Additional Martial Lore Use [3.5 Skill Change]

[Temotei]

Add the following to the table on page 28 of Tome of Battle on Martial Lore:

DC	Task
40+target's initiator level	Determine all maneuvers known by a particular creature by watching it initiate at least one maneuver. No action required. Retry only if the subject initiates another maneuver.

This is an epic use of the Martial Lore skill.

[DracoDei]

Seems like a reasonable Epic use of skill.

No idea if the numbers are right, but I can't see it being too abusive.

[Arcanist]

Seems like a reasonable Epic use of skill.

No idea if the numbers are right, but I can't see it being too abusive.

The moment Epic play comes online and you have to fight an Epic Martial Adapt, you'd be forced to make a DC 61 to learn all of the enemies maneuvers... Hmm... Originally this was going to be me saying "That's bad", but honestly It doesn't seem THAT bad actually... Seems fairly good...

[Temotei]

Seems like a reasonable Epic use of skill.

No idea if the numbers are right, but I can't see it being too abusive.

The moment Epic play comes online and you have to fight an Epic Martial Adapt, you'd be forced to make a DC 61 to learn all of the enemies maneuvers... Hmm... Originally this was going to be me saying "That's bad", but honestly It doesn't seem THAT bad actually... Seems fairly good...

It's a very difficult check if you don't have any boosts to your skill check other than skill ranks and an Intelligence bonus. However, most characters who can make this check will have ready access to some sort of ability boosting items (belt of magnificence, maybe), wish, etc. on top of the possibility of having any items that raise a particular skill's bonus. Even masterwork tools only cost 50 gp and grant a +2 bonus.

Giving a warblade the elite array of ability scores (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), we would probably assign that warblade as such:

Str: 15
Dex: 12
Con: 14
Int: 13
Wis: 10
Cha: 8

You could switch Dexterity and Wisdom or whatever, but that's the basic idea. So we have 13 base + 6 enhancement (belt of magnificence +6) + 5 inherent (wish or tome of clear thought) = 24 Intelligence at level 20, for a +7 bonus. With 23 ranks in Martial Lore, +2 (masterwork tool), we have a +32 bonus to Martial Lore without custom items, cheese, or any of that. Assuming a level 20 initiator, we have a DC of 40 + 20 = 60. Even with a natural 20, we can't hit that.

However, if we add in a few more magic items and spell effects, such as greater heroism (+4 morale), pale green prism ioun stone (+1 competence), and a luckstone/prayer (+1 luck), we have +38.

The most powerful example I can think of is guidance of the avatar for a +20 competence bonus on touch. That brings our +38 before to +37 (from dropping the ioun stone) and then raises it to +57.

In other words, it's a really, really tough check if you only rely on yourself and core items, but when you get into spell effects and extra items, there are a lot of things you can do to boost your check if you need it. This also assumes that you have Martial Lore as a class skill. If you don't, you could be a caster and use moment of prescience, divine insight, or improvisation for bonuses to your skill checks (moment of prescience gives a +20 insight bonus at CL 20). This is supposed to be a tough check without a lot of help and possibly preparation.