Results 31 to 60 of 521
-
2019-02-20, 08:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
The buffing would be a class feature, and then they'd get leader-y maneuvers on top of it (edited versions of Divine Muse and Lost Lyrics). There should also be a CHA discipline with animeish music moves like in the youtube link, both for theme and so as to not mandate MAD.
Alternately, the buffing could be from maneuvers, and then they get a relatively high number of maneuvers but have to split them between in-combat and out-of-combat.
To be super boring, it could just let people act like they've got Martial Study for a maneuver. Stance granting could be higher level. (The flexibility+saved slot hopefully making up for the fact that you can buy this with a magic item.) But that seems too basic. I値l try and think of something.
If nothing else works, could always default to a long-lasting Inspire Courage (longer to set up, but would at least not take up the bard痴 first combat turn).
覧覧
I値l do a draft for this class ASAP, but first am going to finish up this fluff writing. As a novice homebrewer the first draft for the class is assured to have problems, but it'll be something to start with.Last edited by Elves; 2019-02-20 at 10:45 PM.
-
2019-02-20, 09:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
So, initial draft of Knight of the Word is up in this thread. I suspect it is going to need a lot of balancing and probably other things before it is good to go. So feel free to head over there and critique it to shreds.
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors
-
2019-02-20, 10:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I've consider something like this periodically. Some things from my notes, without much attention paid to the thread:
1. Most of the existing martial classes should be given ACFs that give them maneuvers and are shameless powerups. Like, "Trap Sense for Warblade maneuver progression" shameless. I'd give each class one core discipline plus one discipline of their choice (e.g. Rogue gets Shadow Hand + Any Other).
2. The existing classes should get more maneuvers. Probably what they have now plus one per character level. They should also get a free pick discipline. Maybe not the Swordsage, or maybe swap Stone Dragon for a free pick.
3. Swordsage needs a new refresh mechanic. I like "refresh maneuvers when you switch stance", but there are a variety of possibilities. Also probably full BAB.
4. On a similar note to 1, there should be rules for retrofitting non-ToB martial PrCs with maneuver progression.
5. I think expanding existing disciplines is generally going to be more productive than writing new ones. It is currently quite difficult to put together a character who is a master of a particular discipline, despite the fluff presenting that as the default.
6. Tome of Battle maneuvers work best for characters fighting with a two-handed weapon, and that's conceptually limiting. I don't really think writing disciplines for other fighting styles is a good fix for this.
7. The disciplines should come with utility powers, either as maneuvers or as a separate track. Being a master of the Shadow Hand should allow you to command, travel through, and shape shadows.
I'm sure I'll think of other stuff at some point.
-
2019-02-20, 10:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I think there's a danger of power bloat with some of these things but I'm not sure how much it is an issue; suggestion 2 by itself seems fine but I'd be worried about 3 leading to serious power creep. Re 7- I like the idea of more utility powers, but I'd be concerned if having too many of them makes the classes feel more overtly magical and less combat oriented (although with Shadow Hand that's less of an issue than others.) Also, making some of these changes (2 and 3 in particular) would lead to potential compatibility issues with ToB which would be suboptimal. I strongly agree with 5 and think adding a few more maneuvers to existing disciplines, or collapsing/fusing some currently separate disciplines may be a good idea.
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors
-
2019-02-20, 11:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
The Swordsage refreshing maneuvers slightly more often is just not a big deal. You could get all your maneuvers at will and that would not be problematic from a power perspective, it would just be kind of boring.
Re 7- I like the idea of more utility powers, but I'd be concerned if having too many of them makes the classes feel more overtly magical and less combat oriented (although with Shadow Hand that's less of an issue than others.)
Also, making some of these changes (2 and 3 in particular) would lead to potential compatibility issues with ToB which would be suboptimal.
-
2019-02-21, 03:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Malsheem, Nessus
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Along the lines of granting stances, what if, instead of doing pre-battle buffs, the poet handed out two-part buffs, one generic buff that applies to everyone and one "You can forego the benefit of a stance to..." benefit like the special stances in the ToB PrCs, and if you use the forego-a-stance benefit you can also hang on to the base buff as long as you're in that pseudo-stance?
