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Irreverent Fool
2008-01-27, 08:31 AM
Your local Fool here to annoy you with yet another Tome of Battle post.

The Martial Study feat allows anyone to learn a maneuver for which they have any of the normal prerequisites and initiator level. Spiffy. I thought about taking a 2-level dip into Fighter with my Warblade to get those two bonus feats and plow them right into Martial Study to get myself two new maneuvers at the cost of some lost skill points and even less reason to use a d12 for hp.

I came across a snag, though. If you don't have an initiator class, you can use the maneuvers thus gained once per encounter. If you gain an initiator class later, this doesn't change. But if you do have an initiator class when you acquire the feat, they are only added to your maneuvers known. You'd think this would be great, but not so much for a Warblade who gets a very small amount of maneuvers readied but has a nonrestrictive recovery method.

My problem here is that this is the only instance I can think of where there is major difference between "Lv. 2 X/Lv. 6 Y" and "Lv. 6 Y/Lv. 2 X". Essentially, if I'd taken the two levels of Fighter first, I'd have an extra two maneuvers readied, albeit of lower level. I'd much prefer simply adding them as 1/encounter abilities rather than to my list of maneuvers known.

Rad
2008-01-27, 04:09 PM
Things like the one you mention do happen: try making a rogue2/fighter2 and then a fighter1/rogue2 and tell me about it.

Also note that

you canot take martial study as a 1st level fighter since your IL is effectively 0
the maneuvers cannot be changed once you get them. Warblade 17/fighter 2 is MUCH different than Warblade 1/fighter 2/warblade +16
other classes that have you choose abilities give better results if taken later on: many will tell you that you should get Archmage SLA on a 9th level spell, so you have to wait until you have it for best results.

it's not so nice and favors characters that are built directly at a higher level on those that are played progressively, but such is the game...

Darrin
2008-01-27, 07:27 PM
My problem here is that this is the only instance I can think of where there is major difference between "Lv. 2 X/Lv. 6 Y" and "Lv. 6 Y/Lv. 2 X". Essentially, if I'd taken the two levels of Fighter first, I'd have an extra two maneuvers readied, albeit of lower level. I'd much prefer simply adding them as 1/encounter abilities rather than to my list of maneuvers known.

I'm not sure what exactly your problem is... because it sounds like your solution is "take Warblade first".

If you took Martial Study without any Martial Adept classes... hmm, well, I think if you take the Adaptive Style feat, it adds a recovery mechanic for all your martial maneuvers. I'm not absolutely positive the text in Adaptive Style over-rules the text in Martial Study, but the rulings on Adaptive Style appear to suggest it allows you to reset all of your readied maneuvers, even if you have multiple Martial Adept classes. By RAI at least, it should cover maneuvers granted via Martial Study/non-MA levels.

Irreverent Fool
2008-01-27, 07:46 PM
I'm not sure what exactly your problem is... because it sounds like your solution is "take Warblade first".

If you took Martial Study without any Martial Adept classes... hmm, well, I think if you take the Adaptive Style feat, it adds a recovery mechanic for all your martial maneuvers. I'm not absolutely positive the text in Adaptive Style over-rules the text in Martial Study, but the rulings on Adaptive Style appear to suggest it allows you to reset all of your readied maneuvers, even if you have multiple Martial Adept classes. By RAI at least, it should cover maneuvers granted via Martial Study/non-MA levels.

No, you see if I take Fighter 2 first(even if I can only get Martial Study at level 2) first, I get an extra maneuver per encounter whereas if I take a dip later, it only adds to my maneuvers known. I'd rather be able to take martial study and gain the 1/encounter maneuver rather than adding it to my maneuvers known.

D Knight
2008-01-27, 09:28 PM
hold on people if u read the description for IL it says IL +1/2 other classes. so yes you can use that feat and used gained manuvers without a problem.

Lord Tataraus
2008-01-27, 09:35 PM
hold on people if u read the description for IL it says IL +1/2 other classes. so yes you can use that feat and used gained manuvers without a problem.

That is not what is being discussed, what is being discussed is if the MS feat gives you extra readied manuevers if you take a non-initiator level first when you take the feat.

