saying any given creature can benefit from the effect of WRT only once per turn.
Or write that WRT does not allows to decrease the initiative of the target so that it is closer to what was probably intended: a way to help an ally with a low initiative to play before the opponents.

Okay, so limit it to once per round. I don't see a way around that. For Crusaders it's dependent on having that maneuver granted that turn, I think there's ways to make sure that happens but I'm not too familiar with the class so I'm not sure, but unless you know what you're doing it's not guaranteed. For Warblades they'd be stuck with a standard action attack, and I don't think I've gamed with anyone that would sit there and say "I attack then use white raven tactics on myself" until everything was dead. I definitely haven't played with any GMs that would allow it. So yeah, there's an ability that's fairly easy to abuse in theory, that next to no GMs would allow. That's true of many books, I don't see how it's a big deal.

Elves

2021-04-12, 11:47 PM

Yeah I said this earlier and it seems like a consensus, 1/round is a good nerf.

Another nerf could be target can't have HD higher than yourself or yourself +2, but then the text gets too long.

Darg

2021-04-13, 12:10 AM

WRT being used to have infinite cycle of turns is excessively shaky.

1. The meaning of ally is another character not yourself. An example of this in action can be found under bardic music in the PHB: inspire courage is "allies", inspire competence is "ally", and inspire greatness is you or an "ally". It follows the glossary definition exactly. You can't use competence on yourself but you can use the other 2 to affect yourself.
2. Crusader being able to reset the granted maneuvers every turn requires one to turn off their brain. Nothing in the book says that the classes share known maneuvers between classes which is what is required for this to work. It's like saying an ultimate magus can cast any wizard spell he knows as a sorcerer spell. Just because ToB doesn't have a multi-class section like the PHB/XPH doesn't mean it wouldn't follow that example (otherwise dipping a level grants you the effect of upwards of 7-8 feats)

When you break down all the "broken" things in ToB, one can clearly see they are not broken. Rather the one reading them simply haven't pieced the effects together properly because of biased assumption. Even iron heart surge is completely blown out of proportion. Conditions (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm) are specific. Effect can be a little more broad, but is consistently used when describing the effect of spells or abilities. "Affecting you" means that you are the target, not just within the area of an effect. Finally, if it can be measured in rounds then turning off the sun only brings the end only 9 rounds sooner. It says measured in rounds not billions of years. Seriously, this last one really limits what spell, effect, or condition it could remove as the books tell you what they are.

CIDE

2021-04-13, 12:48 AM

In my own experience with various tables and DM's the people that usually thought ToB was OP were the same people that also thought Monk was a great class (or even an OP class) because it had no dead levels. I'm not sure that comparison really requres any additional information.

noob

2021-04-13, 07:40 AM

2. Crusader being able to reset the granted maneuvers every turn requires one to turn off their brain. Nothing in the book says that the classes share known maneuvers between classes which is what is required for this to work. It's like saying an ultimate magus can cast any wizard spell he knows as a sorcerer spell. Just because ToB doesn't have a multi-class section like the PHB/XPH doesn't mean it wouldn't follow that example (otherwise dipping a level grants you the effect of upwards of 7-8 feats)

I believe the way to make the crusader recover all its granted maneuver each turn was based on having two different initiating classes then gaining levels in a TOB prc and using a shaky reading which is that the prcs does not specifies it must increases the number of maneuvers known and the number of maneuver granted of the same class so you increase the number of maneuvers known for another class and increase the number of maneuver granted of the crusader until the crusader have more crusader maneuvers granted than crusader maneuvers known.
So the trick I knew required for classes to not share maneuvers known else the crusader could not get more maneuvers granted than maneuvers known.

Drelua

2021-04-13, 09:44 AM

I believe the way to make the crusader recover all its granted maneuver each turn was based on having two different initiating classes then gaining levels in a TOB prc and using a shaky reading which is that the prcs does not specifies it must increases the number of maneuvers known and the number of maneuver granted of the same class so you increase the number of maneuvers known for another class and increase the number of maneuver granted of the crusader until the crusader have more crusader maneuvers granted than crusader maneuvers known.
So the trick I knew required for classes to not share maneuvers known else the crusader could not get more maneuvers granted than maneuvers known.

That doesn't seem like it could work, unless I'm missing something. Crusaders start with 5 maneuvers known, and get 4 granted per turn when they hit level 20. You could take Extra Granted Maneuver, but that can only be taken once, so you'd need an effective Crusader level of 20 with only 2 9 actual crusader levels. (Edit: looked at maneuvers known when I should have looked at readied. So it's doable, at level 20)

Not saying it can't work, someone smarter than me probably figured out a way around that, but it clearly takes a fair bit of effort to do reliably. Just realized it doesn't work for Warblades either, I forgot their recovery action is a standard and a swift.

Elves

2021-04-13, 12:48 PM

The way the trick works is you start by taking other martial adept levels and/or Martial Study feats up to the point that you can't learn 5 crusader maneuvers because there aren't enough left to learn. Thus you end up with fewer known than granted. You can also take TOB PRC levels and bus the maneuvers readied to crusader but the maneuvers known to warblade or swordsage. You get an extra granted maneuver for each extra readied maneuver from a TOB prc so you end up with more granted than if you single classed crusader.

It doesn't require that you share known maneuvers between classes; it relies on the fact that you don't.

Darg, even under your reading, idiot crusader still works with 2 participants as people have pointed out. And the body outside body loop works fine, since it's your clones who are WRTing you. IIRC there was a psionics based loop as well.

Morphic tide

2021-04-13, 12:49 PM

That doesn't seem like it could work, unless I'm missing something. Crusaders start with 5 maneuvers known, and get 4 granted per turn when they hit level 20. You could take Extra Granted Maneuver, but that can only be taken once, so you'd need an effective Crusader level of 20 with only 2 9 actual crusader levels. (Edit: looked at maneuvers known when I should have looked at readied. So it's doable, at level 20)

Not saying it can't work, someone smarter than me probably figured out a way around that, but it clearly takes a fair bit of effort to do reliably. Just realized it doesn't work for Warblades either, I forgot their recovery action is a standard and a swift.
Actually, ToB classes don't use +1 Initiator Level, PRCs have their own separate progression tables. It hinges on the fact that the Maneuvers Readied function of them automatically increases Maneuvers Granted by the same amount in addition to them being splittable, making it so that one level of Crusader needs to get three additional Maneuvers Readied or Granted to "break" into an Idiot Crusader. Which means +2 Readied from PRCs while Maneuvers Known is siloed into Warblade or Swordsage, alongside Extra Granted Maneuver, which is generally done as a three-level package of Crusader 1/Master of Nine 2 at the end of a build so you get 9th-level Maneuvers in it.

Darg

2021-04-13, 05:51 PM

Looking through all the PRCs and none of them tell you to pick a class to apply the maneuvers benefits to. This means it applies to each of your classes. This also strongly suggests that known maneuvers are shared between multiclasses.

I also found a multiclass section that says to keep track of readied and expended maneuvers separately for each class. So you either share the pool of known maneuvers between classes (most likely now that I'm reading it) or you keep the pools separate (nothing actually says this is the case). When you ready maneuvers, nothing is preventing you from readying the same maneuvers already readied by a different class.

Either way, it is impossible for idiot crusader to work because you aren't starving the crusader of known maneuvers.

Elves

2021-04-13, 06:26 PM

Looking through all the PRCs and none of them tell you to pick a class to apply the maneuvers benefits to. This means it applies to each of your classes. This also strongly suggests that known maneuvers are shared between multiclasses.
It's at the start of the chapter. Copypaste:

If you have levels in two or more martial adept standard classes (for example, you are a multiclass swordsage/war-blade), you must decide to which of your existing martial adept classes the new maneuvers known or maneuvers readied apply.

Maneuvers Known: When you gain additional maneu-vers known, these simply add to the maneuvers known of one martial adept standard class you already possess.

Maneuvers Readied: When indicated, you gain the ability to ready one or more additional martial maneuvers. If you have more than one martial maneuver progression, you must choose which progression the additional readied maneuver slot applies to.

...

If you choose to add the maneuver readied to a martial maneuver progression derived from crusader class levels, you also gain one additional maneuver granted at the beginning of the encounter for each additional maneuver you can ready.

...

Recovery: You retain the same recovery method or meth-ods you already use. If you have levels in more than one martial adept class, you choose which recovery method you will use based on which adept class the new maneuver you are learning applies to.

Psyren

2021-04-13, 06:40 PM

“I hate to just say ‘use Tome of Battle,’ but....”
“IRON HEART SUUUUUURGE I TURN OFF THE SUN”
“Iron Heart Surge I’m immune to this thread!”
“White Raven Tactics I replay this whole thread again!”
“Have you accepted Spheres of Power as your personal Lord and Savior?”

I sprayed my drink everywhere so thanks for that :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

ToB is too strong at low levels. Or if not too strong, then at least extremely strong, to the point where there is a legit argument for warblade and crusader being two of the top three base classes in the whole game.

Most campaigns start at level 1 and don't make it past mid-levels. That's an easy recipe for ToB domination. Who cares if it evens out later on? It's OP now. If that level range comprises the bulk of your experience with the book, I don't see why you'd come to any other conclusion.

A core barbarian doesn't even get a second attack until level 6, by which point the warblade and crusader have been spent the past five levels making her look like a clown because their baseline at-will power level is as good as or better than her 1/day rage power level.

I still wouldn't call it "too strong" but the sticker shock for this level range is a valid observation. A GM who is similarly not using maneuvers and watches the crusader rip through his lizardfolk/gnolls/etc might reasonably arrive at such a conclusion too. And of course the fluff/thematic concerns can be a turnoff as well, just as they can be for psionics.

With all that said, I always recommend to GMs that they give it a try, and similarly that Path of War is worth a look too.

loky1109

2021-04-13, 08:05 PM

You don't often see DMs claiming the Warlock is broken just because they can do stuff at will, so that's not the reason.
Broken != too strong actually. Even weak option can totally broke the game if DM isn't ready. Example. Module can be build about exhaustion PC's recourses. Spell slots, turn attempts, smites, rage, etc. Of course Warlock and ToB classes seems broken in this game.
Many games imply some exhaustion PC's recourses not necessarily as obviously, but this is hidden idea somewhere in head.