Augmenting others' stances makes it synergize more with other martial adepts and makes it fairly distinct from a bard; it could also hand out stances to non-initiators at some point, if you want the second buff to be more widely available. Since those abilities last until you change stances, you could "pre-buff" someone with that benefit (but only as long as they stay in that stance, so there's a tradeoff) but you're not shoehorning some method of pre-buffing into the initiating framework. And where a bard wants to pick one bardic music (or multiple, if he has a way to sustain them) and maintain it throughout the battle, the poet would be more about, well, "the poetry of battle" as he switches between buffs every round as the situation changes and martial adepts can "hold onto" buffs as desired, giving a more flexible and free-flowing feel to its abilities.
I saw some homebrew on...I want to say MinMaxBoards? that added a new maneuver type, called a "rush" or something like that, which is initiated with a move action and gives some sort of movement- or utility-related benefit. I could definitely see adding in those, plus maybe another maneuver type to cover pure utility stuff (Shadow Jaunt/Stride/Blink already lacks a maneuver type, so those could be moved to that type too), to broaden disciplines beyond combat-relevant maneuvers.
-
2019-02-21, 03:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
It just so happens that I'm currently playing Tyranny, which has what is basically a bard join your party. Her music works by building over time: you start with a slight buff, but the longer you sing, the stronger it gets and at regular intervals you get a resource (I think they were called beats? Breaths?) that you can spend for a bigger effect, but that also starts the buff over from 0. It's quite a nice system.
I.e. Inspire courage: +1 bonus for everyone in the party, an additional +1 every round, to a maximum of +3 (more later levels), dismiss to grant someone [benefit dependent on strike used].Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2019-02-22, 12:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
PRC+discipline fluff done, drafting poet and [ranger].
Probably. And agreed, simple ACFs that give 1-2 disciplines are more practical to include than whole class makeovers ("martial fighter", etc).
2. The existing classes should get more maneuvers. Probably what they have now plus one per character level. They should also get a free pick discipline.
3. Swordsage needs a new refresh mechanic.
5. I think expanding existing disciplines is generally going to be more productive than writing new ones.
6. Tome of Battle maneuvers work best for characters fighting with a two-handed weapon, and that's conceptually limiting.
7. The disciplines should come with utility powers, either as maneuvers or as a separate track.
Nice. Initiators get a head start and then by the time everyone else gets stance buffs, initiators get higher level ones.Last edited by Elves; 2019-02-22 at 02:31 PM.
-
2019-02-23, 01:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I think you're very likely to need to expand beyond maneuvers, because even if you allow maneuvers to hold utility effects, they're still basically at-will abilities, which means you're much more limited in what they can do. A Stone Dragon master being able to replicate a Lyre of Building's effect is cool, but if that's a maneuver of any sort, it represents a staggeringly enormous output. That's not to say that Rushes or the like are a bad idea or anything, just that you will need something beyond the standard maneuver system to provide enough utility.
One of the nice things about giving classes access to maneuvers is that it doesn't require you to do much to the class. Maneuvers are a pointer to an external system, so adding them takes a pretty tiny amount of effort for the reward it grants. About the only class I think needs is a re-write is the Marshal.
Though if adding more maneuvers, seems like that would already be enough to make once per encounter work for them.
How do you think this could best be fixed?
I think one thing you should do is figure out in advance what fighting styles you think need to be supported, then go in once you have a list of maneuvers to check if those characters actually work. Can you build an archer? A mounted knight? Are those characters reasonably viable, instead of just worse versions of a sword-and-board or two handed Warblade? It's hard to say some of these things in advance, but if you're aware of the problem you can check that you've solved it before declaring your mission complete.
Yeah very much agreed, and this is the best way to start on 5. Rushes and utility maneuvers it is. As JoshuaZ said, still want to stay distinct from magic.
