[3.5] TOB - Stone Dragon, please explain

[Learnedguy]

Alright, so I was skimming through some Tome of Battle material while planning a fun boss encounter for my players, where I A, Planning on showing them how ToB works and B, Kicking their asses, when I notice once rather disconcerting thing.

Stone Dragon is weaksauce. I start looking through it's maneuvers and stances, and there's nothing that I think is worthwhile or can't be done equally or better by another school. Thus, I find myself asking myself, why the hell would I want Stone Dragon?

Well, someone please illuminate me about the matter! Why do I, as a player, want to pick Stone Dragon?

(Also, regarding the boss fight, it was a huge success. Biggest challenge they've faced yet, but without being too challenging and thus leading to a party wipe. You guys should have seen the face the Fighter did when I started asking for d6'es)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So you can take the feat Stone Power and soak 10 damage every round.

[Eldariel]

Stone Dragon is by far the best school for breaking walls and the like (see Mountain Hammer-line). Stone Dragon is also the only school that offers Bull Rush-granting maneuvers, such as Charging Minotaur - perfect combination with Dungeon Crasher Fighter, for example.

Roots of the Mountain is also an awesome defensive stance - means you're pretty much immune to all manners of physical offense techniques. Then you get Trample, Overrun and many means to stop opponent from taking actions from a very low level. Finally, you can gain rather massive damage reduction to beat up on physically inclined creatures and can get a few Constitution-damage maneuvers.


It's a solid school - it's great in action denial (very powerful single target offense), many maneuvers for the variety of standard special attacks (except for Trip) and a bunch of solid defensive stances (along with the one that grants Constrict). The only drawback is the stupid "gotta touch the ground while using maneuvers"-limitation.

[Douglas]

It has a few things that no other school can do, such as ignoring hardness and gaining fairly high DR (/adamantine), but it is generally weaker than the other schools. It is also the only school available to all three base classes in the book. I can't help but think those two facts are related.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

One thing I like about Stone Dragon is that the Mountain Hammer series are the only maneuvers that don't require maneuvers to get. You're 17th level? You want to do 2d6 Con damage every couple rounds? Go for it, no strings attached.

[Starbuck_II]

Only requirement Stone Dragon has is must be touching ground.
While other schools have manuevers can bypass DR (there are a few): Only SD can bypass Hardness.

[Kaiyanwang]

.
The only drawback is the stupid "gotta touch the ground while using maneuvers"-limitation.

I feel the limitation very flavourful - not only for the school name/flavour, but even if you want to refluff the school. It remains a way to handle charges and blows, to keep feet on the ground refusing to concede a step backward.

I undoubtely admit that in most games you can stay in the elemental plane of air, underwater, and more, so can be annoying. But maybe are not the only maneuvers you have, and sometimes be, as an example, an enchanter surrounded by undead lead you to be imaginative*.

*or to yell "where's the cleric?".

[Darrin]

Well, someone please illuminate me about the matter! Why do I, as a player, want to pick Stone Dragon?

After you pick up Mountain Hammer, you can pretty much ignore it. Maybe the only nice thing about the discipline is everything you could possibly want out of it doesn't have any prereqs (including, oddly enough, the capstone Mountain Tombstone Strike). The most annoying thing about the discipline is although there are some decent stances, most of them end if you move more than 5', which severely cuts down on your mobility and sucks up your swift actions to reactivate your stances.

There is an interesting combo with Stone Power and Lady's Gambit (Dragon #317). Stone Power gives you 2 hp per -1 hit, up to -5 hit and 10 temp HP. Lady's Gambit allows you to sacrifice 2 hp to gain +1 hit/+1 damage. So at ECL 10 you can add +5 damage to all your attacks, including ranged attacks. If you have Crusader 4/Something Else 6, you can channel the damage through your Steely Resolve/Furious Counterstrike for +2 hit/+7 damage on all your attacks. Unfortunately, Stone Power caps off at 10 HP, although you could keep sacrificing HP to Lady's Gambit if you wanted to.

[Xefas]

Well, each discipline has a certain class-like style about it. Iron Heart is the Fighter school, Devoted Spirit is the Paladin school, White Raven is the Marshal school, Shadow Hand is the Rogue school, Tiger Claw is the Barbarian school, etc.

Stone Dragon is the generic school. All three of the Martial Initiator Base Classes can use maneuvers from the school, and its flavor is 'hit things real hard'. It's the fluff of Power Attack extended to a whole school. It's less about being enticing, and more about filling in the gaps.

On a side note, I usually houserule away the 'must be standing on the ground' and 'ends if you move 5 feet or more' rules. Removing those restrictions doesn't really overpower them, considering that *with* them, all Stone Dragon maneuvers become pretty much useless past the first few levels where enemies have a modicum of mobility, and especially once flight becomes common.