In that light, I would say, yes you get the extra maneuvers but they have no recovery, so you are probably better off taking fighter second, however, I think it is more profitable to go straight warbalde or dip into another initiator class (I'd suggest Crusader). In fact, a crusader dip is amazing, you get 5 (?) more maneuvers with their amazing recovery and you stack warbalde and crusader levels to determine IL.

Rad
2008-01-28, 09:46 AM
Crusader level do not stack with Warblade levels for IL. Each class has its IL and if you take Martial Study you have to specify which class you are adding the maneuver to, so that's your IL for that one as well.

Taking fighter first is not convenient. As said before, you can only get a maneuver on your second level since your IL needs to be at least 1 for you to get any maneuvers. Moreover, if you take the feat later you can get a high level maneuver with it.

Indon
2008-01-28, 09:57 AM
Oh, I see the problem. It's as if there was a feat that would give a Wizard another spell in his spellbook, but if you took it when you weren't a Wizard, you'd get a SLA instead.

Well, it comes down to this: Do you want two Swordsage/Crusader maneuvers on your Warblade list of whatever level you can manage, or do you want two level 1 maneuvers you can use independently of being a Warblade?

Edit: Here's a thought. A Warblade/Swordsage who takes Martial Study, do they get the maneuver added to both of their lists?

Shhalahr Windrider
2008-01-28, 10:03 AM
Edit: Here's a thought. A Warblade/Swordsage who takes Martial Study, do they get the maneuver added to both of their lists?
That's the funny part. The feat doesn't directly address characters with two or more martial adept classes. It just says, "If you have martial adept levels, the maneuver is added to your maneuvers known." This can be read as applying to all martial adept classes in which you have levels and meet the prerequsite.

Telok
2008-01-28, 11:37 AM
I found the answer to this last week with some Google searches. I can't find anything on the WotC site, the WotC site search can't find very much on it's own site, but Google can find pretty much anything on the web.

You add the maneuvers to whichever class you want. That class determines which recovery method you use with them. Interestingly all the maneuvers you know in both martial classes count towards prerequsites when you choose new maneuvers.

As an example: If you choose three Tiger Claw maneuvers for your first level Swordsage choices, they count toward the requirements for both your later Swordsage and Warblade choices.

It will not allow you to choose maneuvers from a list that the class does not get. This will not allow you to take Shadow Hand maneuvers as Warblade choices.

Edit: Just a note. Two levels of Fighter in a Warblade build are nice. Warblades get their second stance at level 4, but they can't take third level stances until level 5. So if you take two levels of fighter before Warblade 4 you qualify for the third level stances.

Shhalahr Windrider
2008-01-28, 12:18 PM
Interestingly all the maneuvers you know in both martial classes count towards prerequsites when you choose new maneuvers.
Indeed, I believe this is called out directly in the book (though not sure where if so). I assume you still need the requisite initiator level for the class in which you learn it though.


It will not allow you to choose maneuvers from a list that the class does not get. This will not allow you to take Shadow Hand maneuvers as Warblade choices.
But the Martial Study feat should circumvent that. The point of the feat is to gain access to maneuvers you wouldn't otherwise have.

Irreverent Fool
2008-01-28, 12:59 PM
But the Martial Study feat should circumvent that. The point of the feat is to gain access to maneuvers you wouldn't otherwise have.

It does allow that. It's similar to a wizard feat that allows you to learn a spell from a banned school. Nowhere in the Martial Study feat does it say you cannot learn maneuvers that your class does not ordinarily get.


That is not what is being discussed, what is being discussed is if the MS feat gives you extra readied manuevers if you take a non-initiator level first when you take the feat.

In that light, I would say, yes you get the extra maneuvers but they have no recovery, so you are probably better off taking fighter second, however, I think it is more profitable to go straight warbalde or dip into another initiator class (I'd suggest Crusader). In fact, a crusader dip is amazing, you get 5 (?) more maneuvers with their amazing recovery and you stack warbalde and crusader levels to determine IL.

Actually the feat spells it out. If you have ANY classes that grant you maneuvers when you take the feat, it adds to your maneuvers known... to use the wizard analogy it puts another spell in your spellbook.

