5e Initiator Class

[Koury]

Alt title: Yet Another "Tome of Battle to 5e" Conversion

Hello! Today, I'm presenting the work I've done converting the three base classes presented in 3.5's Tome of Battle into one 5e class. The Tome of Battle is a 3.5 supplement that introduces martial adepts, warriors who use maneuvers and stances to perform extraordinary feats of combat. I've always loved the concept and the flavor of the Tome of Battle, and I wanted to bring it to 5e for a while.

I've made the old classes into Subclasses here, selected at level 1. Your subclass choice will greatly effect how your character feels, since it determines weapon, armor and even skill proficiencies, along with determining what maneuvers you have access to.

The three subclasses are:

Crusader: A tanky warrior, able to survive much more punishment than others through various abilities that heal and grant Resistance. Has a unique mechanic for determining which maneuvers are able to be used.

Swordsage: A blend of monk and rogue archetypes, with access to the widest array of maneuvers, including many outright supernatural abilities. Versatile, with many Counters and Boosts to use.

Warblade: A cunning and strong subclass, with generally "purely martial" maneuvers. Has many very good maneuvers, but has the most limited access to maneuvers of the three for a long time.

At first, I kinda assumed I'd be able to just port things over pretty easily. Burning Blade is a Swift Action to deal +1d6 Fire Damage this round. Change "Swift" to "Bonus" and done! And some of it WAS about that easy (balance notwithstanding), but I also quickly ran onto some problems. Flatfooted, Touch attacks, Charge/Bull Rush, Ability Damage/Drain, etc, etc. It ended up taking a bit more time and effort than I anticipated for just the maneuvers, never mind the Class Features and Subclass Features.

With any changed or updated maneuvers, I made an effort to keep the flavor as close to its original as I could. For example, a maneuver that required using Charge in 3.5 might now require you move at least 10 ft toward your target the round you activate it.

I also considered a common criticism of the ToB classes and how they don't really work with ranged attacks. While I DID limit some maneuvers to Melee Attacks, I've also intentionally left many of them to work with any attack. I've considered adding a range limit (60 ft? More? Less? Honestly dont know) but don't want to without a little more thought and playtesting.

I also made a bit of effort to keep the damage output in line with other classes, though I think some of the level 17 maneuvers are a little, uh, strong. Overall, I believe its close to well balanced? I guess thats part of what I'm here to check, and I fully expect I missed some obvious combo or interaction, so feel free to point them out.

Here is the link (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ALflzNjXi7907hbwGpgjP9w3Wz5hW_aW6PiyLjTBHTw/edit?usp=sharing) to the Google sheet. You'll see some red text throughout next to various features I have thoughts or concerns about, but please feel free to give any and all feedback! Does it seem fun? Balanced? Is a mechanic poorly explained (I'm looking at you, Crusader's Granted Maneuvers)?

All the fluff text in the gray boxes (and the hastily cut out images) are directly from the Tome of Battle, so credit to the three ToB authors and eleven artists for all those.

[Maat Mons]

Various stances list a minimum level of 1, but no one gets any stances before level 2, so it seems like 2 is the real minimum level for those.

Fiery Assault lists a minimum level of 11, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 13 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 13.

Rising Phoenix lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 17 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 17.

Stance of Alacrity lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages and Warblades have access, and neither of them can take it before level 16, so the real minimum is 16.

Dancing Blade Form lists a minimum level of 9, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 10 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 10.

Supreme Blade Parry Form lists a minimum level of 15, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 16 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 16.

Confounding Defense lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 17 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 17.

Balance on the Sky lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 17 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 17.

Wolf Pack Tactics lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages and Warblades have access, and neither of them can take it before level 16, so the real minimum is 16.

Press the Advantage lists a minimum level of 9, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 10 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 10.

Swarm Tactics Form lists a minimum level of 15, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 16 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 16.

