Probably unpopular take – we have large portions of Bo9S/ToB in 5e already

[Waazraath]

I made parts of this argument before in certain discussions, but I think it deserves a thread on its own. I see a lot of longing in the 5e forums for a fighter (or other martial classes) that ‘are more like the martial adepts from the book of 9 swords’ (edition 3.5) because 5e regressed to ‘fighters just swing a sword that hits or misses’.

Though I feel understand to the point of view, and certainly am sympathetic to martial classes with options and regret that 5e has stuff that is done through spells instead of other class features (e.g. hunters mark, find steed), in general people seem to miss the point that A lot of things the Bo9S did for 3.5 is either unnecessary in 5e, or is included but not recognized as such.

Let me elaborate.

First a few words on Tome of Battle / The book of 9 swords (I’ll use both ToB and Bo9S as abbreviations from now on), for the people less familiar with it. It was an innovation in D&D 3.5, as in that it 1) focussed on martials, 2) had an entire new sub system, resembling magic (9 levels of maneuvers, 1 the weakest, 9 the strongest, gain access to stronger maneuvers when levelling) but without being magic, not just reflavored spells but (a bit anime-like) martial maneuvers that sometimes had supernatural effects, but more often were just being really good with weapons and doing incredible stuff with them. There were 9 schools (or ‘disciplines’), 3 base classes (each specializing in a number of these disciplines and broadly being alternative versions for fighter/paladin/monk) and a number of prestige classes. They gave abilities that, among others, did extra damage, manipulated the action economy (double action, extra attack, extra move, etc.), improved saving throws, gave attacks a rider effect (e.g. disarm or trip), and supernatural stuff like healing, invisibility, area damage or teleport (though those were mainly limited to 3 schools).

Why a lot of things that Bo9S do are unnecessary in 5e

It is important to realize that you could only make more than 1 attack in 3.x when you took a ‘full action’. A players turn could be used by making a move action and an action (attacking, casting a spell), or by combining those in a full action. Ergo: martials couldn’t move and make a lot of attacks, if they moved they could only hit once. That was really, really bad, for reasons I don’t need to elaborate on.

But this isn’t a problem in 5e anymore. By allowing to make more attacks with the same action (extra attack feature) and not having something like a ‘full action’ (just ‘move’ and ‘action’), a fundamental feature of what Bo9S brought to 3.5 is redundant in 5e.

As an example, the Diamond Mind discipline had many maneuvers that allowed for ‘extra damage with a single attack’: emerald razor (in combination with the power attack feat, that almost every martial had in 3.5), sapphire nightmare blade, insightful strike, ruby nightmare blade, greater insightful strike, diamond nightmare blade – all of those effectively just said “more damage on a single attack”, but then with a very fancy name. They were even balanced against the number of attacks a character had, by the time you got the diamond variant of the nightmare blade strike, it did 4x damage – where a character had 4 attacks on a ‘full attack’.

But there is more. There are also maneuvers that allowed you to move through threatened spaces without getting an attack of opportunity – but in 5e you don’t get an attack of opportunity anyway when moving into somebody’s threatened space – only when moving out of it. So this also is redundant in 5e. A maneuver let you flank an opponent – but flanking is an optional rule in 5e.
So a lot, or maybe even the majority, of the maneuvers are just more damage (and sometimes accompanied by a rider effect) to compensate for not being able to move and full attack, which isn’t an issue anymore in 5e, and other maneuvers let you do stuff that isn’t a thing anymore in 5e anyway. Just being able to move around and ‘doing your thing’ any martial can do in 5e, no limited resource needed!

What already is part of 5e

We already discussed a part of this above, “extra damage with a single attack” is redundant, cause the extra attack mechanics work differently in this edition. But there’s more. There are so many abilities that a martial character needed a maneuver for in 3.5 ToB, that is part of (class) features in 5e.