Calthropstu

2021-04-13, 08:12 PM

Drelua

2021-04-13, 10:45 PM

Actually, ToB classes don't use +1 Initiator Level, PRCs have their own separate progression tables. It hinges on the fact that the Maneuvers Readied function of them automatically increases Maneuvers Granted by the same amount in addition to them being splittable, making it so that one level of Crusader needs to get three additional Maneuvers Readied or Granted to "break" into an Idiot Crusader. Which means +2 Readied from PRCs while Maneuvers Known is siloed into Warblade or Swordsage, alongside Extra Granted Maneuver, which is generally done as a three-level package of Crusader 1/Master of Nine 2 at the end of a build so you get 9th-level Maneuvers in it.

Not gonna lie, still don't entirely get it but that's okay. I think I know enough to see that this isn't something you could pull of with nearly any GM.

I think this is one answer to the original question. People googled ToB, heard about this, and decided to shut it down without actually looking at how many questionable steps are involved. CharOp forums can make things look bad if you don't understand how creative people can get when they're looking for things they can break.

Elves

2021-04-13, 11:55 PM

It's actually really simple.

- Crusaders automatically refresh maneuvers at the end of their turn if they have no maneuvers left that are withheld.
- So if they had granted maneuvers equal to their readied maneuvers, they'd have all their maneuvers refreshed every turn.
- White Raven Tactics grants an extra turn, so that would mean you could use it again on the free turn it grants you...and again and again, ad infinitum.

After taking Extra Granted Maneuver, however, your granted maneuvers are always 2 lower than your readied maneuvers.

But wait...what if you didn't actually know enough maneuvers to fill your full complement of readied maneuvers?

When you take levels in an initiator PRC, you can increase your readied and granted maneuvers without increasing your known maneuvers. So if you do that twice with master of nine 2, your crusader readied/granted maneuvers are technically 7/5, but you only have 5 maneuvers known, so after granting all 5 of those there are no more withheld, prompting the refresh button.

Even without White Raven Tactics, crusader getting all their mvs refreshed each turn seems unintended; TOB editors may have had a blind assumption that people would always add PRC mvs known and readied to the same class, but they didn't put that in the text.

Lans

2021-04-14, 01:12 AM

There are first level manuevers that provide extra attacks, and a stance that adds an average of rage+.5 to damage. This is overshadows anything but a whirling barbarian till level 6 where it has the ability to move over 10 feet and do something slightly relevant

Darg

2021-04-14, 11:47 AM

Elves

2021-04-14, 12:32 PM

You missed this post (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25005769&postcount=84)

Xervous

2021-04-14, 01:49 PM

People said it before and I’ll say it again. If you start from the erroneous assumption of fighter, paladin, barbarian and monk being well balanced you’re going to arrive at some funny conclusions.

Darg

2021-04-14, 01:56 PM

You missed this post (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25005769&postcount=84)

I didn't miss it. The bolded statement doesn't have you choose a class to apply the benefit to. Only readied maneuvers does. In class features, both known and readied maneuvers fall under the same feature: maneuvers. As they are the same feature and only one half mentions selecting a class, the logical conclusion is that only one class can benefit from the whole feature at a time just like other similar progression PRCs.

People said it before and I’ll say it again. If you start from the erroneous assumption of fighter, paladin, barbarian and monk being well balanced you’re going to arrive at some funny conclusions.

I have to agree. All of them suffer major MAD if you try to do anything except try to beat things down, and all of them suffer from the lack of skill points and feat taxes required to make them decent. It also doesn't help that special attacks are more likely to hurt than help if you don't invest half your character into a single one trick pony.

The ToB classes get decent skills, maneuvers, and stances that have OoC utility and make performing special attacks and gaining the benefits of useful feats easier and within reach. One can call this overpowered, but it's like calling a sword compared to a knife on the battlefield overpowered when rifles and machine guns are firing into entrenched lines.

icefractal

2021-04-14, 02:04 PM

One reason I forgot -
If you have a group of players with various levels of mechanical knowledge, and they all go build their characters separately, it's more likely for an op-savvy player to be the one who shows up with a ToB class, because it's more likely they've heard of it and don't find the added complexity (over a Barbarian, say) to be daunting. And unlike a caster, where an optimized and non-optimized one might look the same at first glance, here the more powerful characters come from a whole separate book and have distinctive mechanics.

Same reason Psionics gets seen as OP, I think, where core casting doesn't.

Elves

2021-04-14, 02:16 PM

I didn't miss it. The bolded statement doesn't have you choose a class to apply the benefit to.
"when you gain additional maneuvers known, these add to the maneuvers known of one martial adept standard class you already possess"
I don't know what you think you're seeing here.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-14, 02:54 PM

Darg

2021-04-14, 03:31 PM

"when you gain additional maneuvers known, these add to the maneuvers known of one martial adept standard class you already possess"
I don't know what you think you're seeing here.

It's what is not there. It doesnt tell you to choose one class. Therefore the player does not have permission to make the choice of which class benefits.

That permission is only granted under readied maneuvers. As known maneuvers and readied maneuvers are part of the same ability, maneuvers, you only get to choose which class benefits once and you don't have permission to split the choice.

Elves

2021-04-14, 04:14 PM

It's what is not there. It doesnt tell you to choose one class. Therefore the player does not have permission to make the choice of which class benefits.
Uh-huh. You know just as well as I do that you could find dozens of places in various parts of character creation where the word "choose" isn't explicitly used, or where if you removed it, the fact of player choice would be just as clear.

As known maneuvers and readied maneuvers are part of the same ability, maneuvers, you only get to choose which class benefits once and you don't have permission to split the choice.
The choice is phrased separately. If anything, you would have to be arguing that DM decides or it's random or something. There's no rule or reason that being part of the same class feature means they must apply to the same class.

Your ally/allies distinction, while not spelled out, is arguable -- it's a possibility within the text. But this one is grasping for straws. Just ain't no substance to it.

If you wanted to houserule this, that wouldn't be the right nerf either, since the ability to split them is a valuable articulation for some builds. What I'd do is that if a crusader has fewer known than readied maneuvers, blank cards get put into their maneuver deck for the missing maneuvers.

Edit: Also, it's not even an effective nerf, since not all +readied PRC levels coincide with +known. Under your ruling you'd just have to take RKV 5/Eternal Blade 6 or a similar combo.

Particle_Man

2021-04-14, 07:01 PM

Darg

2021-04-14, 08:41 PM

Anyhow, "don't spam WRT more than 1/rd, don't use IHS to turn off the sun, and don't play Idiot Crusaders" are pretty easy fixes that can be made without banning ToB. I might also add "don't spam RKV extra turns more than 1/rd" if as DM you don't like extra turns.

Compared to what you would have to do to reign in wizards, that is easy!

I think extending progression and capping all 9ths classes at 6th level spells would be a nice fix. Gives that high power spike without going too far, reduces the uses per day, and allows room for spontaneous casters to learn more spells of lower levels. It's simple and easy. Casters that stop at 6th instead cap at 5th. Casters that cap at 5th or lower do not change. Levels 20-30 would possess 7th-9th level spells. While I don't think this fixes everything, it's a really nice place to start.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-04-14, 09:52 PM

Drelua

2021-04-14, 09:57 PM

Oh, now I get it, I misread something someone said and got confused from that. It does seem to me that whether or not you can advance 2 separate classes could be interpreted either way, so having that be limited to one class choice might help. That might just be too specific of a houserule though, WRT is easy enough to fix and apart from that I can't imagine advancing 2 separate classes would be a super powerful option.

Seems just complicated enough that beginner players wouldn't likely think of it, at least. But if someone googled ToB and read "you can use Iron Heart Surge to turn off the sun," they might have a kneejerk reaction to that if they thought it was serious and didn't depend on a questionable interpretation of 'effect or other condition.'

Edit to add:

For the record, you don't even need the PrC trick to pull off an Idiot Crusader. Warblade 1 or Swordsage 1 followed by Crusader 1: choose White Raven and Stone Dragon maneuvers as the first class and there won't be enough 1st level maneuvers left to pick as a Crusader. From there, progress your Crusader initiating with PrCs to give you a new maneuver readied each time you get a new maneuver known (even assigning both to Crusader, known will never outpace readied).

EDIT: Swordsage does require taking either Extra Granted Maneuver, Martial Study, or a level of Warblade as well.

Is there a rule that says you can't have the same maneuver known for 2 different classes? Couldn't find it flipping through the book but I could easily be missing it.

Elves

2021-04-14, 10:48 PM

For the record, you don't even need the PrC trick to pull off an Idiot Crusader. Warblade 1 or Swordsage 1 followed by Crusader 1: choose White Raven and Stone Dragon maneuvers as the first class and there won't be enough 1st level maneuvers left to pick as a Crusader. From there, progress your Crusader initiating with PrCs to give you a new maneuver readied each time you get a new maneuver known (even assigning both to Crusader, known will never outpace readied).
You forget Devoted Spirit though.
There are 6x Devoted Spirit, WR and Stone Dragon. And you can only take 3 with crusader to stay even.

non TOB 4
warblade 4 - (5 WR w/tradeout @4th)
swordsage 1 (6 SD)
Mo9 1 with item entry (2 DS)
crusader 1 - (1 WR, 2 DS)

2x Martial Study (Devoted Spirit), Extra Granted Maneuver

Looks like that would do it, but way more intensive and requires you to enter Mo9 with discipline items/martial scripts which is a little skeezy. You do still get 9ths with legacy champion.

It does seem to me that whether or not you can advance 2 separate classes could be interpreted either way
It really can't. "When you gain additional maneuvers known, these add to the maneuvers known of one martial adept standard class you already possess" obviously allows player choice. Darg wants us first to deny that, even though similar language elsewhere is accepted as admitting player choice, then to make a logical leap that because the maneuvers readied language includes the magic word "choose", the maneuvers known must apply to the same one you choose for readied.

Now what about all the levels where you get a new maneuver known but not a new maneuver readied? You aren't allowed to choose, remember, so...is the DM gonna decide which class your maneuver applies to? It doesn't hold together.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-04-15, 12:18 AM

You forget Devoted Spirit though.
There are 6x Devoted Spirit, WR and Stone Dragon. And you can only take 3 with crusader to stay even.

