Balancing ToB with regular classes

[Swooper]

It seems to be a general consensus among most people who have tried it, that the Tome of Battle did an excellent job in bringing melee classes more in line with the much more versatile casters who have too much potential for dominating the game. I plan on starting a game sometime this fall using the Tome of Battle (never used it before, in fact I haven't got it yet), but what I'm worried about is that with it's inclusion, there'll be no incentive to play the 'regular' melee classes; fighter, paladin, barbarian, ranger, monk, swashbuckler, samurai etc. I want the ToB classes as a choice, not a replacement. What's people's experience with this issue?

[Jack Mann]

There was never a reason to play the CW samurai. It's a fighter without bonus feats.

There are a number of proposed fixes for the various base classes, ranging from giving them maneuver access to giving them entirely new class features. Search for "fighter fix," "barbarian fix," "ranger fix," etc.

[Pestlepup]

This is perhaps slightly off-topic, but is the Tome of Battle just an attempt to stuff as much cheese into the fighting classes as possible, or are the new classes, prestige classes and feats and stuff in line with core material? Given the apparent popularity of said Tome, I dread the former option, but felt it would be proper to ask before I made any quick judgements on a book I've never read.

If this is too off-topic, just ignore it or inform me and I'll remove or edit my post.

[Inyssius Tor]

This is perhaps slightly off-topic, but is the Tome of Battle just an attempt to stuff as much cheese into the fighting classes as possible ...?

No more than the Player's Handbook is "just an attempt to stuff as much cheese into the spellcasting classes as possible." From what I can tell, it's very balanced with low-cheese casters. Caster cheese still maximized-timestop + forcecage + cloudkills the scales, though.

[Swooper]

From what I've read (excerpts from ToB on www.wizards.com, stuff on D&D message boards), what ToB does is it gives melee characters much more options in combat. While a fighter's main tactical choice in combat is how much he'll power attack for this round, a martial adept has several different unique stances and manouvers to use which affect his attacks. Sure, they're more powerful than the basic melee classes but still keep well within core balance.

Edit: Right, back on topic please. What can be done to make the other fighting classes feasible in a game that includes ToB?

[Pestlepup]

Fair enough. Had my worries, but perhaps I'll look into it. Thanks.

[Roderick_BR]

Let the feats Martial Stance and Martial Study be more flexible, like allowing a character to replace old maneuvers by newer ones, and let the characters use it as normal.

[Talya]

There are a few ways you could do this:

1st option: Give gimped maneuver/stance progression to all base melee classes. Say at 1/2 to 1/3 the warblade number of maneuvers and 1 or 2 fewer stances, as well as a weak in-combat method of renewing them.
Problems: What constitutes a melee class? Do you remove bard/ranger/paladin spells when you do this or do they keep both?

2nd option: Allow melee-type classes other than crusader/swordsage/warblade to count toward initiator level at their full class level rather than half their class level, to encourage multiclassing

3rd option: completely redesign or remove all the core classes


That said, I'm not sure it's necessary. I simply do not like any of the classes in TOB. I like the concept, but could never play a warblade (my favorite of the three) up to 20, or a swordsage without levels in swashbuckler, monk or rogue, or a crusader at all. I've been more interested in finding neat ways to combine warblade into dervish builds. :)

[TwistedCable]

There is no balancing ToB.

ToB changed everything.

Heh. Seriously though, these by Fax_Celetis make a pretty good variant for other melee classes to use ToB. Which is probably the best way to do it - if you don't mind the 'anime' sort of feel it has, the ToB system is pretty awesome.

[Swooper]

There are a few ways you could do this:

1st option: Give gimped maneuver/stance progression to all base melee classes. Say at 1/2 to 1/3 the warblade number of maneuvers and 1 or 2 fewer stances, as well as a weak in-combat method of renewing them.
Problems: What constitutes a melee class? Do you remove bard/ranger/paladin spells when you do this or do they keep both?

This is the solution I like best so far, I think. I thought of giving the melee classes manouver/stance progression equal to the progressions of the ToB classes, but thought that would just serve to knock the balance too far in the opposite direction. A reduced progression seems smart, giving them access to it without making it their focus. Good call. You make a good point regarding the problems too though. I'm inclined to let them keep the spellcasting as ranger and paladin spells ain't all that good. Maybe just give them an even weaker martial progression than the fighters, as they need less help.

2nd option: Allow melee-type classes other than crusader/swordsage/warblade to count toward initiator level at their full class level rather than half their class level, to encourage multiclassing

Might work. If I take the 1st option this would kinda be a free bonus by definition though.