[Koury]

Fiery Assault lists a minimum level of 11, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 13 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 13.

Rising Phoenix lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 17 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 17.

Stance of Alacrity lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages and Warblades have access, and neither of them can take it before level 16, so the real minimum is 16.

Dancing Blade Form lists a minimum level of 9, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 10 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 10.

Supreme Blade Parry Form lists a minimum level of 15, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 16 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 16.

Confounding Defense lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 17 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 17.

Balance on the Sky lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages have access, and they can’t take it before level 17 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 17.

Wolf Pack Tactics lists a minimum level of 15, but only Swordsages and Warblades have access, and neither of them can take it before level 16, so the real minimum is 16.

Press the Advantage lists a minimum level of 9, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 10 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 10.

Swarm Tactics Form lists a minimum level of 15, but only Warblades have access, and they can’t take it before level 16 due to stance timing, so the real minimum level is 16.

All true, though stances coming at wonky levels is kinda straight from the ToB itself. 3.5 Crusaders who want Thicket of Blades, available at level 5, must wait til level 8 when they get their third stance.

Though, obviously, "it was dumb before" isnt a great explanation for why its dumb now. Perhaps something as simple as allowing your on-level-up maneuver swap to include swapping a Stance for a Stance is the simplest fix. I have reservations about how "locked in" stance selections are anyway, so I'm pretty happy to make that change, honestly. (ETA: Went ahead and made this change.) Also, technically, some of those have different "real" minimum levels because they COULD take a Feat for the stance, but that shouldn't be a real consideration.


Various stances list a minimum level of 1, but no one gets any stances before level 2, so it seems like 2 is the real minimum level for those.

This is acceptable to me, I guess? I could give one stance at 1, and the second stance at 2, but I feel slightly like that waters down the 2nd level and gives even more to level 1 (which I feel is kinda overloaded). Open to thoughts on this.

[Maat Mons]

As a broader criticism, this doesn’t seem very in step with 5e design philosophy. 5e removed “fire and forget” from spellcasting, but this conversion keeps the “fire and forget” elements of maneuvers. 5e also made spells scale instead of publishing multiple versions of essentially the same spell at different levels. Hatchling’s Flame and Dragon’s Flame seem like prime examples of essentially the same maneuver at different levels, but there are plenty of others.

I think it was always a mistake for maneuvers to require some number of maneuvers from the same school as a prerequisite. There isn’t, for example, any restriction that a Sorcerer can’t learn Wish unless he already knows 6 other Conjuration spells. Since maneuvers are less powerful effects than spells, I don’t see why they should be more restricted.

[Ignimortis]

While I applaud your efforts, you seem to have missed one of the core points of initiator design: 3e Strikes are supposed to be on par with Full Attacks, or at least not far from that, but without limiting yourself to Full Attacking (which limits your mobility options severely). 5e has you Full Attack + full move every turn without any issues. In general, the advantage of 3e initiators is that they use their action economy in a more efficient way, same as spellcasters.

So any Strike that does, say, +3d6 damage at the point where you could just make an Extra Attack for 2d6+5, is going to be comparatively underpowered relative to the same Strike in 3.5, because it no longer provides the same utility of "yeah, but I can also move 30 ft before or after making that strike!". Furthermore, HP values in 5e are noticeably higher for most creatures - a minotaur, CR4 in both editions, only has 39 HP in 3.5, but 76 HP in 5e. A roper in 3.5 has 85 HP (despite being CR12!) compared to 5e CR5 roper with 93.

This tapers off at highest levels - an Ancient Red has pretty much the same HP in both editions, as does a Balor. But low-level 5e HP scaling is much more aggressive, to the point that an average CR6 creature is walking around with circa a hundred HP, whereas for 3.5 that would be closer to 50 or 60. So it would be prudent to slightly improve most maneuvers' damage (maybe something like +1 damage die per 2 maneuver levels?), so as to make them more competitive with simply attacking over and over again. This is especially relevant for non-weapon-strike maneuvers like Dragon's Flame (the +class level is a cool design choice, though!) that might easily face double the amount of HP they were expected to originally.