If you DON'T have any classes that grant you maneuvers at the time you take the feat, it grants them to you 1/encounter with no recovery method. This doesn't change if you later take a class that grants you maneuvers. Which means if you take the feat before you take the ToB classes, you have an extra maneuver usable in an encounter, which would be great!

Do you think it would be terribly unbalancing to allow someone to choose either option? That is - to be able to choose it as a 1/encounter ability even if they have levels in an initiator class?

Darrin
2008-01-28, 01:44 PM
If you DON'T have any classes that grant you maneuvers at the time you take the feat, it grants them to you 1/encounter with no recovery method. This doesn't change if you later take a class that grants you maneuvers. Which means if you take the feat before you take the ToB classes, you have an extra maneuver usable in an encounter, which would be great!


I think you're over-estimating the power of a 1/encounter maneuver against maneuvers recovered via an recovery mechanic. Crusader in particular is quite powerful, since they don't need to use any actions to recover their manuevers. You get to keep using that Martial Study feat repeatedly in the same encounter. Warblade isn't all that bad, either... being able to still attack and recover at the same time means you can continue to use a Martial Study feat multiple times in an encounter. I would think multiple uses even with a recovery mechanic would trump once per encounter.

In short, you already said the solution to your problem would be to take fighter first, but I still think taking warblade first would be vastly superior. You're welcome to disagree, though.

Shhalahr Windrider
2008-01-28, 03:09 PM
Crusader in particular is quite powerful, since they don't need to use any actions to recover their manuevers. You get to keep using that Martial Study feat repeatedly in the same encounter.
They don't need an action, but they need time. A crusader has to wait to go through their entire "Granted Maneuvers" cycle for it to refresh. I don't think a Crusader could reliably count on multiple uses of a particular maneuver unless the campaign regularly features long (10+ round) combats.


Warblade isn't all that bad, either... being able to still attack and recover at the same time means you can continue to use a Martial Study feat multiple times in an encounter. I would think multiple uses even with a recovery mechanic would trump once per encounter.
While most definitely sweet, the problem is that Warblades have very limited number of "Manuevers Readied" slots, and Irreverent Fool is trying to overcome that. He feels that even restricted to 1/encounter is good enough of a trade off to overcome that limitation.

Of course, the feat Adaptive Style is good for dealing with limited maneuvers readied. The downside is it takes a full round, of course.

From a balance perspective, I think allowing it to be limited to 1/encounter should be okay. If you have to chose a class anyway (though I don't have a reliable source that says you have to choose... (see above)), might as well be able to choose a non-martial adept class.

Not sure how the initiator level calculation would work in such a case, though. You have separate initiator levels for all martial adept classes, but there aren't any rules for your non-martial adept classes' initiator levels once you take a level in a martial adept class. Not even in the Martial Study passage that addresses gaining a maneuver as a non-adept then going adept later.

So, what happens?

Say you did have a Fighter 2 with Martial Study and then took a level of Warblade? You have a maneuver that's technically not a Warblade maneuver for you but do you use your Warblade Initiator Level? Conceptually, that doesn't seem right. (Balance-wise, don't see a problem, though...)

The rules simply don't address Initiator Level for the non-adept classes of multiclass adepts.

ryuteki
2008-01-28, 03:37 PM
Say you did have a Fighter 2 with Martial Study and then took a level of Warblade? You have a maneuver that's technically not a Warblade maneuver for you but do you use your Warblade Initiator Level? Conceptually, that doesn't seem right. (Balance-wise, don't see a problem, though...)

The rules simply don't address Initiator Level for the non-adept classes of multiclass adepts.

I see no reason why the non-adept IL wouldn't simply be 1/2 your total class levels, rounded down of course.

Irreverent Fool
2008-01-28, 03:49 PM
From a balance perspective, I think allowing it to be limited to 1/encounter should be okay. If you have to chose a class anyway (though I don't have a reliable source that says you have to choose... (see above)), might as well be able to choose a non-martial adept class.

Now if I can just convince my DM of that. :smallsmile:

Actually in the description of the feat it says that if you have any classes that grant maneuvers when you take the feat that it becomes one of your maneuvers known.

About taking Martial Study as a fighter and then gaining an initiator class, I am tempted to treat the IL for such maneuvers as simply 1/2 of all class levels. But you're right about it not actually giving us specific rules.