3rd option: completely redesign or remove all the core classes

While in the long run this might be the best solution, I would rather spend my time for now perfecting the campaign setting than creating new base classes from scratch with rules I'm not all too familiar with yet.

That said, I'm not sure it's necessary. I simply do not like any of the classes in TOB. I like the concept, but could never play a warblade (my favorite of the three) up to 20, or a swordsage without levels in swashbuckler, monk or rogue, or a crusader at all. I've been more interested in finding neat ways to combine warblade into dervish builds. :)

Ah, that's where I don't agree with you. I would much rather play a straight warblade than a fighter with a PrC I think, simply because of the increased versatility. While Power Attacking for 1d12+567 can be fun in some circumstances, it gets old quite fast. Fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins tend to be one trick ponies, maybe two or three trick ones with a nifty PrC but still not really enough to catch my interest. Which is why I usually play mages.

[Tengu]

The reason why ToB has an anime feel to it is because only in anime martial characters with power comparable to casters are a common sight.

I personally think that with the inclusion of ToB, most melee classes become "mook classes" - better than NPC classes, but not really worth for a PC apart from a small dip, and rarely seen at higher levels. Also, if you use ToB, you should probably abandon the Paladin and Monk classes - Crusader and Swordsage replace them completely.

[Saph]

It seems to be a general consensus among most people who have tried it, that the Tome of Battle did an excellent job in bringing melee classes more in line with the much more versatile casters who have too much potential for dominating the game. I plan on starting a game sometime this fall using the Tome of Battle (never used it before, in fact I haven't got it yet), but what I'm worried about is that with it's inclusion, there'll be no incentive to play the 'regular' melee classes; fighter, paladin, barbarian, ranger, monk, swashbuckler, samurai etc. I want the ToB classes as a choice, not a replacement. What's people's experience with this issue?

It's a real problem.

I've been running a campaign for the past six weeks, and for variety and by request I allowed both psionics and Tome of Battle. They were so popular that most of the players ended up using one or the other. The starting party was a swordsage, a warblade, a druid, a ranger, a psionic warrior, and a psion. We've also had a crusader, another warblade, another psion, and a wizard who've been brought in as replacement characters after the early ones died. So far the campaign's run from level 3 to level 6.

While people have been finding the ToB characters fun to play, the general consensus has been that they're too powerful in comparison with the base classes. So we're probably going to have to go back to banning ToB again once the campaign's over. Not everyone wants half the classes in the PHB to become obsolete.

I think they'd be better balanced at the high levels, where spellcasters dominate so heavily that melee types really need the help. But at the low and low-mid levels, our group's found the ToB characters just a bit too strong.

- Saph

[Talya]

There is no balancing ToB.

ToB changed everything.

Heh. Seriously though, these by Fax_Celetis make a pretty good variant for other melee classes to use ToB. Which is probably the best way to do it - if you don't mind the 'anime' sort of feel it has, the ToB system is pretty awesome.

On those:
Ranger should have swordsage progression.

Paladin should have crusader progression, let them keep remove disease.

Let a bard keep all their spells and simply give them warblade progression. I'm not convinced bard fits into this well, they perhaps should be balanced another way. They are, of all the "melee" classes, the least likely to melee. They're more caster than melee. One may wish to use that to balance them rather than Sublime Way abilities.

Fighter is still weaker than a warblade under that variant. I'm not sure you need to remove anything from the fighter to do this.

The Monk of the Sublime Way variant doesn't feel like a monk at all without Flurry of Blows or some other method of attacking 3+ times at max BAB in a round. Lots of attacks that can hit is a monk staple.

Fax really screwed over the rogue...removed trap sense AND cut sneak attack by 3d6 to give them the weakest martial adept progression?
Not to mention now there are no core classes with trap sense...

[Morty]

The reason why ToB has an anime feel to it is because only in anime martial characters with power comparable to casters are a common sight.

Nope. It's perfectly possible to have meleers comparable to casters in terms of combat without anime. ToBers have anime feel because they use extraordinary manuevers with "fancy" names. Of course, it can be worked out to remove the anime feel, but at first impression it seems kinda anime-ish.
Also, is it just me or the link to Fax' encyclopedia doesn't work?

[Talya]

Ah, that's where I don't agree with you. I would much rather play a straight warblade than a fighter with a PrC I think, simply because of the increased versatility. While Power Attacking for 1d12+567 can be fun in some circumstances, it gets old quite fast. Fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins tend to be one trick ponies, maybe two or three trick ones with a nifty PrC but still not really enough to catch my interest. Which is why I usually play mages.