[Person_Man]

Anyone who wants to can read all the ToB manuevers here on the WotC website.

Stone Dragon focuses on defense and battlefield control, which are far more powerful then just dealing damage, IMO. Anyone with full BAB, Pounce, and Leap Attack can pull off massive damage, so having additional manuevers which deal super extra is superfluous, IMO.

Also, several manuevers need you to team up with another party member for them to work well. In particular, you do a good job of weakening your enemy or pushing him around (which provokes AoO from other party members, even if it doesn't provoke from you). For many people, this is a feature, not a drawback.

Deepstone Sentinel is also a great PrC, especially if you do a lot of dungeon crawling. Mountain Fortress Stance is awesome (enemies can't Charge or take 5 ft steps through the difficult terrain surrounding you), Passwall lasts for hours, Stone Curse, Dragon's Tooth, and Awaken the Dragon are excellent for battlefield control, and have Save DCs of 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Str mod.

[Fixer]

I use a dwarf who uses Stone Dragon maneuvers for Stone Power (to beef his HP every turn to tank for the party) and to break through barriers (either with Mountain Hammer or his adamantine greataxe). I describe him as the party tank (high AC, Damage output boosted with Diamond Mind maneuvers, defensive postures through Stone Dragon).

[Starbuck_II]

Deepstone Sentinel is also a great PrC, especially if you do a lot of dungeon crawling. Mountain Fortress Stance is awesome (enemies can't Charge or take 5 ft steps through the difficult terrain surrounding you), Passwall lasts for hours, Stone Curse, Dragon's Tooth, and Awaken the Dragon are excellent for battlefield control, and have Save DCs of 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Str mod.

Yeah, but isn't it Dwarven only.
Some of us like humans.
Though, it is a neat Prc.

[Darrin]

Yeah, but isn't it Dwarven only.
Some of us like humans.
Though, it is a neat Prc.

That's nothing Stoneblessed can't fix.

[Waspinator]

The nice thing about the lack of prerequisites is that it means you can pull out the one or two things from it that you want and then focus on other schools.

[Person_Man]

Also, keep in mind that your Stone Dragon stances and manuevers don't exist in a vacuum. You can use them when appropriate, and use some other school when they're not. Arguing that knife is more powerful then a spoon doesn't help me when I want to eat soup.

Not moving more then 5' a round isn't a big deal when you're in a dungeon standing at the front of a PC conga line with a reach weapon. If you're in a wide open field, then switch to some other stance. (There's also a wide variety of ways to teleport, which some DMs may not count as movement).

Or maybe you're fighting one Colossal (hard to Trip or Bull Rush) BBEG, and he's ignoring you to focus on the casters (and you don't have Test of Mettle or Goad or some other aggro like ability). Then you can switch over to a high damage manuevers from another school.

[Kyeudo]

You get a swift action every round that you will rarely need every turn. You can just repop the Stone Dragon Stance you want every time you move without too much trouble.

[FinalJustice]

In fact, among Diamond Mind concentration substituting saves counters, recharging maneuvers (if you are a Warblade) and goodies like Sudden Leap, Quicksilver Motion and Lightning Recovery, my ToBers are usually concerned about spending their swifts...

[Kyeudo]

The counters eat your next round's swift action, not this round's swift action. The others, though, I'll give you, since Sudden Leap is lots of fun. I guess it all depends on your build.

[Learnedguy]

Alright, I see.

I actually tried after creating this thread to make a warblade that focused on Stone Dragon and White Raven maneuvers, because I liked the synergy of the maneuvers. The idea is battlefield control, not damage (We already got that one covered), so this guy focuses around using his maneuvers to debuff his opponents or boost his allies (for instance I use Overwhelming mountain strike to keep those puny enemies from moving around too much).

We'll see how it works out.

[ErrantX]

I like Stone Dragon because of the Mountain Hammer line (all fun for the front line fighter type) and because it makes for a good offensive and defensive two-handed weapon wielder. Want extra damage? Mountain Hammers, Bonecrusher, Stone Dragon Fury, etc. Want to stand in place and take your foes out as they come to you? Great, we've got several stances for that. I also really like Giant's Stance because it also helps increase the damage from weapon strikes as if it were larger weapon. Combined with Monkey Grip... it can be a lot of fun.

Stone Dragon and White Raven really don't get enough love.

-X

[AslanCross]

Stone Dragon and White Raven really don't get enough love.

-X

I thought White Raven gets a lot of love for its truly broken maneuvers (White Raven Tactics and White Raven Hammer).

[Eldariel]

I thought White Raven gets a lot of love for its truly broken maneuvers (White Raven Tactics and White Raven Hammer).

Not broken, just really good ^^ But yeah, White Raven rocks. It's awesome to actually be able to play that battlefield leader-character instead of just shouting orders in the table that don't actually do anything.