3 maneuvers known from Warblade 1 (or Swordsage 1 + Martial Study); let's say Charging Minotaur, Stone Bones, and Douse the Flames.

Now you take Crusader 1. There are only 3 maneuvers left to take: Crusader's Strike, Vanguard Strike, and Leading the Attack. Thus you know a number of Crusader maneuvers equal to the number of maneuvers granted in the first round; Idiot Crusader at ECL 2. If you take Extra Granted Maneuver as your 3rd level feat, you can go all the way up to Crusader 4 before needing to PrC in order to stay an Idiot Crusader.

Of course, this does assume that I'm remembering one rule correctly: IIRC, you cannot take the same maneuver twice, even with different classes. This trick takes advantage of the limited number of first level maneuvers; as long as your first Crusader level is taken before ECL 5 and you already know 3 of the 1st level maneuvers available to Crusaders, you become an Idiot Crusader by default.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it, it also assumes that you can't retroactively learn new maneuvers. That once you qualify for higher level maneuvers, you don't automatically learn new ones until you've reached your maneuvers known quota. While I don't think that would happen unless you took a new level of Crusader, it does make directly progressing Crusader questionable if it'd bring you to IL 3 or higher.

Darg

2021-04-15, 01:06 AM

It really can't. "When you gain additional maneuvers known, these add to the maneuvers known of one martial adept standard class you already possess" obviously allows player choice. Darg wants us first to deny that, even though similar language elsewhere is accepted as admitting player choice, then to make a logical leap that because the maneuvers readied language includes the magic word "choose", the maneuvers known must apply to the same one you choose for readied.

Now what about all the levels where you get a new maneuver known but not a new maneuver readied? You aren't allowed to choose, remember, so...is the DM gonna decide which class your maneuver applies to? It doesn't hold together.

I'm under the assumption that martial adept classes either share the pool of known maneuvers or have separate pools of known maneuvers. The latter is highly likely due to the wording for PRC features. When you multiclass, you ready and expend maneuvers separately. This means if you share the pool you can have overlapping maneuvers readied. If you have separate pools, as long as you select the same maneuvers you can have more than one of the same maneuver readied. Either way, you aren't starving the crusader of maneuvers.

If you have examples of similar language, please share. If you read what I wrote, then the crux is that "Maneuvers" is a single class feature which dictates both known and readied maneuvers. As the feature itself doesn't contain text about choosing a martial adept class we have to default to the known and readied descriptions. Only the readied description says anything about choosing a class. As known and readied maneuvers are the same feature, then you choose only a single class to benefit for each level just like other progression PRCs. There is no logical leap. It's literally bread crumbs mere millimeters apart.

Of course, this does assume that I'm remembering one rule correctly: IIRC, you cannot take the same maneuver twice, even with different classes. This trick takes advantage of the limited number of first level maneuvers; as long as your first Crusader level is taken before ECL 5 and you already know 3 of the 1st level maneuvers available to Crusaders, you become an Idiot Crusader by default.

I don't believe that is the case:

Maneuvers Known: The collection of maneuvers a martial adept has learned. You can think of this as the Martial adept's spellbook or spell list. A martial adept's class and level determine the number and level of maneuvers she knows.

Multiclass Martial Adept: A character with two or more martial adept classes keeps track of his readied maneuvers, expended maneuvers, and recovery of expended maneuvers separately for each class.

Elves

2021-04-15, 01:57 AM

...snip...
You're right, I was way overthinking that. Was treating it like you'd have to get WRT on your 1st crusader level but you can just get it through a feat, item or PRC level later. And yeah, that's actually better than the Mo9 solution -- 3 levels rather than 4 and no prereqs.

I'm under the assumption that martial adept classes either share the pool of known maneuvers or have separate pools of known maneuvers. The latter is highly likely due to the wording for PRC features. When you multiclass, you ready and expend maneuvers separately. This means if you share the pool you can have overlapping maneuvers readied. If you have separate pools, as long as you select the same maneuvers you can have more than one of the same maneuver readied. Either way, you aren't starving the crusader of maneuvers.
You have separate pools, and you cannot learn the same maneuver twice. A maneuver is either known or not, and if it's known it's in one of your pools.

I don't believe this is explicitly stated in the book, though there's evidence throughout. But it was made explicit by CustServ, toward which I'm a lot more charitable when it's clearing up how a new subsystem works or filling in absent info as opposed to making a ruling based on existing info. & IIRC that custserv was done in consultation with the authors.

CustServ also uses the magic "choose" word re: maneuvers known from PRCs:

This is actually covered in the rules, though with all the crunchy bits in the book it’s easy to miss! When you gain additional maneuvers known from a prestige class, you choose one of the martial adept classes that you have and add it to the maneuvers known of that class.

Darg

2021-04-15, 09:37 AM

You have separate pools, and you cannot learn the same maneuver twice. A maneuver is either known or not, and if it's known it's in one of your pools.

Where is this stated? Is there explicit text that says you can't chose them twice even with the separate pools? I'm just not seeing anything that says you can't choose the same maneuver with separate classes. If it's like a spellbook as in the quote, then you can't pick the same "spell" for the same class but you can if you have another one.

Drelua

2021-04-15, 10:52 AM

I found a repost of the ToB Q&A on another forum here. (https://www.enworld.org/threads/tome-of-battle-q-a-magocrat.471387/) Under 'General Maneuver Questions:'

Q: Another multiclass question. Can a multiclassed martial adept (eg. Swordsage/Warblade) choose/and or ready the same maneuver for each of it's classes (provided you have access to the same maneuver)? And if you gain a maneuver in one class, can you use it as a prerequisite in gaining a maneuver in the other class?
A: No, you can only ever learn/ready a maneuver once. If you gain a maneuver in one class it can indeed fulfill prerequisites in another class!

Yeah, they said you can't know the same maneuver twice. That seems like a very silly rule to me, since it mostly punishes multiclass characters while creating a loophole for Crusaders. Personally I would rule otherwise, this doesn't seem to have been thought through very well. They didn't seem to consider how they were contradicting an earlier answer regarding Crusaders:

Q: Dear Sage,
Could a crusader (Tome of Battle, p.8) choose to learn or ready fewer maneuvers than he or she would be entitled to?
--Joe & Sam
A: No.
You must learn and ready the full number of maneuvers entitled to you by your level.
Otherwise, you’d be able to cycle through your favorites faster, which defeats the purpose of the crusader’s unique recharge mechanic.

I didn't see any reference to what happens if you don't have enough maneuvers available to learn, so there seems to be a good chance they never considered the possibility.

Thunder999

2021-04-15, 11:01 AM

Darg

2021-04-15, 12:34 PM

Interesting. So it comes from an answer in the FAQ that contradicts the book that says to treat it like a spellbook and itself when it says you have a requirement to fill the maneuvers known to prevent the exact exploit made possible by the first answer. As always, the FAQ is, well, the FAQ.

Crake

2021-04-15, 02:05 PM

As I always understood it, using WRT on yourself did nothing. Moving your initiative count to just after yourself in essence achieves nothing, as your position in the turn order doesn't move. The only way WRT can be used for infinite turn shenanigans is when you have TWO people with WRT who alternate using it on one another.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2021-04-15, 02:20 PM

So apparently the myth comes from people arguing about how to endlessly spam a single maneuver with an evidently highly debatable build, and even if you're not using infinite turns with white raven tactics, that's going to give the impression of some supremely cheesy min/maxing.Of course, the "fair" use of White Raven Tactics is still too powerful for an effect acquired at level 5. It is, in fact, one of the better arguments for why ToB is overpowered. It only falls flat in comparison to changing shape and calling creatures.

Elves

2021-04-15, 02:37 PM

So apparently the myth comes from people arguing about how to endlessly spam a single maneuver with an evidently highly debatable build.
Idiot crusader has been accepted for over a decade. That one person in this thread argues against it based on a fringe reading of TOB that rejects the authorial FAQ and enables a bunch of other shenanigans doesn't make it debatable.

The real reason for TOB being controversial has nothing to do with WRT loops. For "casuals", it had several things against it: the weeaboo aesthetics, the sense that it was videogamey, the classes being better than low-op PHB martials, the idea that it forced your fighter to be magical. All of these were grossly overstated. But what they boil down to is that it was something new at the time and presented itself as such, and people are naturally suspicious of new things in hobbies they like.

Interesting. So it comes from an answer in the FAQ that contradicts the book
Where is it contradicting the book? It's not specified one way or the other.

And the FAQ ruling is more functional. If you could learn maneuvers multiple times, any warblade 1/swordsage 1/crusader 1 could put on a discipline item and get 3 uses of any maneuver they qualify for (WRT/IHS/the Diamond Mind counters/etc) since it would become known for all their classes.

As always, the FAQ is, well, the FAQ.
I wouldn't say so. A lengthy FAQ written with input from the actual authors of what was then a newly published book, clarifying how the subsystem works, should be taken seriously.

As someone who in several cases disagrees with FAQ rulings, I want to be clear about my view on it. By default, it should be taken seriously and as an indication of RAI. Where it should be disregarded is where it interprets the written text in a way that doesn't logically hold -- where it shows us its reasoning for a ruling, and we can analyze that reasoning and say it's wrong. For example, with strongheart vest and hellfire warlock, the FAQ argued as you did that the use of "attack" in the strongheart text means its effect only applies against attacks. But then we read on and see the effect actually applies "Any time you take ability damage". Here then, the FAQ's logic is wrong and so its ruling doesn't hold.

It's more nuanced than "FAQ is bad".

Drelua

2021-04-15, 05:03 PM

And the FAQ ruling is more functional. If you could learn maneuvers multiple times, any warblade 1/swordsage 1/crusader 1 could put on a discipline item and get 3 uses of any maneuver they qualify for (WRT/IHS/the Diamond Mind counters/etc) since it would become known for all their classes.

Would this really be that unfair? Those abilities still take actions, having 3 classes at an initiator level of 2 doesn't seem like it would be very good, and it wouldn't get much better at high levels. Take 6 levels of each and you have an initiator level of 12, so you could spam the same maneuver of up to 6th level when you could be using 9th level maneuvers. I don't see it being much different from having a multiclassed caster knowing the same spell for 2 or more classes. It's a bit stronger with the way initiator level works, but it's still just 'use weaker things more often.'