Oh, if someone made a martial-adept equivalent of a dervish, I'd be all over it.

I just love the dual-weilding dervish class. It doesn't help that none of the martial adept classes have enough feats to make dervish appealling without heavy multiclassing (PrC requirements + TWF/ITWF/GTWF).

[PinkysBrain]

fighter, paladin, barbarian, ranger, monk, swashbuckler, samurai

Pure ranger is pretty playable actually with splatbooks ... all those others are just not meant to take to 20 in a modern game. The modern game of which ToB is part is too complex to pull down to the level of the broken classes of yesteryear, if you want to make it pay off to take them to 20 use one of the many redesigned versions.

Some call it powercreep, I call it retconning sanity into the game.

[Tengu]

Nope. It's perfectly possible to have meleers comparable to casters in terms of combat without anime. ToBers have anime feel because they use extraordinary manuevers with "fancy" names. Of course, it can be worked out to remove the anime feel, but at first impression it seems kinda anime-ish.
Also, is it just me or the link to Fax' encyclopedia doesn't work?

Of course it's perfectly possible. You just see it so rarely in non-anime fiction.

[Swooper]

There is no balancing ToB.

ToB changed everything.

Heh. Seriously though, these by Fax_Celetis make a pretty good variant for other melee classes to use ToB. Which is probably the best way to do it - if you don't mind the 'anime' sort of feel it has, the ToB system is pretty awesome.

Hmm, I'm not sure I like those variants. I like the idea (to give the standard classes martial progression) but not the implementation (to give them full progression like the ToB classes) - removing standard class features or reducing them in favour of martial training seems like a bad idea. I'd rather let them keep their normal abilities and add partial manouver progression than let them have full progression and remove standard class abilities.

Edit: Oh, and I don't mind the anime flavour. Fluff can be adjusted to fit mostly anything anyway.

A thought occured to me. If I were to give partial martial (teehee) progression to standard base classes, how would that affect existing non-martial PrCs?

Oh, if someone made a martial-adept equivalent of a dervish, I'd be all over it.

I just love the dual-weilding dervish class. It doesn't help that none of the martial adept classes have enough feats to make dervish appealling without heavy multiclassing (PrC requirements + TWF/ITWF/GTWF).

Raging Mongoose + TWF + Time Stands Still. I'm not sure Dervish fits into that, but it's a damn nice TWF build still, although it doesn't kick in 'till high level.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Monk: delete, the Swordsage does everything the Monk wishes it could, and then some. To write up a monk, play a Swordsage with the unarmed combat variant, trading out light armor proficency and his Discipline Focus in exchange for monk unarmed damage, flurry, and Ki Strike (magic and adamantine only) progression.

Paladin: Take a Crusader, remove Steely Resolve and Furious Counterstrike. Put in Smite Evil, Detect Evil, and the rest of the before fifth level abilities of the paladin, only stretch it out some so it's not so front-loaded.

Ranger: I'm working on making an Initiator Ranger class, probably called Hunter. It will focus on Tiger Fang, Desert Wind, Shadow Hand, and likely something else. Initiates and learns maneuvers roughly like a Swordsage, because it drops the spellcasting completely. Considering a whole new style to create for them specializing in using the terrain to their advantage.

Rogue: This one has me stymied. A Rogue's primary function is Skillmonky, Trapspringer, and only then does his SA damage come into consideration. He's not really a front-line combatant, so I don't see how Initiating maneuvers is really going to fit the concept. The ONLY discipline I could see him using is Shadow Hand and MAYBE Desert Wind anyways. His focus shouldn't be on combat, it should be on skillmonky, perhaps finding a way to make him not obviated by a wizard.

Barbarian: Maneuvers known progression as a Crusader, although without the stupid randomness to which ones are readied (in fact, I remove that from my home games since it is pretty silly). Gets most of the Warblade disciplines, but not Iron Heart (they just don't have the discipline for it).

[Morty]

Of course it's perfectly possible. You just see it so rarely in non-anime fiction.

Fair enough.

Barbarian: Maneuvers known progression as a Crusader, although without the stupid randomness to which ones are readied (in fact, I remove that from my home games since it is pretty silly). Gets most of the Warblade disciplines, but not Iron Heart (they just don't have the discipline for it).

Well, randomness in readied manuevers seems to fit barbarian perfectly. I can't see a reason to remove it.

[Talya]

There's a reason why melee types are not as powerful as casters in most fiction:

If being a spellcaster does not give you a huge advantage, nobody would go through the hassle of becoming a wizard. Wizards are supposed to be the pinnacle of human power in just about every bit of fiction you find. Magic is special, and those rare people who learn to tap it have huge advantages over other people.