In addition, Boosts and Counters locking one another out is a 3.5 behaviour related specifically to how Swift and Immediate actions interact, with Immediates being "swifts borrowed from your next turn". 5e has no such mechanic, and everyone has both a Bonus action (equivalent to Swift) and a Reaction (equivalent to an Immediate) completely independent of one another, so it doesn't make much sense to port that part of Boosts/Counters into 5e.

Also, up to 6 maneuvers required for a level 9 maneuver? That pretty much leaves a Warblade with one level 9 maneuver at best. Previously that requirement was 4 maneuvers, and even that was kind of hard to keep up, but at least you could have two or three level 9 maneuvers.

[Koury]

As a broader criticism, this doesn’t seem very in step with 5e design philosophy. 5e removed “fire and forget” from spellcasting, but this conversion keeps the “fire and forget” elements of maneuvers.

Fire and forget as in you can't spam a maneuver multiple rounds in a row? I'd argue that is one of the things that makes maneuvers the most interesting. Otherwise every round turns into "Inferno Blade boost, Ancient Mountain Hammer strike," or whatever your most damaging option is. Crusaders in particular lose a lot of their feeling if they can just repeat a maneuver they were granted in round 1.

Narratively, the idea of maneuvers flowing into one another, or your footwork at the end of one maneuver being set to transition into a different maneuver but wrong for repeating the one you just did I also like.


5e also made spells scale instead of publishing multiple versions of essentially the same spell at different levels. Hatchling’s Flame and Dragon’s Flame seem like prime examples of essentially the same maneuver at different levels, but there are plenty of others.

Dragon's Flame also progresses into Great Wyrm's Flame. And while I'd argue there are certainly spells that are effectively "the same but better" (Dimension Door > Teleport, Shatter > Fireball, various fog spells and "Wall of" spells), I can also agree that these are basically just free Upcasting, like a Warlock kinda.

I will say, collapsing the "just an upgrade" ones will drastically cut the total number of maneuvers (especially Setting Sun), and increase general power level since each class isn't needing to spend their on-level-up swaps on upgrades.


I think it was always a mistake for maneuvers to require some number of maneuvers from the same school as a prerequisite. There isn’t, for example, any restriction that a Sorcerer can’t learn Wish unless he already knows 6 other Conjuration spells. Since maneuvers are less powerful effects than spells, I don’t see why they should be more restricted.

In 3.5 ToB, the required maneuvers has two main purposes, that I see. Narratively, it represents you slowly mastering your chosen Discipline and kinda explains why anyone would ever use Burning Blade when Searing Blade exists. More mechanically, it prevents a level 10 Rogue from dipping one level and grabbing mid tier maneuvers without also grabbing some of the lower ones. I feel like these both add something to the class, though anyone using this could easily cut that column out easily. That would enable a Swordsage to get all six top tier maneuvers, or seven top tier maneuvers if they spend a feat (currently they can get 5, even with a feat).


While I applaud your efforts, you seem to have missed one of the core points of initiator design: 3e Strikes are supposed to be on par with Full Attacks, or at least not far from that, but without limiting yourself to Full Attacking (which limits your mobility options severely). 5e has you Full Attack + full move every turn without any issues. In general, the advantage of 3e initiators is that they use their action economy in a more efficient way, same as spellcasters.

So any Strike that does, say, +3d6 damage at the point where you could just make an Extra Attack for 2d6+5, is going to be comparatively underpowered relative to the same Strike in 3.5, because it no longer provides the same utility of "yeah, but I can also move 30 ft before or after making that strike!". Furthermore, HP values in 5e are noticeably higher for most creatures - a minotaur, CR4 in both editions, only has 39 HP in 3.5, but 76 HP in 5e. A roper in 3.5 has 85 HP (despite being CR12!) compared to 5e CR5 roper with 93.