Elves

2021-04-15, 05:21 PM

A justified skepticism of WOTC Customer Service answers has gone too far when you're going to throw out the authors' word on how their subsystem works just because. You should still have an actual reason for rejecting an FAQ answer.

Would this really be that unfair? Those abilities still take actions, having 3 classes at an initiator level of 2 doesn't seem like it would be very good, and it wouldn't get much better at high levels. Take 6 levels of each and you have an initiator level of 12, so you could spam the same maneuver of up to 6th level when you could be using 9th level maneuvers. I don't see it being much different from having a multiclassed caster knowing the same spell for 2 or more classes. It's a bit stronger with the way initiator level works, but it's still just 'use weaker things more often.'

Ingredient list:
- lesser crown of white ravens (3k)
- a warblade level and a swordsage level
- Adaptive Style feat.

I now have 2 uses of WRT. At the end of my turn I use WRT #1 for an extra turn, then on that WRT turn I use WRT #2. On WRT #2, I use adaptive style to refresh my maneuvers and then use WRT again, rinse and repeat.

This "fix" has resulted in an infinite loop that's even simpler and easier than the idiot crusader. As long as you can only know WRT once, all the exercise above is going to get you is an infinitely low initiative score.

Kish

2021-04-15, 05:26 PM

It lets you have infinite turns in a round.
In the exact same way that carrying around enough water to get a party member's head until it means no one needs to worry about wounds that reduce them to negative hit points.

Ban water. Or, you know...adopt a "stupid RAW is just that: stupid" approach. But don't act like ToB is somehow more "broken" than anything else this forum's lovely theoretical optimizers touch.

Thurbane

2021-04-15, 05:28 PM

A justified skepticism of WOTC Customer Service answers has gone too far when you're going to throw out the authors' word on how their subsystem works just because. You should still have an actual reason for rejecting an FAQ answer.

^^ Agree 100%.

I think we all agree FAQ has some contradictory and/or unworkable answers, but on the whole, I put more stock in the word of devs on RAW/RAI, more than I do random gamers on the webz.

Drelua

2021-04-15, 06:02 PM

A justified skepticism of WOTC Customer Service answers has gone too far when you're going to throw out the authors' word on how their subsystem works just because. You should still have an actual reason for rejecting an FAQ answer.

Ingredient list:
- lesser crown of white ravens (3k)
- a warblade level and a swordsage level
- Adaptive Style feat.

I now have 2 uses of WRT. At the end of my turn I use WRT #1 for an extra turn, then on that WRT turn I use WRT #2. On WRT #2, I use adaptive style to refresh my maneuvers and then use WRT again, rinse and repeat.

This "fix" has resulted in an infinite loop that's even simpler and easier than the idiot crusader. As long as you can only know WRT once, all the exercise above is going to get you is an infinitely low initiative score.

You still need an initiator level of 5, so multiclassing like this might make the trick easier, but it works at a later level. Yes, any method of spamming WRT is broken, but in general I don't see it being much of a problem. The problem here is still the maneuver, not the system, so the maneuver still not being balanced doesn't really illustrate much either way. Are there any other maneuvers that would be too good to have more than once?

If that's still not a good system, what if you could learn a maneuver more than once, but only have it readied from one source? Idiot Crusader would still be doable, but it would take more resources since you'd have to ready all the maneuvers you don't want as a Warblade or Swordsage. Definitely in house rule territory at that point, just wondering if that would make things better or worse.

Particle_Man

2021-04-15, 06:54 PM

"Q: Dear Sage,
Could a crusader (Tome of Battle, p.8) choose to learn or ready fewer maneuvers than he or she would be entitled to?
--Joe & Sam
A: No.
You must learn and ready the full number of maneuvers entitled to you by your level.
Otherwise, you’d be able to cycle through your favorites faster, which defeats the purpose of the crusader’s unique recharge mechanic."

I didn't see any reference to what happens if you don't have enough maneuvers available to learn, so there seems to be a good chance they never considered the possibility.

A *very* strict interpretation of this would stop idiot crusader in its tracks by simply not allowing a character to take a level of crusader at all if a character could not learn their full number of known maneuvers (5 in the case of the first class level of crusader) upon doing so.

Particle_Man

2021-04-15, 06:57 PM

I found a repost of the ToB Q&A on another forum here. (https://www.enworld.org/threads/tome-of-battle-q-a-magocrat.471387/) Under 'General Maneuver Questions:'

Btw, thanks for posting this. This is the closest I think we will ever get to the mythical Ye Olde Loste ToB Errata.

Thurbane

2021-04-15, 07:26 PM

Btw, thanks for posting this. This is the closest I think we will ever get to the mythical Ye Olde Loste ToB Errata.

There were a handful of answers about ToB questions on the WotC website in the "Ask Wizards" section, I believe.

I remember one clarified that non-ToB prestige classes do not add full class levels to initiator level. Here's a copy someone has archived: http://rpg.nobl.ca/archive.php?x=dnd/ask/20060918a

edit: found the original http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20060918a

TiaC

2021-04-15, 07:46 PM

I found a repost of the ToB Q&A on another forum here. (https://www.enworld.org/threads/tome-of-battle-q-a-magocrat.471387/)
I noticed another possible method of creating an idiot Crusader in that FAQ.

Q: The maneuvers known description of the crusader, swordsage, and warblade (in the Tome of Battle) state that you can learn a maneuver in place of one that you already know. However, these descriptions are unclear about whether you can learn a maneuver in place of one that you learned through another class. Can you swap maneuvers gained through different classes?
To clarify this with an example, can a crusader 4/warblade 3 who has taken an additional level in the warblade class and learned a maneuver as a result 'forget' a maneuver that he learned through his crusader levels and learn a warblade maneuver in place of that maneuver?
A: Yes, these abilities do not care what the origin of the replaced maneuver is.

It looks like you can forget Crusader maneuvers by taking additional levels of Warblade or Swordsage.

I find all the talk of whether you can make an infinite loop out of WRT to be beside the point. The closest comparison to the power of WRT is Greater Celerity. WRT needs to be used on a character with an initiative that is equal or higher to yours and has to be used on your turn, but can be used on other characters and doesn't daze them. In many circumstances, WRT is better than Greater Celerity, which is regarded as a strong spell. Since it comes 10 levels earlier and can be used more often, WRT is overpowered.

Darg

2021-04-15, 07:59 PM

It's more nuanced than "FAQ is bad".

Of course it is more nuanced and I never said the FAQ was bad.

Either way, you can't starve a crusader of maneuvers known. Even if you take 2 levels of swordsage and 1 level of crusader to reduce the number of accessible maneuvers of crusader disciplines to 4 out of 11. By taking levels in swordsage you gave the crusader access to swordsage discipline maneuvers.

As for a "fringe" reading of how maneuvers known and readied are distributed as a class feature of PRCs, I'd say the exploitable reading is more "fringe." There is no precedent for this kind of reading. I asked for an example, but what I got was a passive aggressive slight. How constructive.

Drelua

2021-04-15, 08:39 PM

I noticed another possible method of creating an idiot Crusader in that FAQ.

It looks like you can forget Crusader maneuvers by taking additional levels of Warblade or Swordsage.

I find all the talk of whether you can make an infinite loop out of WRT to be beside the point. The closest comparison to the power of WRT is Greater Celerity. WRT needs to be used on a character with an initiative that is equal or higher to yours and has to be used on your turn, but can be used on other characters and doesn't daze them. In many circumstances, WRT is better than Greater Celerity, which is regarded as a strong spell. Since it comes 10 levels earlier and can be used more often, WRT is overpowered.

I don't think this lets you replace a maneuver known for one class with a maneuver known for another. You can use the Warblade feature to retrain Crusader maneuvers, but you have to replace it with a different Crusader maneuver.

Of course it is more nuanced and I never said the FAQ was bad.

Either way, you can't starve a crusader of maneuvers known. Even if you take 2 levels of swordsage and 1 level of crusader to reduce the number of accessible maneuvers of crusader disciplines to 4 out of 11. By taking levels in swordsage you gave the crusader access to swordsage discipline maneuvers.

As for a "fringe" reading of how maneuvers known and readied are distributed as a class feature of PRCs, I'd say the exploitable reading is more "fringe." There is no precedent for this kind of reading. I asked for an example, but what I got was a passive aggressive slight. How constructive.

Does multiclassing allow you to take maneuvers for other classes' disciplines? I thought each class still had the same options regardless, and I can't find a rule saying otherwise.

TiaC

2021-04-15, 09:17 PM

I don't think this lets you replace a maneuver known for one class with a maneuver known for another. You can use the Warblade feature to retrain Crusader maneuvers, but you have to replace it with a different Crusader maneuver.
The example that the FAQ affirms as correct is the exact scenario of replacing a Crusader maneuver with a Warblade maneuver. The Sage is saying yes to the example of "can a crusader 4/warblade 3 who has taken an additional level in the warblade class and learned a maneuver as a result 'forget' a maneuver that he learned through his crusader levels and learn a warblade maneuver in place of that maneuver?"

Darg

2021-04-15, 09:50 PM

Does multiclassing allow you to take maneuvers for other classes' disciplines? I thought each class still had the same options regardless, and I can't find a rule saying otherwise.

I don't see why not. Nothing says that you are limited to a class's disciplines other than class access. As you have levels in the classes, you have access to those disciplines and you can select maneuvers you qualify for. A warblade 5/crusader 1 couldn't get a devoted spirit maneuver of 3rd level or higher because the crusader's initiator level is only 3, but they could get 2nd or 1st.

There is no spell list clause.

Drelua

2021-04-15, 10:11 PM

The example that the FAQ affirms as correct is the exact scenario of replacing a Crusader maneuver with a Warblade maneuver. The Sage is saying yes to the example of "can a crusader 4/warblade 3 who has taken an additional level in the warblade class and learned a maneuver as a result 'forget' a maneuver that he learned through his crusader levels and learn a warblade maneuver in place of that maneuver?"

My bad, I skipped reading the example. That seems like a really bad rule IMO, but you're right, I guess that would work per the FAQ.