You get the same thing in settings like, say, Star Wars. A Force-user is (and should be) a thousand times more powerful than a mundane non-force user.

To put it in Harry Potter terms: Wizards > Muggles & Squibs.

[Person_Man]

Fighter: Goliath Fighter 6 with Dungeoncrasher ability and Knockback. 8d6 + (3 x Str mod) damage whenever you Bull Rush an enemy into a wall, and free Bull Rush on every attack. After 6th level, there's really no reason to take Fighter levels, and there never really has been. Most people just take a 2 level dip and then leave forever.

Paladin: Battle Blessing: All of your standard action spells are now Swift Action spells. Read the Spell Compendium. Dragon Cohort for a special dragon mount. With Smite Evil and Divine Might, you can have a really excellent charge build.

Barbarian: Complete Champion variant for Pounce. Headlong Rush for double damage on a charge. Whirling Frenzy for an extra attack or Ferocity for a bonus to Dex. Streetfighter for 18-20 *4 crit.

Ranger: Read the Spell Compendium. If you're still feeling under powered, use the Wildshape variant, and take the Draconic Wildshape and/or Abberation Wildshape feats.

Monk: Disciple of the Eye. Save vs. Fear every time I ROLL to attack. Fear effects stack. And your class levels stack to determine Flurry. Otherwise, there's really not much of a reason to play a Monk.

Swashbuckler: Rogue 3/Swash 17 with Daring Outlaw. 10d6 Sneak Attack, 19/20 BAB, Evasion. TWF + Improved Unarmed Strike (Counts for Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Insightful Strike, and Sneak Attack).

Samurai: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

FYI: I've played with Tome of Battle. They're still not as powerful as full casters. So its incumbent on the DM to have at least 4 encounters per game day (as suggest by the DMG) to balance out their limited spells per day. I suggest 6+ once they get access to 4th level spells.

[Human Paragon 3]

There's a reason why melee types are not as powerful as casters in most fiction:

If being a spellcaster does not give you a huge advantage, nobody would go through the hassle of becoming a wizard. Wizards are supposed to be the pinnacle of human power in just about every bit of fiction you find. Magic is special, and those rare people who learn to tap it have huge advantages over other people.

You get the same thing in settings like, say, Star Wars. A Force-user is (and should be) a thousand times more powerful than a mundane non-force user.

To put it in Harry Potter terms: Wizards > Muggles & Squibs.

Makes perfect sense in fiction, but not in a game, which should be balanced. 2nd edition explained this away with the higher XP requirements for wizard levels after 10, but the simplified 3e system requires all classes to be aproximately balanced from 1-20.

For the most part this seems easy to do as long as players aren't cheesing their characters for optimization and if the DM leans on the spellcasters to keep them powered down at the high levels by limiting their spell selection.

The question here, however, is the relative power between the martial adept classes and the core melee classes, not spellcasters- and this is a problem. It's one of the many reasons that I am not currently allowing ToB in my campaigns.

If you are mixing the core classes with the TOB classes, I might recomend giving limited stances and manuevers to the core classes, particularly stances as they are easier to track and impliment. The players just anounce which stances they are using each round.

Maybe fighter could get 1 manuever at each of his truly dead levels (5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and 19).

[LotharBot]

Rogue: This one has me stymied. A Rogue's primary function is Skillmonky, Trapspringer, and only then does his SA damage come into consideration. He's not really a front-line combatant, so I don't see how Initiating maneuvers is really going to fit the concept....

I think of rogues primarily as tricksters. That description covers skillmonkeying, trapfinding, and sneak attack -- they're tricksters both inside and outside of combat, and I think relegating them to a lesser in-combat role is a bad idea.

I think you have to preserve their trickster nature, and I think you can do it through initiating maneuvers -- provided they're initiating maneuvers like "kidney punch", "groin kick", "fake you out of your shorts and stab you in the throat", "distract you while the raging barbarian tackles you", etc. In other words, you have to create a new school of maneuvers for them. Personally, I'd get rid of sneak attack entirely, and replace it with a set of maneuvers that replicate that sort of "caught you unaware and stuck a knife through your pancreas" feel.

For those worried about rogues losing trap sense in Fax's fix... remember that's Trap Sense (bonus to saves vs traps) rather than Trap Finding. They can still do the standard skillmonkey find-and-disable-traps thing, they just don't get any bonus to avoiding traps beyond what you might give them for certain stances.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Hi! I figured I'd post here because my last couple of real-life games have involved the Tome of Battle, and I've grown fond of it. I was sort of skeptical, at first, but I really like it.