-
2019-02-23, 02:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
You could make the Lyre of Building a feat, or a stance, that needs to be active as long as you are building. Would totally work.
Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2019-02-23, 03:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Not 100% sure what you're suggesting. The basic issue is that a Lyre of Building is an effect that is active once a week for a couple of hours. That's a radically different usage constraint than anything in Tome of Battle. Making a stance that worked the way it does would be weird enough that I'm not sure you're gaining anything by trying to fit it into the existing paradigm, and making it a feat is a problem because characters get a super tiny number of feats, and while the Lyre of Building effect is cool, people are not going to take it over Power Attack if you ask them to make that choice. So I think you need some additional place to fit these abilities.
-
2019-02-23, 05:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Lyre of Building may be a bad example to think about in terms of utility powers because it such highly variable in power. In straight kill-them-and-take-their-stuff campaigns it is almost useless. In campaigns which involve actual kingdoms and things it is so powerful it might make more sense as a legendary artifact.
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors
-
2019-02-23, 05:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
That could just be a utility maneuver with a long cooldown. Or it could be something akin to 4e's rituals, perhaps called Meditations, Revelations or Enlightenments. Epic meditations under bodhi trees, Dragonball-esque 'train for a thousand years in a mystical demiplane', Stone Dragons shaping the earth into a castle like above, etc.
Last edited by Elves; 2019-02-23 at 05:17 PM.
-
2019-02-23, 08:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I meant it more like "a similar effect".
Give every discipline a few passive effects, maybe. "A master of Stone dragon is also a master craftsman. In any craft where there is stone involved, anyone knowing at least one Stone Dragon Stance they can substitute their initiator level for their craft check. Anyone knowing at least a fifth level Stone Dragon Stances can do the work of ten craftsmen. Anyone knowing at least an eight level stone dragon stance can do the work of 100 craftsmen."
Something like that? Though I wouldn't know what to do with half the disciplines.Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2019-02-23, 08:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors
-
2019-02-23, 11:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Did a draft for the low level binder vestige - Kaziir-Thet, Stealer of Clarity. Help with balance would be great.
-
2019-02-25, 04:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Help me come up with effects for the other disciplines? Stone Dragon happens to be actually very easy, here, the others aren't as material-bound. My main problem is not making them too... adventure relevant? Like, Shadow hand would tempt me to give them low-light or darkvision, and desert wind something with fire, and both of those sound like they might become too useful while on adventure.
Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2019-02-25, 05:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I was thinking about the Fluff.
If the Age of Warriors comes after the Temple of Nine Swords, then there has to be a reason for such a flourishing of hundreds of styles. Perhaps we could move a lot forwards in the timeline, making the ToNS be centuries in the past? Some of the styles we are including are obviously very old, especially the planar styles. But others could just be developments of new schools that came up after the fall of the temple? If the temple was the world's main place of fighting education, perhaps it just became too rigid and codified over time, and its fall meant that there was no central place were "correct" style was thought and experimentation discouraged, so there are now hundreds of competing masters and their students, all teaching their own styles?
It would be a very Wuxia setting, then.
And now I'm tempted to make a class based on experimentation and combining styles. Hmm...
Okay, how's this for a base class idea. You get a lot more maneuvers, but your initiator level is considerably lower, so you get lower level maneuvers. Something like a bard progression. But you get access to more disciplines and you get a bonus for mixing disciplines. (I.e. you get an attack bonus if using a boost from one discipline on a strike of another discipline.) Plus maybe a kind of inspiration mechanic, for unusual maneuvers invented on the fly.
Because you're not going to let some crusty old master tell you how to fight.Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2019-02-25, 01:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Desert Wind - "Sunrunning" - can keep running/exercising without tiring as long as the sun is shining on them? Hot body temperature makes them resist cold weather effects? Focus the sun's light to cause fires like if you had a really big magnifying glass? Create mirages?
Devoted Spirit - Obviously, perform miracles.
Diamond Mind - Extremely well-organized? I don't know. Meditation equivalent to divination spells?