I don't see why not. Nothing says that you are limited to a class's disciplines other than class access. As you have levels in the classes, you have access to those disciplines and you can select maneuvers you qualify for. A warblade 5/crusader 1 couldn't get a devoted spirit maneuver of 3rd level or higher because the crusader's initiator level is only 3, but they could get 2nd or 1st.

There is no spell list clause.

I would argue that the 'maneuvers' class feature specifying which maneuvers are available for selection would apply regardless of what other classes you might have levels in. There's no specific rule saying a wizard who takes a fighter level can't select his fighter bonus feats from the wizard list, but the different 'bonus feats' class features still function separately.

Darg

2021-04-15, 10:31 PM

I would argue that the 'maneuvers' class feature specifying which maneuvers are available for selection would apply regardless of what other classes you might have levels in. There's no specific rule saying a wizard who takes a fighter level can't select his fighter bonus feats from the wizard list, but the different 'bonus feats' class features still function separately.

Fighter bonus feats are specifically designated as such and mentioned in the fighter bonus feats class feature. So there is something specifically telling you that you can only pick fighter bonus feats. Just as there is a rule that you can only cast spells on your spell list.

There is no such mention for maneuvers. It only refers to it as a "class and level" requirement. As you meet the requirement, there is nothing in your way from selecting the maneuver. This line is literally under the prerequisite description section for maneuvers and there is no rule preventing you from selecting maneuvers from disciplines outside the class you leveled in as long as you meet the requirements.

Elves

2021-04-15, 10:44 PM

I noticed another possible method of creating an idiot Crusader in that FAQ.
Nice find. Should work, though more level intensive since you need 6 levels in another adept class.

A *very* strict interpretation of this would stop idiot crusader in its tracks by simply not allowing a character to take a level of crusader at all if a character could not learn their full number of known maneuvers (5 in the case of the first class level of crusader) upon doing so.
It can't stop you from taking the level, nor could it really prevent you from learning less maneuvers if there are none to learn, but it might prevent you from readying maneuvers if you can't ready the full complement.

Note the question is about voluntarily choosing to learn or ready fewer, not what happens if you can't. And the fact that this ruling can't prevent you from learning fewer than your maximum if there are physically no more to learn could be taken as evidence that it operates only in voluntary situations like the question it's answering. Despite that, it's the best way I've seen of disallowing idiot crusader and could plausibly do so.

By taking levels in swordsage you gave the crusader access to swordsage discipline maneuvers.
Nothing says that you are limited to a class's disciplines other than class access. As you have levels in the classes, you have access to those disciplines and you can select maneuvers you qualify for. A
Each class says what disciplines you can choose maneuvers from when you learn a maneuver through that class. There's no reason to think discipline access is one and done. It's argument by absence or whatever the fallacy is. And once again the FAQ explicitly denies it.
We're getting into Saturn orbit here for out-there interpretations of TOB.

As for a "fringe" reading of how maneuvers known and readied are distributed
We're back to the maneuvers known/readied thing? So again, if you're not allowed to choose what class your maneuvers known apply to, what happens at PRC levels where you gain a known maneuver but not a readied maneuver? (Once again, here, we have an FAQ denial.)

I'd say the exploitable reading is more "fringe."
As I said here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25008317&postcount=116), your reading creates an infinite WRT loop that's even simpler.

I asked for an example, but what I got was a passive aggressive slight. How constructive.
I showed you the FAQ and said why we should take it as valid.

There's no aggression. It does seem to me that you want a specific outcome and are willing to paste together a bunch of wacky readings to get it, which at the end of the day don't even prevent WRT abuse. It's better to come to the text in an impartial way instead of wringing water from a stone -- not because we should be in thrall to the text, but exactly because we're all free to rule as we want in our own games.

And you know, even forget idiot crusader, there's also the body outside body WRT loop. The underlying problem is the maneuver. I stand by 1/round per person as a good nerf for it.

Drelua

2021-04-15, 11:04 PM

Fighter bonus feats are specifically designated as such and mentioned in the fighter bonus feats class feature. So there is something specifically telling you that you can only pick fighter bonus feats. Just as there is a rule that you can only cast spells on your spell list.

There is no such mention for maneuvers. It only refers to it as a "class and level" requirement. As you meet the requirement, there is nothing in your way from selecting the maneuver. This line is literally under the prerequisite description section for maneuvers and there is no rule preventing you from selecting maneuvers from disciplines outside the class you leveled in as long as you meet the requirements.

I disagree, the text of each class 'Maneuvers' class feature is very clear to me. Regardless of what other classes you have, when you take a Crusader level, you gain Maneuvers through Crusaders' class features, which list the three disciplines you have access to. That fits my idea of something specifically telling you. It's not a rule on Maneuvers in general, it's a rule each class has. Feats being tagged as Fighter feats isn't really relevant to the metaphor, my point was that if you can access one list with your Fighter class features and a separate list with your Wizard class features, you cannot take options from one class with the other class. I really don't see how this could be considered not a specific rule:

You being your career with knowledge of five martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to you are Devoted Spirit, Stone Dragon, and White Raven.

Each class says what disciplines you can choose maneuvers from when you learn a maneuver through that class. There's no reason to think discipline access is one and done. It's argument by absence or whatever the fallacy is. And once again the FAQ explicitly denies it.
We're getting into Saturn orbit here for out-there interpretations of TOB.

I showed you the FAQ. There's no aggression. It does seem to me that you want a specific outcome and are willing to paste together a bunch of wacky TOB readings to get it. And at the end of the day they just open an even simpler WRT loop. It's better to come to the text in an impartial way instead of wringing water from a stone -- not because we should be in thrall to the text, but exactly because we're all free to rule as we want in our own games. And I've seen plenty of places in the past where I agree with you, but I don't know why you insist on this one thing being a particular way.

Even forget idiot crusader, there's also the body outside body WRT loop. The underlying problem is the maneuver. I stand by 1/round per person as a good nerf for it.

I feel like you're making this conversation more about WRT than it needs to be. If all your examples of problems with a subsystem involve one specific maneuver, your problem isn't with the subsystem, but with the maneuver. I feel like if a problem continues to be a problem with or without a certain suggestion/interpretation, then that isn't really a point for or against when considering the option. WRT needs a 1/round limitation with pretty much any ruling, but I think restrictions that prevent a Crusader from taking the full amount of options are bad either way. It breaks the recovery mechanic, and will either annoy a player that isn't trying to abuse it, or open up options for people that are trying to abuse it.

Elves

2021-04-15, 11:54 PM

But like many other exploits it may be legal. Trying to twist the text though byzantine readings that distort other parts of the system in order to make it say what we want isn't the right approach. Just nix it at your table.

Particle_man brought up a quote from the FAQ that could justify legally banning it. A little shaky? Ok, but way more solid than "you can know maneuvers multiple times, don't get to choose where your known maneuvers from PRCs go, can take any discipline you know from another class", etc.

Lans

2021-04-17, 11:40 PM

Even without tricks WRT is incredibly powerful probably putting to the top of martial prowess with the flexibility of giving spellcaster or rogue what they need

Elves

2021-04-17, 11:56 PM

But someone was like yeah, this looks right for 3rd level.
What I bet they were doing with that and IHS is analogizing it to 3rd level spells, which is when the "classic" spellcasting options like fireball, fly, gaseous form and haste come online. So those were their answer to what the "classic" martial options would be.

The problem is that both are just as good for non-martials, and anyone 10th level or higher can get them 1/encounter for just 25k (lesser and medium discipline items combined in 1). You kind of have to rule that different grades of discipline item don't count as different items, or else every high-level character starts combat with three turns (normal turn > WRT > belt of battle).

Lans

2021-04-20, 12:55 AM

How does the sword sage and crusader effects compare to comparable spells? IE CLW vs the 1st level healing strike or the shadow jaunt spells vs dimension door?

Xervous

2021-04-20, 06:39 AM

With the healing strike there is the very real and awkward question of bag-of-rats. If you take it as written and abuse it you have arbitrary ‘castings’.

The jaunt effects are better compared to anklet of translocation. In battle you’re not going to be chaining uses of either, but out of combat the only limit on an anklet is how many you bothered to buy and the time to swap them. For the jaunts it’s just time. At will flight can screw over so many low level GM plans, at will short range LoS teleportation can’t do as much but will have the occasional disruption all the same.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-04-20, 10:15 AM

With the healing strike there is the very real and awkward question of bag-of-rats. If you take it as written and abuse it you have arbitrary ‘castings’.

... That's technically incorrect. Crusader's Strike, the healing maneuver, requires a clear and credible threat, so bag of rats is out.

However, the 1st level stance, Martial Spirit, has no such clause. Stances are a much more precious resource than strikes, and it only heals 2 per hit, but there are definitely ways to get infinite out of combat healing with it if you have a permissive DM.

Drelua

2021-04-20, 12:06 PM

Xervous

2021-04-20, 01:13 PM

... That's technically incorrect. Crusader's Strike, the healing maneuver, requires a clear and credible threat, so bag of rats is out.

However, the 1st level stance, Martial Spirit, has no such clause. Stances are a much more precious resource than strikes, and it only heals 2 per hit, but there are definitely ways to get infinite out of combat healing with it if you have a permissive DM.

The operating words are “immediate, direct threat”. Assuming the rat bites for even just 1 damage and is agitated such that it will attack an ally when placed before them, we’ve met all the criteria. To be certain let the rat bite them for 1, then smack it to produce the heal. If the GM contrives a reason for the rat to not attack, I’m sure the players can arrange something with less wiggle room. The point of the matter is that it’s unlimited and is practically begging to have the target requirements house ruled or at the very least strictly adjudicated, just like the classic example with great cleave.

Elves

2021-04-20, 01:24 PM

A HD minimum is another way to solve attack for x at wills.

But the taboo on infinite out of combat healing should probably be dropped because of how limiting it is to the sorts of healing abilities you can have -- & past low levels it comes down to saving some money on CLW/vigor wands. It's not an unreasonable ability as long as it's a choice made as an alternative to something else.

If a DM wants to run a hp attrition game, don't allow those abilities (just as you presumably limit access to CLW wands).

That doesn't necessarily apply to crusader's strike/SoRV, since attacking things in between combats to heal is a little immersion-breaking.

