Why don't we use tome of battle [3.5]

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. So I was wondering, why do I very rarely see any muggle fixes that use tome of battle? I mean if you slapped maneuvers and a cool capstone onto a fighter, it suddenly because pretty good. My only answer would be that it feels like cheating. When you guys do a fix, what stops you from using tome of battle, or do you?

[Mcdt2]

Well, at least to me, it seems less like "cheating" and more like, "Why bother wasting an entire thread on this idea?". I mean, it's not hard to simply say "As [Base class], but maneuvers as Warblade, drawn from XYZ disciplines." I've seen it done, though. For example, here's one I've got floating around in my internet favorites, which I found a while a back when I first discovered the glory that is Tome of Battle. It's simple and effective, sure, but it's more the kind of fix which gets thrown around in the 3.X threads or in someone's "Big List of Houserules" type posts. I've also seen them presented in threads of "30 Second Fixes" and such, simple alterations spells out in as few of sentences as possible.

But ultimately, these are the sorts of fixes which are neither very difficult to come up with nor interesting to PEACH. So unless you're posting an entire thread full of them, most people don't bother to post that sort of thing.


Of course, in terms of homebrewing with the Tome of Battle in general, well... There's a few homebrew disciplines out there.

[Tanuki Tales]

While I personally like Tome of Battle, the reason I don't tend to use it is that I feel it is too easy an out and tends to cost potentially unique and useful class features for the class. You don't really need to slap too much onto a class that lets it stand on its own two legs if initiating does most the heavy lifting.

[Zaydos]

1) Because if you give a fighter warblade maneuvers you've now got a better warblade; of course you can give them less maneuvers and this might work but...

2) It feels unoriginal, un-unique, and at that point I'd just rather say "fighter is replaced with warblade". Warblade is already a well balanced fighter fix using maneuvers, if I'm making a fighter fix it's so I have one that is an option that does not use maneuvers or for the challenge of the thing.

[Psy-Knight]

I see it as the Tome of Battle IS the fix. It's be like parting out a fully functional, working car to fix a broken down clunker, when you own both.

[Mehket]

The Black Lotus is an awesome rogue replacement with maneuvers. Unique class features gives it an identity that is both different from the swordsage and allows for rogue things the swordsage can't handle. It even comes with a well done, finished homebrew discipline!

The reason I guess might also stem from the fact that maneuvers are still pretty weak compared to spells, unless you go homebrew.

-Mk

[Jormengand]

I personally don't use it because when your "Non-casting" class is using a totally-not-casting mechanic closer to a sorcerer's than a psion's is to a sorcerer's, you're doing something wrong.

[Tanuki Tales]

I personally don't use it because when your "Non-casting" class is using a totally-not-casting mechanic closer to a sorcerer's than a psion's is to a sorcerer's, you're doing something wrong.

I don't think you can do anything objectively "wrong" as long as you meet your design goals.

[Jormengand]

I don't think you can do anything objectively "wrong" as long as you meet your design goals.

Okay, "Wrong as far as I'm concerned." I didn't think it was entirely necessary to clarify that it was my opinion on a post which was entirely about why I choose not to use a particular sourcebook from Dungeons and Dragons Revised Third Edition in my work, but thanks for the clarification.

[Milo v3]

Okay, "Wrong as far as I'm concerned." I didn't think it was entirely necessary to clarify that it was my opinion on a post which was entirely about why I choose not to use a particular sourcebook from Dungeons and Dragons Revised Third Edition in my work, but thanks for the clarification.

Well this thread got aggressive fast

As for the OP, I make pathfinder material more than I make 3.5e material so until recently using ToB style mechanics in my homebrew would require making them from scratch.

[Tanuki Tales]

Okay, "Wrong as far as I'm concerned." I didn't think it was entirely necessary to clarify that it was my opinion on a post which was entirely about why I choose not to use a particular sourcebook from Dungeons and Dragons Revised Third Edition in my work, but thanks for the clarification.

I managed to say something similar without sounding kind of judgmental about those who do choose to put a preference to martial initiating though.

[Jormengand]

I managed to say something similar without sounding kind of judgmental about those who do choose to put a preference to martial initiating though.

I made no judgements thereupon. You can read between the lines all you like, but nothing is written there.

[Tanuki Tales]

I made no judgements thereupon. You can read between the lines all you like, but nothing is written there.

I don't see how one could take "then you're doing something wrong" as meaning other than what is plainly said.

[toapat]

My only answer would be that it feels like cheating. When you guys do a fix, what stops you from using tome of battle, or do you?

Its a bit more then that:

1: Its not going to make your thread get good responses, its a simplistic system which is effective for its purpose.
2: its harder to invest in writing anything for ToB then for other systems because of the modularity. Vancian and Psionics the schools are not tied together, with ToB you pick 3-4 schools the class can learn from. sure this adds more flavor to the individual school but it feels bad. You get to define who your class is with your picks using vancian and psionics. you dont get the same level of Personal Touch with ToB
3: Do not conflate Effective with healthy. Tome of Battle is a bandage to a much larger problem.
4: Tome of battle isnt a proper solution: Mundanes suck because the mechanics of the game are too complex and balanced in favor of the contents of the monster manual having the advantage. The comparison to real life would be if General Motors realized that its a horrible company that doesnt make quality products, and instead of rectifying that, bought cars from Toyota and sold them under their own brands instead. Just because the problem isnt current visible doesnt mean the problem has stopped existing.
5: ToB ignored ranged combat

[Jormengand]

I don't see how one could take "then you're doing something wrong" as meaning other than what is plainly said.

Wrong in my book. I'm saying that tome of battle was done wrong, in my opinion, not that everyone who disagrees is a terrible terrible person and should have wombats dropped repeatedly onto them until death.

[sirpercival]

Hey guys. So I was wondering, why do I very rarely see any muggle fixes that use tome of battle? I mean if you slapped maneuvers and a cool capstone onto a fighter, it suddenly because pretty good. My only answer would be that it feels like cheating. When you guys do a fix, what stops you from using tome of battle, or do you?

Because it's much more fun to write a new class with actual class features and thematics than slap maneuvers on a generic fighter. If you're using homebrew anyway, why not use one of the 3245239487529 martial adept homebrew base classes instead?