Iron Heart - Metalworking/metallurgy
Setting Sun - I don't know. Maybe something related to the Theseus myth since he fought in a similar style. Or some kind of mystical dancing?
Shadow Hand - Something about connection to the plane of shadow/ethereal plane? Conjure gateways, do shadow teleports, or that Shadowdancer thing? Or simply very good at sneaking?
Stone Dragon - Stoneworking
Tiger Claw - Hunting? Wild Empathy?
White Raven - Something equivalent to a free Leadership feat? This would also help solve 'having no allies to help with my maneuvers'
Big timeskip is a good possibility. It might interfere with people's ability to integrate it into their campaigns that use base TOB, but >10 years after the fact, that's way less of a concern than just maybe, possibly, giving them a reason to run a new one.
I made a few stabs at the fluff chapter, with the assumption of minimal timeskip. This was an (overly cheesy) attempt at the start quote for the intro:
You fought well, my student. Like I thought, their corpses bear the tattoo of the Broken Blade. I had no idea those techniques were still being taught. And this only a month since we learned that a master of Infinite Torment is walking the earth again.
Perhaps I have been neglectful by teaching you only of Reshar痴 nine Ways. Back when I was young, they were enough預nd the tradition they represented seemed valuable傭ut that was an age of mere theory, of relative peace, of sages, sportsmen, hermits and monastics. Whereas it seems it may be your hard fate to live in an age of warriors.
Come then, and let us speak not of nine swords but of numberless, nor of Reshar but of the Sublime Way in its entirety.
- Harran Turiyeshor
(This was with the concept of some kind of world war being the trigger. To some degree, inevitably, it will be simply that Reshar, while an accomplished and supremely talented individual, is not the be-all and end-all of the Sublime.)
And now I'm tempted to make a class based on experimentation and combining styles. Hmm...
Okay, how's this for a base class idea. You get a lot more maneuvers, but your initiator level is considerably lower, so you get lower level maneuvers. Something like a bard progression. But you get access to more disciplines and you get a bonus for mixing disciplines. (I.e. you get an attack bonus if using a boost from one discipline on a strike of another discipline.) Plus maybe a kind of inspiration mechanic, for unusual maneuvers invented on the fly.
Because you're not going to let some crusty old master tell you how to fight.Last edited by Elves; 2019-02-25 at 09:05 PM.
-
2019-02-25, 02:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I sort of took for granted that any setting specific claim would be at least a generation after Reshar if it was going to be after the Fall of the Temple. Maybe even one hundred years? Since multiple disciplines have fluff about being made in response to events surrounding the Fall, that seems most natural. The Time of Reshar being more legendary and long ago also feels more in keeping with the general themes.
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors
-
2019-02-25, 03:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
FYI, TOB says Reshar did his thing "three lifetimes ago", and that the Temple fell one lifetime later, so that's already at least 100y in the past.
Rangers:
There seem to be two ways to go, either they are primarily a hunter with a quarry or they are primarily connected to the environment. Either way they probably aren't going to be training in a school like the others.
If former, should be less generic than eg a World of Warcraft hunter, if latter, should be distinct from druid.
Something Shinto-y and animistic perhaps? With a belief in accessing the Sublime Way via the "essence" or spirits that inhabit objects and places? Via Wiki, in Shinto there are several kinds of places this essence crosses over into the world:
Shintai, temporary reserves of spiritual energy or homes of spirits (the most famous one being Mount Fuji):
The most common shintai are man-made objects like mirrors, swords, jewels (for example comma-shaped stones called magatama), gohei (wands used during religious rites), and sculptures, but they can also be natural objects such as stones, mountains, trees and waterfalls.
Then there are shrines, which are made to house a spirit and safekeep sacred objects (the stereotypical mini-shrines often dot roadways). Similarly, kamidana are small household altars. It would be cute to incorporate the idea of shrines somehow, give them some function. I don't think it would be too restrictive since the ranger could make altars and probably mini-shrines on their own.