This tapers off at highest levels - an Ancient Red has pretty much the same HP in both editions, as does a Balor. But low-level 5e HP scaling is much more aggressive, to the point that an average CR6 creature is walking around with circa a hundred HP, whereas for 3.5 that would be closer to 50 or 60. So it would be prudent to slightly improve most maneuvers' damage (maybe something like +1 damage die per 2 maneuver levels?), so as to make them more competitive with simply attacking over and over again. This is especially relevant for maneuvers like Dragon's Flame (the +class level is a cool design choice, though!) that might easily face double the amount of HP they were expected to originally.

I fully acknowledge your point about Initiators being more mobile than other Martials in 3.5, and that being less true here. However, I would say I also have a fair amount of maneuvers that require having moved a certain distance, or allow entry into a foes square, or give you a free Disengage action or similar that I DO expect one of these characters to move more than a Barb of Fighter might otherwise.

As far as damage output, I don't think these classes are wildly off the mark compared to, say, a Raging Barb with GWM or a Glaivelock.

I'd expect a Barb, lets say Berserker at Level 12 with 20 STR and GWM with a Greataxe. +9 to-hit, or +4 usually because GWM. 1d12+18 on a hit when Raging. Reckless Attack used, so three attacks total with advantage. This should be 28.3 damage vs an AC 20 target or 47.6 vs an AC 15.

Id expect a Swordsage to be in Assassin's Stance (2d6 Sneak), use Searing Blade (+3d6 Fire) and Ghost Blade (+6d6 Cold, advantage). Lets say a Rapier. Same +9 to-hit. 1d8+5+11d6 (48 ave). 94% chance to hit AC 15 (45.1 DPR), 75% to hit AC 20 (36 DPR).

These feel in the same league, at least, even though one is all one attack and the other is three. I could be convinced Swordsage is too high, if anything. There are actually kinda a lot of ways to hit with Advantage in these maneuvers (an artifact of so many maneuvers targeting Touch AC and Flatfoot AC, honestly) which means the Initiator excels against higher AC foes in most DPR calcs. Not that DPR is some end all be all.


In addition, Boosts and Counters locking one another out is a 3.5 behaviour related specifically to how Swift and Immediate actions interact, with Immediates being "swifts borrowed from your next turn". 5e has no such mechanic, and everyone has both a Bonus action (equivalent to Swift) and a Reaction (equivalent to an Immediate) completely independent of one another, so it doesn't make much sense to port that part of Boosts/Counters into 5e.

Now this I agree comes across clunky, and (and this is the more annoying part to me) requires remembering if you used a Counter since your last turn. I'm honestly happy to cut this mechanic entirely. I'll need to glance over the list of Counters and Boosts to make sure this doesnt aallow anything TOO wild, but if it did I'd honestly change the Counter or Boost, not reintroduce this mechanic.


Also, up to 6 maneuvers required for a level 9 maneuver? That pretty much leaves a Warblade with one level 9 maneuver at best. Previously that requirement was 4 maneuvers, and even that was kind of hard to keep up, but at least you could have two or three level 9 maneuvers.

I believe Stances count as maneuvers. My Warblade can get three top tier maneuvers, as long as one of them is Stone Dragon. Cutting it to 5 required lets a Warblade get ANY 3 but would also allow Crusaders to get all three of theirs, and Swordsages would be able to get all 6. If anything I'd prefer to leave it at 6 and just give Warblade more maneuvers baseline, though that begins to leave behind the "Warblades get the fewest maneuvers" part of the class.

