Souls, Shadows, or Swords?

[CockroachTeaParty]

I'm considering buying a new splat book, but I'm having trouble making up my mind.

I've read through Magic of Incarnum once before, and so I'm relatively familiar with the rules, so it would require the least amount of study. But I'm also considering Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic. Is shadow, truename, and other such magic superior to Incarnum, or the melee insanity within the book of nine swords? I suppose this is just a question of personal preference, but which book is the most satisfying, best buy all around?

[Bears With Lasers]

ToB is far awesomer than the others. It is Fully Sweet, and offers some alternatives to melee classes that actually stay viable at high levels.

[serow]

It's hard to NOT fall in love with the Book of 9 swords!
But at the same time, becoz it's so lovely, you'll be doubly disappointed becoz there are many DMs who're not familiar with the stuff and therefore just flat out say NO to allowing it.

[Dhavaer]

I have heard very good things about the Book of Nine Swords, but at the moment I've fallen for the Shadowcaster. I think mysteries should be /encounter, not /day, though.

[Druid]

True name magic is poorly designed, making it almost imposible for truenamers to actually use their abilities. Other than that binders are cool and shadow casters look fun as well (I've heard that they're weak compared to other full casters but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

ToB is awesome and gives warrior characters a much needed boost. I'd recommend it over ToM. I'm not familiar with the incarnum system so I can't really compare it to either of the other books.

[Behold_the_Void]

Tome of Battle is awesome. Highly recommended.

[AoiRorentsu]

I gotta go with the crowd. ToB is simply amazing. A whole new dynamic that takes advantage of the different kinds of actions (eg swift, immediate) in really innovative ways to create effects that have really never been seen before, with a totally unique flavor and, by my estimation, reasonably well-balanced. It's also great for running low-magic campaigns, but is just as good in high-magic settings like Eberron, etc. I have bought several of the more recent splat books put out by wizards, and this is IMHO simply the best book WotC has done in a long, long time.

Magic of Incarnum- cool idea, cool flavor, a little confusing.

Tome of Magic - lots of cool alternative magic paradigms, but a bit of a let-down. I was also disappointed by how they did truenaming. (actually, now that I mention it, are there ways people have worked around this, or am I totally off base here?). Get it if you're reeeeeeallllly tired of the Vancian system, but still want to have a high-magic campaign without psionics (but hey! who doesn't like psionics!)

So, like I said up front, ToB is, IMHO, the best book out there. It's totally different, and with a couple minor "glitches" here and there totally awesome in every conceivable way. The flavor is interesting, and the authors did a great job of working the origin of the martial disciplines (you'll see what i'm talking about if you get it) into an intriguing history. That and like I said, none of the classes associated with it are particularly unbalanced near as I can tell. It's awesome. If there could be ToB fan-bards, I'd totally be one.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Wow... there was a thread exactly like this that came into existance right when I made this, or so it seems. Sorry to clutter the boards with 'what should I buy' nonsense.

But since I'm already a psionics nut, I do believe the ToB is looking like the book to snag. Now if only I could hunt down a friggin' bookstore instead of ordering things online, I'd be happy as a clam.

[Fax Celestis]

Overstock.com is your gaming friend.

[ImperiousLeader]

Tome of Battle for me as well, though I do like Incarnum, it's not nearly as fun as ToB.

[Feralgeist]

ToB is awesome, although overpowered.

[Bears With Lasers]

ToB is awesome, although overpowered.

Overpowered compared to what? At what levels? How?

[Raum]

ToB is awesome, although overpowered.

I'm curious, how is it overpowered? Particularly when compared to the various full caster classes.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

ToB has become the bible of half my players. No other book gets used like it does.

I guess he means overpowered next to, say, the ordinary non-caster classes, in which case I'd have to agree. Any martial adept could whip the pants off of any other non-caster class in the game. But next to casters? They're very good, but not BROKEN.

[Feralgeist]

Overpowered as in i kept breaking plotlines with a swordsage grappler.