The animal companion could be more like a pal's divine steed - a kami that they summon, akin to some creature from a Studio Ghibli movie (yes, my knowledge of Shinto is pretty shallow). Or those more whimsical kami could be substituted with elementals or sprites.
Either way, that could relate to the shrines or household altars that attract and house kami. And perhaps you get access to different disciplines depending on what kind of kami you have summoned? A luck one giving Coin's Edge and so on.
But it may be cleaner to dish the animal companion and focus on the ranger's weapon as a vessel that houses kami -- or have the kami inhabit the weapon, but it can also emerge to take semi-physical form. Gain an animal companion that can perform maneuvers but then you can't perform maneuvers yourself.
"Animist"?Last edited by Elves; 2019-02-25 at 09:26 PM.
-
2019-02-26, 08:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Well, so is fabricate. You definitely want some abilities that are more useful during traditional adventures (like flight), but you'll also want some that are useful for kingdom management stuff (like crafting powers). Because existing utility effects do both of those things.
I dislike this because I think it weakens one of the stronger attributes of Tome of Battle: that maneuvers are on a unified, relatively simple, resource management system. Adding complexity where some maneuvers can be used once a day, or once an hour, or whatever necessarily means losing that. Of course, adding a non-maneuver subsystem also provides increased complexity.
Of course, some of these things definitely work as maneuvers or stances. For example, you could easily have a Stone Dragon stance that granted burrow + tremorsense, and that would be both useful in combat and outside it without needing any particular usage limits.
Tying ability progression to stance level works nicely. New abilities at 1/5/9/15 is a pretty good progression for this. It does make some things awkward though, because you get a very small number of stances (generally one per level of stance). I'm not convinced that's enough depth of utility options. As written, it also means you can only write one suite of utility powers per discipline. Those problems aren't trivial to solve though. I think there are three things you want to do, and they're all at least a little in conflict. First, you want to support single-discipline characters as much as possible, because that's what the fluff suggests as most common, and because its an obvious character archetype (this is one of the reasons I like "expand disciplines" over "new disciplines"). Second, you want people to get a variety of utility abilities. Third, you'd like these things to be symmetric, at least at the level of ability progression (so you don't get less stuff as a White Raven specialist).
Maybe something like "to take an X for a discipline (where X is whatever you call the non-combat stuff), you must know a stance for that discipline, all you Xs scale to your highest level stance". It does mean you don't have to take high level stances, but it also solves some weirdness with your progression where PCs stop getting benefits from their low levels stances if they get high level ones of the same discipline. Maybe hand out an X at 1/7/13 (which means you're writing three per discipline for 12 powers per discipline total), or even make it an optional rule with that as a suggested progression, but notes about alternatives like "only at 1st level" (basically equivalent to your idea) or "every odd/even level" for higher powered campaigns or whatever.
One idea I had for Desert Wind was to give it some of the history-ish divinations to represent lost secrets of the desert. legend lore, hindsight, that kind of thing. I also thought it might be cool to give people the ability to generate Shapesand, as a desert-themed utility power. Fire creation is a good idea, and you can obviously scale that up or down a lot.
Devoted Spirit - Obviously, perform miracles.
Diamond Mind - Extremely well-organized? I don't know. Meditation equivalent to divination spells?
Iron Heart - Metalworking/metallurgy
Setting Sun - I don't know. Maybe something related to the Theseus myth since he fought in a similar style. Or some kind of mystical dancing?
Shadow Hand - Something about connection to the plane of shadow/ethereal plane? Conjure gateways, do shadow teleports, or that Shadowdancer thing? Or simply very good at sneaking?
Stone Dragon - Stoneworking
Tiger Claw - Hunting? Wild Empathy?
White Raven - Something equivalent to a free Leadership feat? This would also help solve 'having no allies to help with my maneuvers'
-
2019-02-26, 12:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
My problem with fire creation for Desert Wind is basically that they can already do that. Or at least as a DM, I would totally allow, say, a strike that deals fire damage to light a campfire. (Setting Sun, despite the name, does not feel to me as if it should have light powers.)