As a side note, while I'm clearly defending and explaining my various choices, I hope its clear I'm not defensive about them. I appreciate the feedback! :smallsmile:

[Maat Mons]

You don’t have to worry about players spamming the most damaging maneuver if you don’t focus maneuver design around dealing damage. The whole point of Tome of Battle was to give martial characters options more interesting than just another way of reducing enemy hit points. It’s fine for there to exist maneuvers that interact with melee attacks, as long as they’re not something as boring as a numeric bonus to attack or damage. But really, you shouldn’t be encouraging players to fill up their maneuvers known with a bunch of stuff that all does essentially the same thing. It’s fine, desirable even, for any given character to only have one damage-focused maneuver. It frees up their other slots for things that are actually interesting.

[Ignimortis]

I believe Stances count as maneuvers. My Warblade can get three top tier maneuvers, as long as one of them is Stone Dragon. Cutting it to 5 required lets a Warblade get ANY 3 but would also allow Crusaders to get all three of theirs, and Swordsages would be able to get all 6. If anything I'd prefer to leave it at 6 and just give Warblade more maneuvers baseline, though that begins to leave behind the "Warblades get the fewest maneuvers" part of the class.

I'd say that Crusaders getting access to all three of their top-tiers isn't bad, since they're on a random granted maneuver system and are unlikely to have all three at once. Keep in mind that some maneuvers are worth keeping while being low-level (for instance, Wall of Blades is amazing, and so is Iron Heart Surge), so it's not necessarily just gonna be three towers of 1 to 9 in the quickest fashion, but rather a few pyramids which might not even reach their tops.

Also, I'm not sure having them as unstandardized as they are is a good idea. It used to be straightforward enough - 1st/2nd level with no reqs, then +1 for every two maneuver levels. The new numbers are much harder to parse and internalize.

Feats are weird. Mostly, they're not very good or require quite specific game plans, and then there's Desert Wind Dodge (decent enough, I suppose, and universal to boot) and Tiger Blooded (excellent pretty much always).

[Koury]

I'd say that Crusaders getting access to all three of their top-tiers isn't bad, since they're on a random granted maneuver system and are unlikely to have all three at once. Keep in mind that some maneuvers are worth keeping while being low-level (for instance, Wall of Blades is amazing, and so is Iron Heart Surge), so it's not necessarily just gonna be three towers of 1 to 9 in the quickest fashion, but rather a few pyramids which might not even reach their tops. My main reason for hesitating on adding more maneuvers known to a Crusader is honestly that its already very close to "every Crusader will end up with the same maneuvers no matter what" territory, just as a function of them only getting three disciplines.

A few ways to alleviate this that come to mind: A) I could add a 4th discipline to the Crusaders list. Simple, and effective. Would lean towards adding Shadow Hand to better support the evil cleric archetype. B) I could add a new discipline entirely. There is plenty of design space available for more disciplines, such as a Heavy or Reach Weapon focused discipline, or one focused on CHA in a similar way to Diamond Mind being focused on INT, or even another element focused one a la Desert Wind.


Also, I'm not sure having them as unstandardized as they are is a good idea. It used to be straightforward enough - 1st/2nd level with no reqs, then +1 for every two maneuver levels. The new numbers are much harder to parse and internalize. Hmm, I recall them being less standardized than that in ToB.

In ToB, Emerald Razor is a Lv2 Diamond Mind that has one prereq, but Action Before Thought is a Lv2 with none.
Rapid Counter is a Lv5 Diamond Mind with no prereqs, but Hearing The Air is Lv5 and takes one while Disrupting Blow is a Lv5 with two.
Death In The Dark and Shadow Blink are Lv7 Shadow Hand with zero prereqs, but Ghost Blade is a Lv6 with three.
Stone Dragon's Lv9 has zero prereqs (and is why I made my Stone Dragon only scale to 3 instead of 6), while Shadow Hand Lv9 needs 5, and Diamond Mind Lv9 takes four.
Tiger Claw has one Lv7 that needs two, and one that needs three. It also has two Lv1 maneuvers that require one.