Let’s do a list, shall we? I give the maneuver, what level it is (corresponds with the level casters get access to spells of the same level), what it does, and I give the 5e equivalent.
- Iron Heart Focus (5th), reroll a save, --> indomitable fighter ability
- Iron Heart Endurance (6th), swift action heal --> Second Wind fighter ability (few hp less in comparison)
- Time Stands Still (9th), double your attacks --> action surge fighter ability
- Disarming Strike (2nd), damage & disarm --> DMG alternative rule / disarming attack BM maneuver
- Thicket of Blades (3rd), always get Attacks of Opportunity --> sentinel feat
- Wind stride (1st), extra move speed --> monk feature
- Step of the Dancing Moth (5th), move over liquid --> monk feature unarmed movement
- Bounding assault (4th) move move attack --> monk step of the wind & rogue cunning action
- Zephyr Dance (3rd) +4 AC vs 1 attack --> monk patient defense (disadv on all attacks)
- Shadow jaunt/stride/blink (2/5/7th) teleport short range --> shadow step (shadow monk)
- Cloak of deception (invisibility for 1 round) --> cloak of shadows (shadow monk)
- Shield block (2nd) +4 ac for attack against ally --> protection fighting style
- Emerald razor (2nd) attack is touch attack (easier to hit) --> precision attack BM maneuver
- Fountain of Blood (4th) attack causes fear --> Menacing attack BM maneuver

I’m not pretending, nor trying to, to be complete. But I think it’s clear by now that a lot of stuff that ToB did that isn’t redundant (see the previous point), is incorporated in this edition!

An example of a 3.5 martial adept

Now one additional thing: the way the ToB classes are idealized as giving so many cool options in addition to ‘just attacking’. That is overrating them, I’m afraid. Because, in addition to some of the things mentioned above, the martial adept classes were limited to a limited number of maneuvers known and prepared. And when covering all your bases (improve saves, extra damage on a single attack, that 1 maneuver that is just too good to pass up on), you really didn’t have that much choices and options extra. Let’s take a look at the ‘fighter replacement’, the Warblade, at level 7, both then and now somewhere halfway the levels that were actually played, at least in my experience.
This level 7 warblade got a bunch of passive bonuses, a bonus feat from a limited list, and had its maneuvers. Safe to say that all the interesting things that made the Warblade different from the boring ol’ fighter was in the maneuvers. A warblade at this level knew 7 maneuvers and 2 stances (a special maneuver that is always on and gives a permanent bonus). But only 1 stance could be active at the time, and 4 maneuvers readied.

So what could this Warblade have readied on a standard adventuring day? White Raven Tactics most likely: “give an ally an extra turn as a swift (bonus) action is just too good to pass up. Probably also at least one maneuver to help its abysmal wisdom saving throw (dominates, holds and charms were more lethal in 3.5, and wis was a dump stat for the warblade) – probably Moment of Perfect Mind – more or less an auto-succeed on a wis saving throw, if you optimized the concentration skill. That leaves 2 maneuvers to prepare: Battle Leaders Charge does 10 extra damage, and allows you to negate attacks of opportunity when charging. Depending on whether you want to do more damage or be more defensive oriented, you probably pick something like the 4th level Ruby Nightmare Blade (double damage) or Iron Heart Surge (end a negative effect, +2 on attacks next turn). Two 1st level stances remain, leading the charge deals extra damage for you and allies when charging (pretty strong), and Hunter’s Scent gives the scent ability – a nice out of combat feature for utility.

So this it. In 3.5, this was pretty cool, and a straight upgrade against an unoptimized fighter.

But compared with 5e, especially with a Battle Master fighter? They can move and attack anyway, without losing attacks or getting opportunity attacks. They have action surge (maneuver in ToB), swift action healing (maneuver in ToB), choose 4 maneuvers from their own list that partly correspond with ToB maneuvers (disarm, trip, precision, menacing), and for good measure, if they go sword and board pick a fighting style that emulates a maneuver. That’s more than the 3.5 single class Warblade gets.

Discussion

To end this rather long post, the following. I’m aware that the above is not the entire story. Hardcore optimizers could squeeze a lot more out of the system, through multiclassing between several martial adept classes, because how the system worked. I’m not going to elaborate on it here, google ‘leap froggin’ and tome of battle or the like, or check some 3.5 handbooks. That way one could get a lot more maneuvers known and readied, at pretty low opportunity cost.

But I think the main point stands strong. If you compare the fighter class from 3.5 and 5e, the 5e has much more options out of the box. It can move and make several attacks, get an extra action and spend it how it wants, can reroll saves, use a shield to protect an adjacent ally, heal self, and grapple and knock prone opponents without spending feats to do so. All of this unlike its 3.5 counterpart – 3.5 needed a new class to do this kind of stuff, the Warblade. Basicly, the Book of 9 Swords is an integral part of 5e’s core, only without the fancy names and the anime-feel.
Do we have everything in 5e that ToB offers in 5e? Nope. I’d love for example to see an adaption of the setting sun discipline, that allowed for a judo/jitsu type of martial, switching weapon attacks with devastating throws. This archetype isn’t really there in 5e. And ToB, by virtue of being an entire book dedicated to an entire new subsystem, gave a lot of different options, more than are available in 5e (partly because of 5e’s design philosophy to keep things simple). And maybe, we notice now that while ToB was a great step forward for 3.5, what it offered wasn’t yet enough, and we want EVEN MORE options for martials.