Perhaps a good power instead could be light creation? Just the ability to make body parts or weapons shine like a candle or torch. Light is always something a low-level party needs and this would be neat to have.
Devoted Spirit could get something like a Paladin's lay on hand. If that is too broad.
Diamond Mind... I would give them meditation abilities before dispelling, that doesn't seem to be a thing that that discipline does. Maybe look at Autohypnosis (The skill) for starters? Perhaps they could get the ability to heal themselves of mental effects through meditation. It's also about extremely focused use of force. Perhaps they could do something like taking 20 on strength checks to break objects? Perhaps they can go without food and water, through meditation?
Setting Sun is about... judo moves. Hm. Perhaps instead of throwing enemies around, they could do similar things to structures? A boulder falls on a master of Setting Sun, he just deflects it slightly aside?
I think one thing to keep in mind is that they shouldn't be combat things, they have those from maneuvers already.Last edited by Eldan; 2019-02-26 at 12:06 PM.
Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2019-02-26, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2017
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
The other thing to consider is that anything we do will up the power level, since more options usually translates to more power. One idea is Martial Practices from 4e, gated behind a feat? Think rituals that are martial. Avoids some power creep, out of combat only, and cool and flexible.
Game I am in:
Giants and Graveyards Red Hand of Doom as Enn (3.5 Changeling Rogue//Dark template/Beguiler) using Grod's awesome Giants and Graveyards fixes
Folklore and the Evil Eye - A Guide to The Dreamscarred Press Malefex Class
-
2019-02-26, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors
-
2019-02-26, 04:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
That would be clean, but perhaps get one from class? As feats are still so scarce for melee. That would fulfill what Cosi says, about the default being an adept of one discipline, but then with the option to branch out.
Edit: They could be formatted as tactical feats, potentially. Noncombat equivalents to the combat tactical feats the disciplines already have.
Or they could just be utility maneuvers. I don't actually think any but a couple of the things we've mentioned would be overpowered as at-wills.
I know Eldan mentioned this earlier up, but it seems like most of them could be stances, too. A Shadow Hand stance that lets you travel as a wraith through the plane of shadow, crossing great distances in the mortal world, Diamond Mind meditation stance that gives you benefits if you spend one hour in it, the earth-shaping Stone Dragon stance Eldan mentioned and so on.
Setting Sun is about using cleverness to overcome larger opponents. So I think their shtick should be cleverness and ingenuity. That's not a trait covered by the other disciplines, either.
I think this takes it too far from the purely mechanical, leverage-based heart of the discipline.
But I'm reminded of how in this novel, Theseus, who again is *so* Setting Sun, uses a lever and fulcrum to lift a giant rock. Perhaps SSers have almost MacGyvery resourcefulness? It would fit the theme of the "scrappy hero" that seems tied to the discipline, for example in its legacy weapon story. They could get skill bonuses, create effects equivalent to Grease and Glitterdust, have some effect equivalent to shapesand (refluffed as macgyvering impromptu materials). If Shadow Hand is the "stealthy assassin" side of rogue, then Setting Sun is the "skillmonkey" side. They can break out of jail, or you thrust them in the driver's seat and they learn how to fly the plane on the go, or they figure out how to work the ancient machine.Last edited by Elves; 2019-02-26 at 04:57 PM.
-
2019-02-27, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
Unfinished alpha version of the ranger class, Animist, in this thread. Feedback great.
-
2019-03-01, 09:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I'm not at all concerned about power creep in this case. Tome of Battle characters get almost no utility. Giving them some makes them better, but it makes them better at something they are bad at, which is unlikely to be unbalancing.
The tendency to make everything a feat is a huge problem in 3e, because people don't get nearly enough feats. I think the appropriate comparison point is something like the Incarnate or the Wizard where the utility is just something you can do for free if you want, and all it costs is temporarily not getting to use those resources for combat power.