Particle_Man

2021-04-20, 02:21 PM

If one is concerned about infinite out of combat healing from the book then shadow sun ninja plus one friendly undead plus one friendly non-undead in the party is another source of it.

Lans

2021-04-22, 11:21 AM

If one is concerned about infinite out of combat healing from the book then shadow sun ninja plus one friendly undead plus one friendly non-undead in the party is another source of it.

I don't think you need to go to infinite healing, some play l groups use CXW after some body gets hit in battle. To them crusaders and revitalizing strike will look OP

Edit there is a level of optimization where a player does a barbarian, looks at the high BAB and rage then figures a 14 Strength should be fine, better boost Wisdom for will saves and dump a few points into charisma so I'm not ugly. I think more tables were running at about this optimization level.

Necroticplague

2021-04-24, 07:07 PM

Broken != too strong actually. Even weak option can totally broke the game if DM isn't ready. Example. Module can be build about exhaustion PC's recourses. Spell slots, turn attempts, smites, rage, etc. Of course Warlock and ToB classes seems broken in this game.
Many games imply some exhaustion PC's recourses not necessarily as obviously, but this is hidden idea somewhere in head.

Difficulty based on exhaustion always seemed like a poor idea in my eyes. Mostly due to the game having a random element. In any individual encounter, the random element is equal, because it can swing both way in the encounter. But with several in a row, any luck can become more punishing because it carries forward-and you then can't properly balance the later encounters because you don't know what the PCs will have to work with.

Anything that gets away from that seems like a step in the right direction. At will or /encounter abilities are a good start.

Drelua

2021-04-24, 07:37 PM

Difficulty based on exhaustion always seemed like a poor idea in my eyes. Mostly due to the game having a random element. In any individual encounter, the random element is equal, because it can swing both way in the encounter. But with several in a row, any luck can become more punishing because it carries forward-and you then can't properly balance the later encounters because you don't know what the PCs will have to work with.

Anything that gets away from that seems like a step in the right direction. At will or /encounter abilities are a good start.

Yeah, it should either be /encounter or a more abstract measure of time, like /session or /scene, how it is in Legend. Otherwise the party's enemies have the advantage, since they're usually assumed not to have been in any fights lately.

Elves

2021-04-24, 09:18 PM

Kitsuneymg

2021-04-25, 02:44 AM

Yeah, resources based on attrition just don't really work as a general principle for D&D. Even the theoretical "4 encounters per day" in 3e...one, how often is that actually observed? Two, why should the game have to be limited like that?

One of the things 4e got right is that the best way to include daily abilities is as panic buttons and rare sprinkles, not as the bread and potatoes of anyone's gameplay.

I disagree with literally every assertion you made.

Attrition does work. Depending on the fights and party, 4 may not be enough or may be too much. Especially at high level. But the reason every “hard” adventure I’ve ever seen or played in is hard, is due to attrition. Certainly no Paizo encounters are hard in isolation. Giant Slayer’s book one is brutal because of attrition. Show up fresh to every fight and it’s a cakewalk.

3.X is a game of resource management. The crap classes have no resources to manage beyond HP and GP. The good classes have all sorts of daily stuff to manage. Spell, bardic music, rage, smites (pathfinder ones at least) all make the classes better, give agency to the players as to when they are at peak, and contribute to the meta game that is resource management. Even PoW/ToB still need to manage maneuvers within an encounter. But they and the barbarian suffer from the lack of meaningful resource management at high level.*

The game “breaks” and stops being a challenge (and therefor fun) when you accrue so many resources that a GM can’t effectively run you down. For some, that’s 7th level. For some, 700th.

All this management lets players decide when/how cool their characters are at a given time, and how cool they attempt to be. When do I rage? When do I use my rounds of bardic music? What level spell can I afford to use now vs save for later? How many spell points/power points can I afford to drop now? Can I move in and take this guy out, but risk burning high level spell slots on healing in combat, or so I play it safe and go through the chaff first before threatening the caster? Those decisions are key to this game. They shape not just the tactical and strategic course of the campaign, but are the very thing that makes D&D more than a series of improv sessions followed by pop math quizzes.

4e is bland oatmeal and the encounter/daily divide is a huge reason why.

*having played now a number of level 1-20 games with PoW (pathfinders ToB) using a variety of classes and disciplines, I can assert that the classes become boring after a while. They lack of useful/meaningful resource expenditure means they play much the same at 20 as they did at 10. Barbarian stop running out of rage rounds, slayers struggle to justify spending all their ki, warders end every day with excess marks(or the ac penalty stops mattering.) That’s when my enjoyment starts to wane. And it’s a fatal flaw in the maneuver system. It’s also a flaw in the Spheres of Might system. Classes with no meaningful resource management play pretty much the same battle to battle. Even a quick recharge one like stamina is better than nothing. And quick isn’t instant. A GM can make a series of lower level fights harder by denying time to recover completely between each. Again, giant slayer book 1 is a good example of a meat grinder powered nearly entirely by attrition and not individual encounter strength.

Elves

2021-04-25, 07:13 AM

But the reason every “hard” adventure I’ve ever seen or played in is hard, is due to attrition. Certainly no Paizo encounters are hard in isolation.
That may be an issue with Paizo.

The game “breaks” and stops being a challenge (and therefor fun) when you accrue so many resources that a GM can’t effectively run you down.
Is it impossible to have encounters that are challenging on their own merits?

They lack of useful/meaningful resource expenditure means they play much the same at 20 as they did at 10. Barbarian stop running out of rage rounds, slayers struggle to justify spending all their ki, warders end every day with excess marks(or the ac penalty stops mattering.) That’s when my enjoyment starts to wane. And it’s a fatal flaw in the maneuver system.
Your complaint with barbarians is that they eventually lack resource management because they can have rage up all day, spellcasters can cast spells every round, etc. But initiators have a resource system that isn't reliant on per-day uses, so resource management always remains present for them. That should be an answer to your complaint with barbarians.

It sounds like you want to keep classes in a permanent state of scarcity, only able to use their class abilities for a certain part of the day. But why is it better to say "you can only feel like a barbarian half the time" than to design a system where you can use your abilities all the time while still having to manage resources? Especially when the scarcity model requires you to enforce a certain number of encounters each day, which is unrealistic (falls apart the second the PCs cast rope trick) and constrains the flow of the story.

Darg

2021-04-25, 08:57 AM

Is it impossible to have encounters that are challenging on their own merits?

The closer you get to that merit line, the more limits are placed on an encounter. Would See Invisibility entirely gut the challenge of an encounter? Nix it. The adventurers bought antidotes and the encounter relies on poison to be challenging? Oops, the de-pantser went a little crazy and accidently smashed all the bottles of antidote.

I wouldn't say it's impossible, but to create those challenges you have to remove a lot of the reasons why players play D&D and scale back the per encounter power and versatility of each class.

noob

2021-04-25, 09:40 AM

Drelua

2021-04-25, 12:12 PM

I feel like one person casting see invisibility rarely trivializes an encounter. They can see the invisible enemies, and they can tell the other party members where they are, but everyone else still takes all the penalties, has to deal with the miss chance and is probably vulnerable to sneak attacks.

There are ways for a DM to wear a party down with attrition, you can stop them for testing by saying the bad guys will finish a ritual at midnight or something, but that won't hurt every party member equally. In 3.5 the barbarian runs out of rage way before the casters run out if spells, and in PF the reverse is true. Meanwhile the fighter and rogue never run out of anything, except maybe some use activated magic items. The bard takes a long time to run out of both spells and inspires, the ranger runs out of spells but doesn't really care that much, the Paladin barely gets to smite anything in 3.5 and only does a bit better in PF. The system's already designed in a way that attrition happens at very different rates for different classes, if it happens at all, so I'd rather move away from that.

I'm not a fan of PoW either, but that's just because they just get too much stuff. A stance, 3-5 maneuvers readied, and 3 class features is a lot for level 1. The class features are fairly minor, so it's not that overpowered, but it still looks like more than any paizo class gets, and it gives me more than I want to keep track of.

Darg

2021-04-25, 02:28 PM

Imagine poison using invisible people hiding in shadows in great numbers that tries to surround the party thanks to some hidden hatches.
Yes if the party have secret door detection, antidotes, see invisible, see in darkness and aoe attacks then the encounter is easy but what are the odds they can access all those tools within a short time span?
Add in some swarms and it can further split their focus: taking antidotes takes actions which are not spent fighting the swarms.

That's not making the encounter difficult on its own merit though. That's simply taxing action economy. And there are ways to get out of that scenario quite easily depending on the tools available, aka a limit set by attrition/availability. If a wizard could cast all their spell spontaneously, it drastically changes possibilities. Now imagine their spellcasting was at-will/per encounter. Yes, you could balance an encounter to counter the assumption that a character has access to everything, but then the characters that can't do everything are either pigeonholed or become liabilities. To balance this, a cap needs to be put on something. Maybe we start by severely limiting the number of uses. Then we limit versatility by limiting the selection of options. Or we can do it the homogeneous way and make all classes do the exact same thing with different fluff so we can make it the encounter that's difficult and not whether or not someone has an ability.

We can make an encounter super complex to test capability, but that can only be done within a predetermined set of limits. It's not the encounter that is then difficult, but the limitations set upon the party. It quickly becomes a zero sum back and forth as the DM tries to set more limitations and the party fights to break those limitations using tools that have the ability to break them. Attrition is a tool of limitation that allows the existence of these limit breaking tools and still is able to limit them to a large extent.

D&D is designed with attrition in mind and to remove it would require a complete system overhaul. Money is generally an attrition resource. You go up against higher difficulties and you need the increased capability that spending money provides, but infinite money takes that difficulty away by giving the party access to everything they need.

Attrition allows one way for classes to provide different benefits without a narrow power scale. On the far end of the spectrum, no attrition without equalizing power levels leads to something like at-will time stop. Equalizing power levels leads to classes that play more similarly.

I play D&D 3.5 for the wide power disparity. Attrition is the knob that balances the game the most and allows for a greater variety in player choices in gameplay mechanics. Taking away attrition requires shortening the power divide because part of the advantage of lower power options were that they become more valuable as attrition becomes more of a factor. Poor balancing is a core problem in any system model.