DM: Okay, you get to the jail to bust your friends out. this island is one big fortress, the walls completely smooth ston-
Me: I spider climb the side
DM: you get halfway up and start to lose purchase on the stone, even with your abilities.
Me: I use leap of the dragon to swift jump up, then teleport.
DM: You're now on top of the wall.

Me: i put down my cohort and kill the guard *rolls* (they were riding piggy back)

DM: you cant just say "I kill a ....oh wait, okay. you hear an alarm"

Me: I jump to the ground and burst through the door.

DM: It's made of adamantine

Me: Some stone strike crap
DM: You're inside.
Me: I punch through the walls to my friends. *rolls for each attack, refreshing maneuvers when needed*
DM: God dammit, find your lost character sheet.



And dont get me started on the infinite attack build


Edit:
Oh and don't put words in my mouth, i mean even with casters.

DM: BBEG begins to lau-

Me: Grappled.

DM: (BBEG using still spell) Okay, you feel a pain course through your body as th-

Me: Uh-uh. Fort save, remember? ( I had reaping mauler levels)
DM: *rolls* Oh crap.

most of Party: coup de grace!!!
Rifleman: Coup de grace with EXPLOSIVES

[Bears With Lasers]

Overpowered as in i kept breaking plotlines with a swordsage grappler.

I don't see grappling as being a good idea for a swordsage. Nor does it seem relevant to anything below. Grappling is generally a poor, easily-countered (Freedom of Movement. Oops! Out of reach. Oops!) technique.

DM: Okay, you get to the jail to bust your friends out. this island is one big fortress, the walls completely smooth ston-
Me: I spider climb the side
DM: you get halfway up and start to lose purchase on the stone, even with your abilities.
Me: I use leap of the dragon to swift jump up, then teleport.
DM: You're now on top of the wall.

Great. You have utility. Not having utility is one of the big problems of, say, Fighters.

Me: i put down my cohort and kill the guard *rolls* (they were riding piggy back)

DM: you cant just say "I kill a ....oh wait, okay. you hear an alarm"

And the guard wasn't a serious threat to you... why?

Me: I jump to the ground and burst through the door.

DM: It's made of adamantine

Me: Some stone strike crap
DM: You're inside.

Yeeeeah, check the HP on a wall made of Adamantite again. That'd take you, um, a long time.

Me: I punch through the walls to my friends. *rolls for each attack, refreshing maneuvers when needed*
DM: God dammit, find your lost character sheet.

And dont get me started on the infinite attack build

Sounds like the problem is that you don't have your character sheet, not the Swordsage.

White Raven Tactics bouncing? Yes. It's stinky cheese. Every book has at least one piece of stinky cheese in it. The PHB has, let's say, at least three things that actively break the game.

[Bears With Lasers]

Any martial adept could whip the pants off of any other non-caster class in the game.

Not necessarily. The Psychic Warrior certainly isn't a primary caster, for example, he's a self-buffer, and he's fine. The Rogue does just fine at his role (which isn't melee, so it's hard to compare), and while UMD helps, it doesn't make him a caster.

If you mean going up against those other classes, a well-built fighter could take on and likely devastate a, say, Warblade, until high levels. Martial Adepts are just less ridiculously easy to disable, and don't have nearly as many of the fighter's mobility and other issues.

[Everyman]

Rather than follow the trend of this thread, I'm going to pose a question to help make a decision a bit more smoother...

Do you actively play more martial characters or more spellcasters?

If you're a martial kind of guy, go with the Tome of Battle.

If you're a spellcaster lover, go with Tome of Magic.

If you don't have a preference, go with the crowd on this one.

If you like systems that feel like psionics with souls, go with Incarnum (worst choice of the three, IMHO).

[PnP Fan]

If you're a fighter fan (like me)
Tome of Blades is the top of the list.
I like Tome of Magic for the alternate spellcaster options, though I've never played any of them and have no idea about magic levels.
My only complaint about Incarnum is that now you have class abilities that, under certain circumstances, prevent you from using magic items. Oh, make that two complaints, I also found that the rules behind it are a bit confusing.