To end on a constructive note: how could 5e accommodate that?

The easiest way: expand on the BM-maneuvers, especially give a few new, high level ones. Also they could expand on giving other (sub) classes maneuvers, something they experimented with in UA. Another way would be to add a new class (‘martial adept’) in the spirit of ToB, as part of a new splatbook. It would need to have a weaker chassis than base fighter (as long as it has 4 attacks and a few other strong features, other abilities really can’t get too strong).

Either way, I would buy it. But also think we have a lot of what ToB brought already in this very fine edition of the game.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Show

And yes I'm pretty bad in making a point in short amount of text. Sorry.

[heavyfuel]

Moving and attacking was great and all in 3.5, but any martial worth a damn had some way to move and full attack. There were plenty of magical items that allowed it as well as a few feats and class features (most notably the Lion Totem Barbarian, which allowed so with a single level dip).

No. What ToB brought to 3.5 martials was something far better than what your post says. It brought them options.

No longer was the Fighter restricted to "I attack" every single round. Now you're playing as a Warblade, and you can move in, strike two foes in a single swoop, and then leap back out without provoking OAs. You can ignore any conditions because your fighting spirit is just that great. You can parry spells with your sword because you're that awesome.

Oh, and you can do these things all day long.

Very few options exist for non casters in 5e. Every martial class is limited to "I attack" every round. Sure, Rogues say "I hide then attack", the point is that you're always doing the same thing every round. These are the things I miss about ToB in 5e.

Give me options, decent ones, that I can do all day long.

[Tanarii]

Well said.

And it's not exactly a secret that ToB had strong influences on 4e. And that 4e had influences on 5e. Whether or not there are direct influences I couldn't say, but given the way Mearls seems to think it wouldn't surprise me.

[Dr. Cliché]

I think you're really dismissing the Book of Nine Swords here.

It is important to realize that you could only make more than 1 attack in 3.x when you took a ‘full action’. A players turn could be used by making a move action and an action (attacking, casting a spell), or by combining those in a full action. Ergo: martials couldn’t move and make a lot of attacks, if they moved they could only hit once. That was really, really bad, for reasons I don’t need to elaborate on.

But this isn’t a problem in 5e anymore. By allowing to make more attacks with the same action (extra attack feature) and not having something like a ‘full action’ (just ‘move’ and ‘action’), a fundamental feature of what Bo9S brought to 3.5 is redundant in 5e.

As an example, the Diamond Mind discipline had many maneuvers that allowed for ‘extra damage with a single attack’: emerald razor (in combination with the power attack feat, that almost every martial had in 3.5), sapphire nightmare blade, insightful strike, ruby nightmare blade, greater insightful strike, diamond nightmare blade – all of those effectively just said “more damage on a single attack”, but then with a very fancy name. They were even balanced against the number of attacks a character had, by the time you got the diamond variant of the nightmare blade strike, it did 4x damage – where a character had 4 attacks on a ‘full attack’.

But there is more. There are also maneuvers that allowed you to move through threatened spaces without getting an attack of opportunity – but in 5e you don’t get an attack of opportunity anyway when moving into somebody’s threatened space – only when moving out of it. So this also is redundant in 5e. A maneuver let you flank an opponent – but flanking is an optional rule in 5e.
So a lot, or maybe even the majority, of the maneuvers are just more damage (and sometimes accompanied by a rider effect) to compensate for not being able to move and full attack, which isn’t an issue anymore in 5e, and other maneuvers let you do stuff that isn’t a thing anymore in 5e anyway. Just being able to move around and ‘doing your thing’ any martial can do in 5e, no limited resource needed!

This is true to an extent but there's no reason why these manuvers had to stay the same between editions.

For example, you could easily have Manuvers that allow Fighters to avoid opportunity attacks for the round. So instead of using them to close on a foe they instead use them to reposition without suffering damage for it. Maybe it won't crop up every fight but it's a nice thing to have in your back pocket.

Similarly, you could have Manuvers that give you advantage on an attack, instead of extra damage. Or really any number of other possibilities.

The important part, as mentioned by the poster above, was that manuvers gave fighters actual options.