I'm sure there are a bunch more weirdo things in here, but I'm not actually trying to make a comprehensive list :P

Now, I could be convinced that they SHOULD be more standardized. I'm not specifically married to it being as haphazard as it is now. I even made stances universally 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 I think, except Stone Dragon which was intentionally made easier to qualify for since its the "everyone can do it" school.


Feats are weird. Mostly, they're not very good or require quite specific game plans, and then there's Desert Wind Dodge (decent enough, I suppose, and universal to boot) and Tiger Blooded (excellent pretty much always).So, I will say that I LIKE the feats needing specific game plans, but I also agree they're not exactly even. Devoted Bulwark in particular I think is weaker, but I was hesitant to hand out too much AC to what should already be a very high AC class. Perhaps if it was something like "While in a Devoted Spirit stance, you may use Steely Resolve twice a round" would be closer.

That would be a very strong feat post level 18, for example, because of their subclass feature. But also, a martial class at level 18 probably deserves a nice thing or two.

[Ignimortis]

My main reason for hesitating on adding more maneuvers known to a Crusader is honestly that its already very close to "every Crusader will end up with the same maneuvers no matter what" territory, just as a function of them only getting three disciplines.

A few ways to alleviate this that come to mind: A) I could add a 4th discipline to the Crusaders list. Simple, and effective. Would lean towards adding Shadow Hand to better support the evil cleric archetype. B) I could add a new discipline entirely. There is plenty of design space available for more disciplines, such as a Heavy or Reach Weapon focused discipline, or one focused on CHA in a similar way to Diamond Mind being focused on INT, or even another element focused one a la Desert Wind.
Black Seraph from Path of War is an excellent fit for an evil Crusader.



Hmm, I recall them being less standardized than that in ToB.

Now, I could be convinced that they SHOULD be more standardized. I'm not specifically married to it being as haphazard as it is now. I even made stances universally 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 I think, except Stone Dragon which was intentionally made easier to qualify for since its the "everyone can do it" school.
Huh. Must be my memory being in error, then. I do know that Path of War (which I've been using recently, as compared to ToB) has standardized everything to a simple (Level-2)/2 = req schema, and hasn't lost anything for it.



So, I will say that I LIKE the feats needing specific game plans, but I also agree they're not exactly even. Devoted Bulwark in particular I think is weaker, but I was hesitant to hand out too much AC to what should already be a very high AC class. Perhaps if it was something like "While in a Devoted Spirit stance, you may use Steely Resolve twice a round" would be closer.

That would be a very strong feat post level 18, for example, because of their subclass feature. But also, a martial class at level 18 probably deserves a nice thing or two.
Could work with "Steely Resolve applies to all of the triggering enemy's attacks until the start of your next turn". That way it's not as versatile, but also can be powerful earlier on, since Multiattack is widespread. Not sure about that one, though.

As for AC, heavy armor wearers in 5e are rather bad at AC unless using a magical shield. So I'm not sure it would break anything numbers-wise if it were +2 or something.

[playswithfire]

5e also made spells scale instead of publishing multiple versions of essentially the same spell at different levels. Hatchling’s Flame and Dragon’s Flame seem like prime examples of essentially the same maneuver at different levels, but there are plenty of others.



Dragon's Flame also progresses into Great Wyrm's Flame. And while I'd argue there are certainly spells that are effectively "the same but better" (Dimension Door > Teleport, Shatter > Fireball, various fog spells and "Wall of" spells), I can also agree that these are basically just free Upcasting, like a Warlock kinda.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I did want to say that the entire discussion here and this interaction in particular has kicked off an idea for me of something that's either a built-from-existing-5e-features initiator or at least an interesting gish in the form of a class that gets (probably starts with) battle master maneuvers but can expend superiority dice to cast spells like a warlock (not mystic arcanum) with an appropriately tailored spell list (or set of lists based on different disciplines) so thank you both for a new project to try to flesh out.