Elves

2021-04-25, 02:45 PM

The closer you get to that merit line, the more limits are placed on an encounter. Would See Invisibility entirely gut the challenge of an encounter? Nix it. The adventurers bought antidotes and the encounter relies on poison to be challenging? Oops, the de-pantser went a little crazy and accidently smashed all the bottles of antidote.

I wouldn't say it's impossible, but to create those challenges you have to remove a lot of the reasons why players play D&D and scale back the per encounter power and versatility of each class.
It seems like you're talking less about per-day resources than about whether a party has brought a certain capability at all.

Unless you're saying that you should have so many encounters against invisible enemies that the players eventually run out of see invisibility spells just so you can have the one encounter where they get jumped, but...in that case, the PCs were clearly right to come prepared for invisible enemies, so why are you intent on punishing them in spite of it? A better response would be to have this clade of invisible ninjas try to dispel the PCs' buffs, or have them be forced to resort to different tactics.

(IMO, the "hard counter" philosophy of core spells like true seeing, freedom of movement and mind blank is problematic, but that's a different issue.)

The antidote example shows another way attrition often fails as a governing mechanic for the game. The cost of antidotes isn't prohibitive past low levels, so what starts as attrition soon becomes a small WBL tax. The same is true of the idea of hit point attrition meeting the reality of CLW/vigor wands.

Of course, you can homebrew an expensive or rare antidote to a rare poison, and use that as a limiting factor in a certain adventure. That's great! You've created attrition without having to make it a fundamental part of class gameplay. If you want to make attrition pertinent in a certain adventure, which can definitely be fun, it should be a choice -- through special factors like that or through denying PCs resources they would normally expect, as in a "zombie survival" game -- rather than something mandated.

There are ways for a DM to wear a party down with attrition, you can stop them for testing by saying the bad guys will finish a ritual at midnight or something, but that won't hurt every party member equally.
Two good points here.

The midnight ritual is one of the responses commonly brought up to the 15-minute adventuring day -- that "no good DM will let that happen", presumably through time pressure. But if you're constantly having to devise gimmicks to compensate for an underlying incentive problem (per-day classes with no obvious reason to want to fight for more than 1-2 encounters per day), that means the system is flawed.

One way to address that is to have per-day classes that gain bonuses for completing multiple encounters (say, give a necromancer a 1-minute ritual to absorb the souls of fallen enemies, granting a cumulative bonus that lasts 1 hour and can thus be stacked over multiple encounters, or give the warrior a "battle high" that grants cumulative combat bonuses for each encounter they've overcome within 10 minutes of the last one).

That's an avenue to explore, but it makes the encounter flow even more limited: not just a certain number of encounters per day to be challenging, but they also should as a rule trend from weakest to strongest. Threatens to start feeling videogamey.

And as you point out, per-day classes still conflict with characters who are on different resource flows, some of which may not suffer from attrition at all. (Once again here 4e recognized the problem, but was overzealous in putting everyone on the exact same resource flow when putting the per-day stuff on top of a chassis would have been enough).

Speaking of "chassis", I think in early 3e design, the chassis was considered to be someone's base statistics, all that NPC classes get, and the PC class abilities were thought of as forming peaks and valleys on top of that. Nowadays (and by the time of TOB/MOI) we expect each class to have its own gameplay flow on top of the base statistics, with the daily abilities forming peaks and valleys within that gameplay flow.

I'm not a fan of PoW either, but that's just because they just get too much stuff. A stance, 3-5 maneuvers readied, and 3 class features is a lot for level 1. The class features are fairly minor, so it's not that overpowered, but it still looks like more than any paizo class gets, and it gives me more than I want to keep track of.
Agreed, TOB classes and maneuvers need a small boost but the POW content is overdesigned. Pathfinder classes in general tend toward overdesigned, in part because "no dead levels" started to become confused with "no empty lines in the Special column".

Drelua

2021-04-25, 03:31 PM

Two good points here.

The midnight ritual is one of the responses commonly brought up to the 15-minute adventuring day -- that "no good DM will let that happen", presumably through time pressure. But if you're constantly having to devise gimmicks to compensate for an underlying incentive problem (per-day classes with no obvious reason to want to fight for more than 1-2 encounters per day), that means the system is flawed.

Yeah, it would get silly if there was always a ticking clock on everything the party does, I think something like a ritual that will be completed soon is something that can be done occasionally for major story moments, but if it's all the time it would get old. At the same time, there should be some other stuff happening to give the party reasons not to sit around crafting for months. Important stuff happening, but most of it not super urgent is what I think would be ideal.

And as you point out, per-day classes still conflict with characters who are on different resource flows, some of which may not suffer from attrition at all. (Once again here 4e recognized the problem, but was overzealous in putting everyone on the exact same resource flow when putting the per-day stuff on top of a chassis would have been enough).

I never tried 4e, but some of my friends played it for a bit. One of them told me "4e is great, if you want to play a wizard. If you don't, too bad, you're playing a wizard." That pretty much sums up my thoughts from looking at the core book better than anything else I can think of.

Speaking of "chassis", I think in early 3e design, the chassis was considered to be someone's base statistics, all that NPC classes get, and the PC class abilities were thought of as forming peaks and valleys on top of that. Nowadays (and by the time of TOB/MOI) we expect each class to have its own gameplay flow on top of the base statistics, with the daily abilities forming peaks and valleys within that gameplay flow.

Agreed, TOB classes and maneuvers need a small boost but the POW content is overdesigned. Pathfinder classes in general tend toward overdesigned, in part because "no dead levels" started to become confused with "no empty lines in the Special column".

I like the idea of no dead levels, it's a bit disappointing when the party levels, the wizard gets a few new spells, and the fighter gets +1 BAB, a bit of HP, and a couple skill points. With ToB though, Warblades only get a handful of dead levels. I might add weapon training at a slower progression than Fighter for a PF port, but nothing like every PoW class I've looked at. When a level 1 Warlord has more class features than a level 5 Fighter, even counting each bonus feat... yeah, overdesigned is exactly the word I was looking for.

loky1109

2021-04-28, 06:16 PM

Difficulty based on exhaustion always seemed like a poor idea in my eyes.
D&D magic system build around this idea.
Somewhere in DMG written number of encounters in day.
Sorry. You can not to like this, but this is fact.

At will or /encounter abilities are a good start.
No good and no bad without "for what?"

Yeah, it should either be /encounter or a more abstract measure of time, like /session or /scene, how it is in Legend.
That's how my suspension of disbelief is collapsing. )))

Is it impossible to have encounters that are challenging on their own merits?
Possible. But it is good to have different options. DM want one BIG encounter. We have it. DM want series of encounters to exhaust party. We have it, too! Variability!

icefractal

2021-04-28, 07:16 PM

That's how my suspension of disbelief is collapsing. )))I agree - I sometimes enjoy games where the mechanics are more meta/plot-based, but I don't want D&D to be one.

However, IME, it's attrition that more often demands gamist solutions at the expense of internal consistency -
No, you can't rest yet, it's only been two fights.
Why? Because ... there is a time limit!
Yes, it took three weeks to reach this ruin, and it easily could have been between 2-5 weeks depending on rolls, but it so happens that the time limit is in exactly three days. That's how it is, stop asking questions.

The apex of that being maybe 13A, where you simply can't get any benefit from resting until you've done enough encounters. It's been a month in-game? Doesn't matter. It works mechanically, but to me it's pretty rough on SOD.

Drelua

2021-04-28, 07:45 PM

That's how my suspension of disbelief is collapsing. )))

For some things, like spells, maybe, but for martial stuff it makes more sense to me. "I can't swing my sword like that, I did it 8 hours ago" versus "I only swing my sword like that in rare, very serious moments because it's not easy." Second one's a bit of an improvement to me. If you look at it less as a game and more as a story, that's closer to how stories are generally told. The protagonist doesn't often just break out their most powerful signature moves once a day.

Necroticplague

2021-04-28, 07:59 PM

D&D magic system build around this idea.
Somewhere in DMG written number of encounters in day.
Sorry. You can not to like this, but this is fact.
Yeah-and that piece of advice is presuming randomness, and that system is as sturdy as an underwater saltine.

No good and no bad without "for what?"
For being able to create properly tuned encounters. If I don't know what resources they'll have to deal with, such as how much of their daily abilities they've burnt through (due to randomness factors), it's a lot harder to tune an encounter.

If all abilities are /encounter or at-will, this problem disappears, because they'll enter each one with the same abilities.

Calthropstu

2021-04-28, 08:54 PM

I agree - I sometimes enjoy games where the mechanics are more meta/plot-based, but I don't want D&D to be one.

However, IME, it's attrition that more often demands gamist solutions at the expense of internal consistency -
No, you can't rest yet, it's only been two fights.
Why? Because ... there is a time limit!
Yes, it took three weeks to reach this ruin, and it easily could have been between 2-5 weeks depending on rolls, but it so happens that the time limit is in exactly three days. That's how it is, stop asking questions.

The apex of that being maybe 13A, where you simply can't get any benefit from resting until you've done enough encounters. It's been a month in-game? Doesn't matter. It works mechanically, but to me it's pretty rough on SOD.

I am a bit more realistic. Time moves on with or without my players. I write up literally hundreds of quests they can stumble upon. Other things are time driven.

After spending 3 months in a dungeon, this one npc that a character had been trying to flirt with got a boyfriend and wouldn't talk to him anymore. They also found things they were "saving for later" had been resolved. A wyvern they were going to hunt down when they were done with the dungeon was already hunted. Other leads had vanished. Other npcs had moved on.

Sure, new issues had arisen, the big bad had made progress, new issues needed handling. But I really drive it home that TIME MATTERS. Especially when it comes to big bads.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-29, 05:16 AM

I agree - I sometimes enjoy games where the mechanics are more meta/plot-based, but I don't want D&D to be one.

However, IME, it's attrition that more often demands gamist solutions at the expense of internal consistency -
No, you can't rest yet, it's only been two fights.
Why? Because ... there is a time limit!
Yes, it took three weeks to reach this ruin, and it easily could have been between 2-5 weeks depending on rolls, but it so happens that the time limit is in exactly three days. That's how it is, stop asking questions.

