Giving base classes ToB stuff? (3.5)

[Harperfan7]

If you gave fighters, barbarians, paladins, and rangers ToB progression at, say, 2/3 progression with thematically similar disciplines, what would you say the result would be in terms of balance/power?

[hamishspence]

It might raise them by one tier.

Maybe some of the homebrew disciplines could be picked- like archery for rangers.

Monk: Setting Sun
Fighter: Iron Heart
Ranger: Tiger Claw or homebrew archery one
Rogue: Shadow Hand
Barbarian: Stone Dragon
Paladin: Devoted Spirit
Marshal: White Raven

These would be starting points. Though personally I'd give them full manuever progression, and drop the ToB classes. If I wanted to "ToB-ify" the core classes, and have no ToB classes around to overshadow them.

[Simba]

What recovery mechanics would you suggest for something like that?

[hamishspence]

Probably either warblade, or swordsage with free adaptive style. Crusader is just a little too random for my taste.

Warblade stance and manuever progression would probably work.

Hmm- maybe Diamond Mind could be a secondary maneuver tree for everybody?

[Harperfan7]

Hell, give diamond mind to bards. They could definitely use it, even though it doesn't really fit.

[hamishspence]

Good idea. Bards fall between the combat classes and the full spellcasters- so maybe giving them a maneuver tree will work.

That just leaves Desert Wind- which is a bit specialist. Maybe make the energy more generic or customizable, and give that school to duskblades?

[Eldan]

I once started writing a homebrew ToB ranger which got disciplines based on it's native region. I.e. Stone Dragon - Mountains, Desert Wind - Deserts, and then homebrew ones for other climates.

[hamishspence]

Maybe the Jester class from Dragon Compendium could get Falling Anvil Style?:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...t=Looney+Tunes

[Harperfan7]

meh.

Scouts?

[hamishspence]

They're very like rangers- maybe merge the two, giving rangers skirmish?

[kestrel404]

I'm doing this right now and using my FEV system to evaluate the results.

I've come to the conclusion that, for the vast majority of the tier 5 base classes, a straight gestalt with one of the ToB classes just makes them tier 2. If you use a lesser form of gestalt, pruning off a few abilities here and there, you can keep them to tier 3. What it amounts to is that you can give the base classes FULL maneuver progression and end up in the sweet-spot (tier 3 generally being considered the 'best') for power level.

For Example:
Fighter's FEV value: 51 @ level 20
Warblade FEV value: 126.45 @ level 20
Fighter//Warblade FEV value: 136.45 @ level 20
With a minor modification so that the warblade does not get fighter bonus feats at odd levels - 133.45
That puts the warblade at the very upper edge of tier 3, almost but not quite in tier 2. Because literally all we're doing is adding about 7 feats - the warblade already gets everything good that the fighter does.

Barbarian//Crusader gets you similar results -
Barbarian: 55
Crusader: 115.8
Barbarian//Crusader: 133.3

Monk//Swardsage gets really strange results, mostly because my FEV system doesn't evaluate the Monk class very well. But if you strip out all of the last 10 levels worth of class features from monk (they're neither helpful to the monk, nor are they terribly interesting), then you've got yourself a decent tier-2/3 class. But really, I agree with the board that Unarmed Swordsage does Monk better than the Monk class.

[Person_Man]

If you gave fighters, barbarians, paladins, and rangers ToB progression at, say, 2/3 progression with thematically similar disciplines, what would you say the result would be in terms of balance/power?

It depends.

There's a big difference between a core only Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger, and one loaded up with obscure feats and alternate class features. (Although the Barbarian has solid PrC support, a strait Barbarian 20 is stuck in Tier 4-5 no matter what you do to him).

Honestly though, you could just multiclass or play a gestalt game with limits on the class combos. It would mechanically have similar results to what you propose.

[Tinydwarfman]

I'm doing this right now and using my FEV system to evaluate the results.

I've come to the conclusion that, for the vast majority of the tier 5 base classes, a straight gestalt with one of the ToB classes just makes them tier 2. If you use a lesser form of gestalt, pruning off a few abilities here and there, you can keep them to tier 3. What it amounts to is that you can give the base classes FULL maneuver progression and end up in the sweet-spot (tier 3 generally being considered the 'best') for power level.

For Example:
Fighter's FEV value: 51 @ level 20
Warblade FEV value: 126.45 @ level 20
Fighter//Warblade FEV value: 136.45 @ level 20
With a minor modification so that the warblade does not get fighter bonus feats at odd levels - 133.45
That puts the warblade at the very upper edge of tier 3, almost but not quite in tier 2. Because literally all we're doing is adding about 7 feats - the warblade already gets everything good that the fighter does.

Barbarian//Crusader gets you similar results -
Barbarian: 55
Crusader: 115.8
Barbarian//Crusader: 133.3

Monk//Swardsage gets really strange results, mostly because my FEV system doesn't evaluate the Monk class very well. But if you strip out all of the last 10 levels worth of class features from monk (they're neither helpful to the monk, nor are they terribly interesting), then you've got yourself a decent tier-2/3 class. But really, I agree with the board that Unarmed Swordsage does Monk better than the Monk class.

No offense, but your FEV system doesn't really evaluate very much of anything well. It's like those point-buy class calculators, which rank wizards as terrible and Barbarians as godly. Human analysis is always better. Neat idea though.

[Prime32]

I'm doing this right now and using my FEV system to evaluate the results.

I've come to the conclusion that, for the vast majority of the tier 5 base classes, a straight gestalt with one of the ToB classes just makes them tier 2.

What, seriously? Let's say you go fighter//warblade. Extra feats from a not-incredibly-useful list make you as good as chain-gating solars while your real body is in another dimension?

[Oslecamo]

What, seriously? Let's say you go fighter//warblade. Extra feats from a not-incredibly-useful list make you as good as chain-gating solars while your real body is in another dimension?

By all means yes, after all anybody can chain gate solars while your body is in another dimension with a measly candle of invocation.

Points:
-You can't chain gate solars as they don't have gate SLA neither do they have the free exp to use it as the spell.
-Even if they could, or if you try to do it with a monster that actualy has gate SLA like the titan, if the DM allows chain-gating of anything then it matters little what you play because everybody can achieve cheesy infinite power with items alone.
-If you have ToB you probably have other splatbooks filled with very juicy fighter feats.

[Fouredged Sword]

I looked at the FEV system, and it seems to work well, but won't account for cheeze or broken badness of bad design. It works well for compareing apples to apples, but when you go and try to figgure out wizards compared to fighters it breaks down due to the potental being spent so difrently.