I wouldn't quite say default. I think it needs to be supported, and Tome of Battle does a bad job of doing it (there is no discipline that has enough maneuvers for a 1st level Swordsage to know only that discipline). I think there are a couple of characters that need to be viable:
1. Discipline specialist. If you tell people that there is a Shadow Hand fighting style for them to do, there are going to be some people who want to be Shadow Hand masters that fight purely with Shadow Hand. That's a reasonable desire, and the fluff of Tome of Battle suggests that pre-Reshar most people operated this way. Obstacle: there are not enough maneuvers to do this.
2. Generalist. Just as there will be people who want to go all-in on Shadow Hand or Tiger Claw or whatever, there will also be people who want to learn all the kinds of maneuvers they can. Obstacle: maneuver pre-requisites mean this requires a lot of planning.
3. Pre-Tome of Battle fighting styles. I mean "pre-Tome of Battle" in a mechanical sense here. People want to be able to TWF, or shoot bows, or ride horses and still use maneuvers. Obstacle: maneuvers work much better with two-handed or sword-and-board fighting than most other styles.
You want to support all three of those (and probably some others). That means you need to write a bunch of new maneuvers (like two or three times as many), reduce or eliminate maneuver pre-reqs (I favor eliminate, but I think reducing and homogenizing to "one other for 4th, two others for 7th" is passable), and you need to go back and make maneuvers work for people with bows or twin daggers.
Or they could just be utility maneuvers. I don't actually think any but a couple of the things we've mentioned would be overpowered as at-wills.
I know Eldan mentioned this earlier up, but it seems like most of them could be stances, too. A Shadow Hand stance that lets you travel as a wraith through the plane of shadow, crossing great distances in the mortal world, Diamond Mind meditation stance that gives you benefits if you spend one hour in it, the earth-shaping Stone Dragon stance Eldan mentioned and so on.
-
2019-03-04, 03:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Near Atlanta,GA USA
- Gender
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
I had many posts selected to reply to, but my tablet lost the selections before I could transfer them to my laptop which is much easier to type on. Will redo later. Fortunately I hadn't actually typed any of my replies.
What is your take on adding homebrew maneuvers to ToB disciplines? What I have is very niche, but if we are granting more maneuvers known/readied (which is it BTW?) then they would become more viable. Plus, of course, even niche stuff can be good for Martial Scripts. Specifically I have an Anti-Swallow Whole stance and maneuver for Tiger Claw*, and intend on using this project to motivate myself to actually write a Stone Dragon one**. I technically also have some Devoted Spirit stuff, but I DO NOT recommend it since it requires adding in the Funky/Square axis of alignment, which wasn't my invention to begin with.
*It now occurs to me that the maneuver could MAYBE be argued to be better moved to Iron Heart or MAYBE Stone Dragon since it involves a fairly precise attack based on very subtle visual cues and/or knowledge of anatomy. Of course, since it involves cutting toward the stomach (from the outside, to help a comrade escape) that has vague connotations of "rip their guts out" which is a Tiger Claw 'feel'.
**The idea I have is pretty good I think, but both the numbers and the name I may need some suggestions for.
Also, you don't have a link in creatures for my Tittering Brick Squirrel. Is this intentional?
Lastly IIRC your Falling Star link under Disciplines actually goes to the "Refactoring ToB Archery" thread and thus should be three different links. Unless you wanted to mash them back together into a single discipline which I don't think would be wise.[Public Service Announcement]P.E.A.C.H stands for Please Examine And Critique Honestly[/Public Service Announcement]
Currently Running: Equestria Begins (A High Tactics campaign)
Extended Signature
My Homebrew is meant to be used, but, if you do, PLEASE tell me how it goes.
-
2019-03-04, 07:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston, MA
Re: The Age of Warriors (Project Revived!)
My homebrew:
Spoiler
Completed:
ToB disciplines:
The Narrow Bridge
The Broken Blade
Prestige classess:
Disciple of Karsus -PrC for Karsites.
The Seekers of Lost Swords and the Preserver of Future Blades Two interelated Tome of Battle Prcs,
Master of the Hidden Seal - Binder/Divine hybrid
Knight of the Grave- Necromancy using Gish
Worthwhile links:
Age of Warriors