The apex of that being maybe 13A, where you simply can't get any benefit from resting until you've done enough encounters. It's been a month in-game? Doesn't matter. It works mechanically, but to me it's pretty rough on SOD.

So, I gwnerally use two types of tome constraints:

One is a large scale one. The players shouldn't waste too much time - the war is going on, the alignment of the planes is approaching, the old king is slowly dying, whatever. That one doesn't usually influence short term desicions, but it does influence long term ones, and it can influence short term ones once the clock nears the end.

Small scale time constarints, however, should never as arbitrary as you describe them. The parrty gets a 3 day permit to come into the walled city, after which they'll have to pay more or get deported. The party triggered an alarm spell, giving them half an hour at most until the guard show up. The party was sent to interrupt a demonic ritual a day's travel away, three days before the full moon, or whatever. You get the picture. Your issue is only an issue if you assume all adventures are "travel to a ruin for a few weeks and plunder it".

loky1109

2021-04-29, 05:05 PM

For being able to create properly tuned encounters.
It's very broad.

If I don't know what resources they'll have to deal with, such as how much of their daily abilities they've burnt through (due to randomness factors), it's a lot harder to tune an encounter.
I see. If encounter looks tuned when you create it, but runs with TPK because of exhaustion, it's bad.

But... If you create not single encounter, but line of them, and PC's deaths are valid script? This is different story, isn't it?

"I only swing my sword like that in rare, very serious moments because it's not easy."
This is why I didn't start play in 4E. Per-Encounter abilities can be taken to the point of absurdity. This is possible to run ten one-round encounters one by one in one hand and one one-houndred-round encounter in other hand. And in second variant you have only one per-enc vs ten in first in a shorter time.
Yes, "good DMtm" should prevent this, but he can't always to be good.

However, IME, it's attrition that more often demands gamist solutions at the expense of internal consistency -
No, you can't rest yet, it's only been two fights.
Why? Because ... there is a time limit!
You can to say this in other words. In my opinion this isn't gamism, this is simulationism. But it's only my opinion.

Drelua

2021-04-29, 05:38 PM

This is why I didn't start play in 4E. Per-Encounter abilities can be taken to the point of absurdity. This is possible to run ten one-round encounters one by one in one hand and one one-houndred-round encounter in other hand. And in second variant you have only one per-enc vs ten in first in a shorter time.
Yes, "good DMtm" should prevent this, but he can't always to be good.

I don't know, seems marginally less arbitrary to me than 1/day. Either way it's strictly an in game limit that doesn't really make sense in-universe, and that you wouldn't see in many stories. At least with a per encounter limit it's 'I can't do that, I did that 6-30 seconds ago' instead of 'I haven't slept since I did that hours ago.'

icefractal

2021-04-29, 06:36 PM

You can to say this in other words. In my opinion this isn't gamism, this is simulationism. But it's only my opinion.
If the reason you can't stop after two fights is because of game balance assuming a 4-5 fight day, that's gamism. If it's because you only have six hours before the ritual and resting takes eight hours, that's simulationism - possibly.

But if events always contrive to ensure that you have exactly 1/2/3 days (depending on number of fights) to act, despite any external circumstances like travel time, effectiveness of information finding, etc ... that feels like it's actually just the gamist reasoning (you need to do X fights a day) wearing a flimsy disguise.

loky1109

2021-04-29, 09:11 PM

If the reason you can't stop after two fights is because of game balance assuming a 4-5 fight day, that's gamism. If it's because you only have six hours before the ritual and resting takes eight hours, that's simulationism - possibly.

There are no poor reasons: only gamism or only simulationism - this is the mix, actually.

But if events always contrive to ensure that you have exactly 1/2/3 days (depending on number of fights) to act, despite any external circumstances like travel time, effectiveness of information finding, etc ... that feels like it's actually just the gamist reasoning (you need to do X fights a day) wearing a flimsy disguise.
Yes, it sounds like more gamism.

I don't know, seems marginally less arbitrary to me than 1/day. Either way it's strictly an in game limit that doesn't really make sense in-universe, and that you wouldn't see in many stories. At least with a per encounter limit it's 'I can't do that, I did that 6-30 seconds ago' instead of 'I haven't slept since I did that hours ago.'

"1 time in day" is more in-universe limitation than "1 time in almost random amount of time".
Yes 'I haven't slept since I did that hours ago.' sounds stupid without any explanation, or if then we talk about some "simple" things, like "hit'em again". But... It is equally stupid then we limit "hit'em again" as "1/encounter" rather than "at-will". Many (of course "many" is exaggeration, I don't remember any now) 1-enc powers in 4E makes me feel this stupidity.

H_H_F_F

2021-04-30, 01:40 AM

But if events always contrive to ensure that you have exactly 1/2/3 days (depending on number of fights) to act, despite any external circumstances like travel time, effectiveness of information finding, etc ... that feels like it's actually just the gamist reasoning (you need to do X fights a day) wearing a flimsy disguise.

Agreed, which is why I only use attrition about a third of the time. It's a very good tool to have in your toolbox.

Mind you, I don't think having a warlock or a crusader really breaks this completely or anything, no more than a wand of lesser vigor.

upho

2021-04-30, 02:19 AM

Attrition does work. Depending on the fights and party, 4 may not be enough or may be too much. Especially at high level. But the reason every “hard” adventure I’ve ever seen or played in is hard, is due to attrition.To me, the reason why you say this seems to be a question of DM/GM style more than anything else. For example, I personally run games which include many days with no more than a couple of combat encounters, but a large majority of those days are nevertheless highly challenging even for the typically very experienced players in my groups and their parties being very powerful in combat. If I ran the same games with groups of less experienced players with less powerful PCs, a TPK would be virtually guaranteed well before they'd make it to 10th level, and it's highly unlikely that TPK would be caused by an attrition of daily resources.

Granted, this does of course require a GM able to design combat challenges to be overcome primarily through great intelligence gathering, planning, teamwork and tactics, rather than through great daily resource management. Which in turn means the GM has to put in a bit more work and needs to have enough experience/knowledge to safely deviate from the related guidelines in the books, especially if the party includes high level full casters. But it certainly doesn't require lots of additional houserules (and often none at all), much less a complete re-design of the game.

Certainly no Paizo encounters are hard in isolation. Giant Slayer’s book one is brutal because of attrition. Show up fresh to every fight and it’s a cakewalk.Really? IME, most TPKs in published APs are the result of PCs/players having insufficient prep/planning, versatility, tactics and teamwork, not of poor daily resource management. For example, IIRC in the threads I've read about the Rise of the Runelords AP (probably played by more groups than any other AP published by Paizo), the posters generally agree on which combat encounters are the most challenging/deadly as well as on the specific reasons for why each one of them are, and none of those reasons have much - if anything - to do with attrition of daily resources.

3.X is a game of resource management. The crap classes have no resources to manage beyond HP and GP. The good classes have all sorts of daily stuff to manage. Spell, bardic music, rage, smites (pathfinder ones at least) all make the classes better, give agency to the players as to when they are at peak, and contribute to the meta game that is resource management. Even PoW/ToB still need to manage maneuvers within an encounter. But they and the barbarian suffer from the lack of meaningful resource management at high level.*I believe this conclusion is at best a misleading myopic over-generalization, seemingly based on measuring a multi-dimensional phenomenon with a one-dimensional metric, so much so that it's factually wrong in many cases. In short, if you're going to could call 3.X "a game of resource management", you'd have to include the tons of highly relevant and meaningful resources with completely different limitations in the game, such as per campaign, per PC, per level, per day/week/month of down-time, per hour, per encounter, per minute, per round, per opponent, per certain action/circumstance/trigger, etc. And it's certainly not universally more important to manage daily resources than these other kinds of resources.

In fact, even if looking only at class features specifically, while most of those which have a limited number of uses per day are more powerful than most other class features, they certainly aren't intrinsically and universally so. This is true regardless of how many encounters an adventuring day includes.

The game “breaks” and stops being a challenge (and therefor fun) when you accrue so many resources that a GM can’t effectively run you down. For some, that’s 7th level. For some, 700th.If the game stops being a challenge because the PCs don't risk running out of daily resources, it seems to me you're only playing weirdly one-dimensional games. IME and IMO, daily attrition challenges quickly get old and boring if not used sparingly, even with a party consisting only of full casters.

*having played now a number of level 1-20 games with PoW (pathfinders ToB) using a variety of classes and disciplines, I can assert that the classes become boring after a while. They lack of useful/meaningful resource expenditure means they play much the same at 20 as they did at 10. Barbarian stop running out of rage rounds, slayers struggle to justify spending all their ki, warders end every day with excess marks(or the ac penalty stops mattering.) That’s when my enjoyment starts to wane.So managing resources other than those with daily use limitations give you no enjoyment? What makes the daily use limitation so special?

And it’s a fatal flaw in the maneuver system. It’s also a flaw in the Spheres of Might system. Classes with no meaningful resource management play pretty much the same battle to battle. Even a quick recharge one like stamina is better than nothing. And quick isn’t instant. A GM can make a series of lower level fights harder by denying time to recover completely between each. Again, giant slayer book 1 is a good example of a meat grinder powered nearly entirely by attrition and not individual encounter strength.Seriously, if there's a flaw here it's primarily in the combat encounter design, not in the classes.

The system's already designed in a way that attrition happens at very different rates for different classes, if it happens at all, so I'd rather move away from that.Completely agree.

That's not making the encounter difficult on its own merit though. That's simply taxing action economy.And why doesn't "taxing action economy" make an encounter "difficult on its own merit"? I mean, relative effective action economy dis-/advantage is easily the most important factor when determining the difficulty of an encounter.

Attrition allows one way for classes to provide different benefits without a narrow power scale. On the far end of the spectrum, no attrition without equalizing power levels leads to something like at-will time stop. Equalizing power levels leads to classes that play more similarly.

I play D&D 3.5 for the wide power disparity. Attrition is the knob that balances the game the most and allows for a greater variety in player choices in gameplay mechanics. Taking away attrition requires shortening the power divide because part of the advantage of lower power options were that they become more valuable as attrition becomes more of a factor. Poor balancing is a core problem in any system model.This might be true if the "attrition" you're referring to isn't limited to the attrition of daily resources.