We've played one starting at level 3 and another starting at level 12; unlike in Saph's experience, we had a lot of fun with it--we had a barbarian, a crusader, a swordsage, an archivist, and a wizard in the low-level one, and the barbarian did the most damage overall, if not always every round. Mountain Hammer could occasionally do more than he did, and if the swordsage landed both hits of Wolf Fang Strike with the Burning Blade boost... but the raging barbarian by and large outdamaged them, even if they were more versatile.

I don't see a problem mixing the Tome of Battle classes with other base melee classes; they are somewhat better, but it's a matter of options and defense rather than destructive power, by and large.

[Indon]

<Stuff about how to build more powerful core base class characters, and derision towards the Samurai>

Or, to condense, have a good bit of availible sourcebooks, and the core classes should be able to do fine by picking out strong feats and such. They may have fewer tricks than the ToB characters, but they will rock at them.

Also, the Samurai is weak. Let us all laugh mockingly at this silly little class and all who decide to play it. Ha ha ha!

[Jack Mann]

Ha ha. Nothing to see here, people.

[elliott20]

another possible method is to make the maneuver progression tied to feats in some fashion. The current feats means you can exchange one feat for one manuever. What if you instead did one feat for say, 3 + int/wis/cha modifier maneuvers? You can keep their initiator level equal to half their character level, but now normal characters can, if they want, go martial adept without it becoming too much. They still have to spend their precious feats on gaininig maneuvers. (this also gives fighters a slight edge and a reason to go past 6th level)

[Sulecrist]

Hi! I figured I'd post here because my last couple of real-life games have involved the Tome of Battle, and I've grown fond of it. I was sort of skeptical, at first, but I really like it.

We've played one starting at level 3 and another starting at level 12; unlike in Saph's experience, we had a lot of fun with it--we had a barbarian, a crusader, a swordsage, an archivist, and a wizard in the low-level one, and the barbarian did the most damage overall, if not always every round. Mountain Hammer could occasionally do more than he did, and if the swordsage landed both hits of Wolf Fang Strike with the Burning Blade boost... but the raging barbarian by and large outdamaged them, even if they were more versatile.

I don't see a problem mixing the Tome of Battle classes with other base melee classes; they are somewhat better, but it's a matter of options and defense rather than destructive power, by and large.

Yeah, an optimized Barbarian (and sometimes optimized Paladin, archer, or mounted character) can often out-damage ToB classes, especially with access to prestige classes. ToB gives much more versatility, though, which is a lot more useful in the long run. As an added bonus, Warblades and Swordsages both have piles of skill points, so the characters themselves are generally more interesting at the end.

The Barbarian in my group isn't having any trouble at all keeping pace with the Divine MetaPersist Cleric, the Monk, or the Theurge. (None of them are what I'd call "optimized", except maybe the Monk.) The party's level 12, though, and the Ranger's really starting to suck (partially because the player's a bit thick.) When I had a Warblade in the party, the only reason I was a step above performance-wise was because I tweaked my character a bit more. I could do the same with a Bard, Knight, or even a Scout.

I've found that most of the oriental classes and melee damage Fighters universally suck past level six or so, though. And Druids are consistently too impotent (I have a few stupid players) or too godlike (not all of them are stupid) for me to really tolerate them anymore.

EDIT: Off-topic bit regarding casters: This is far from a perfect solution, but my homebrew world essentially grew out of the battlefields between several deities. There are lots of dead-magic zones (that essentially grant AOE spell resistance) and everybody (even arcane casters) needs to have an actual source for magical energy. Upper-level spell reagents tend to be exceptionally hard to acquire, though not particularly rare. (The churches hoard diamonds, for instance.) These are mostly RP things, and all of my players know about it going in, but they're a bit less reckless with their spells than they would be in, say, Greyhawk. Martial adepts have a less severe limitation; there are powers-that-be that regulate improper use of techniques. (Think almost like the judges in Final Fantasy tactics.)

[Talya]

BTW, the Samurai is not particularly weak as far as melee classes go! 4+int skills per level, Ancestral Daisho, High Fort and Will saves, and bonus feats at levels 2, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, and 19. It's not perfect, but it's a nicely designed class!

(I have no idea what you're talking about! There is no Samurai class in Complete Warrior! ...No, there isn't! Your mind is fooling you. The only samurai class in existence is in Oriental Adventures ...No, you are mistaken. The samurai you are thinking of does not exist. It's not there. There are no pages 8, 9 or 10 in Complete Warrior, they skipped them for some reason. Don't ask me why they would do that.)