Let’s do a list, shall we? I give the maneuver, what level it is (corresponds with the level casters get access to spells of the same level), what it does, and I give the 5e equivalent.
- Iron Heart Focus (5th), reroll a save, --> indomitable fighter ability
- Iron Heart Endurance (6th), swift action heal --> Second Wind fighter ability (few hp less in comparison)
- Time Stands Still (9th), double your attacks --> action surge fighter ability [There's an important point with these first three abilities. Namely that (at least until very high levels) they're all 1/short rest. Meanwhile, Manuvers could potentially be used multiple times in the same combat, and would always be available for every encounter.]
- Disarming Strike (2nd), damage & disarm --> DMG alternative rule / disarming attack BM maneuver [What if your group doesn't use the alternative rules in the DMG?]
- Thicket of Blades (3rd), always get Attacks of Opportunity --> sentinel feat
- Wind stride (1st), extra move speed --> monk feature [Listing Monk abilities seems like moving the goalposts several fields away. I might as well start listing sorcerer spells as fighter abilities. They can multiclass, right? ]
- Step of the Dancing Moth (5th), move over liquid --> monk feature unarmed movement [And this helps a Fighter how exactly?]
- Bounding assault (4th) move move attack --> monk step of the wind & rogue cunning action [Again, how does this make Fighters more interesting to play?]
- Zephyr Dance (3rd) +4 AC vs 1 attack --> monk patient defense (disadv on all attacks) [I can only assume that your advice to people wanting to play Fighters in 5e is 'play a Monk instead'.]
- Shadow jaunt/stride/blink (2/5/7th) teleport short range --> shadow step (shadow monk) [And now we're into Monk subclasses.]
- Cloak of deception (invisibility for 1 round) --> cloak of shadows (shadow monk) [I see this Fighter/Monk multiclass has taken at least 11 levels in Monk at this point.]
- Shield block (2nd) +4 ac for attack against ally --> protection fighting style [This seems like a way more costly choice than a single Manuver.]
- Emerald razor (2nd) attack is touch attack (easier to hit) --> precision attack BM maneuver [What if you're playing a Fighter that isn't a Battle Master?]
- Fountain of Blood (4th) attack causes fear --> Menacing attack BM maneuver [What if you're playing a Fighter that isn't a Battle Master? Hell, what if you've used up your tiny pool of Manuver points?]

(^My thoughts in Red.)

An example of a 3.5 martial adept

Now one additional thing: the way the ToB classes are idealized as giving so many cool options in addition to ‘just attacking’. That is overrating them, I’m afraid. Because, in addition to some of the things mentioned above, the martial adept classes were limited to a limited number of maneuvers known and prepared. And when covering all your bases (improve saves, extra damage on a single attack, that 1 maneuver that is just too good to pass up on), you really didn’t have that much choices and options extra. Let’s take a look at the ‘fighter replacement’, the Warblade, at level 7, both then and now somewhere halfway the levels that were actually played, at least in my experience.
This level 7 warblade got a bunch of passive bonuses, a bonus feat from a limited list, and had its maneuvers. Safe to say that all the interesting things that made the Warblade different from the boring ol’ fighter was in the maneuvers. A warblade at this level knew 7 maneuvers and 2 stances (a special maneuver that is always on and gives a permanent bonus). But only 1 stance could be active at the time, and 4 maneuvers readied.

So what could this Warblade have readied on a standard adventuring day? White Raven Tactics most likely: “give an ally an extra turn as a swift (bonus) action is just too good to pass up. Probably also at least one maneuver to help its abysmal wisdom saving throw (dominates, holds and charms were more lethal in 3.5, and wis was a dump stat for the warblade) – probably Moment of Perfect Mind – more or less an auto-succeed on a wis saving throw, if you optimized the concentration skill. That leaves 2 maneuvers to prepare: Battle Leaders Charge does 10 extra damage, and allows you to negate attacks of opportunity when charging. Depending on whether you want to do more damage or be more defensive oriented, you probably pick something like the 4th level Ruby Nightmare Blade (double damage) or Iron Heart Surge (end a negative effect, +2 on attacks next turn). Two 1st level stances remain, leading the charge deals extra damage for you and allies when charging (pretty strong), and Hunter’s Scent gives the scent ability – a nice out of combat feature for utility.

So this it. In 3.5, this was pretty cool, and a straight upgrade against an unoptimized fighter.

But compared with 5e, especially with a Battle Master fighter? They can move and attack anyway, without losing attacks or getting opportunity attacks. They have action surge (maneuver in ToB), swift action healing (maneuver in ToB), choose 4 maneuvers from their own list that partly correspond with ToB maneuvers (disarm, trip, precision, menacing), and for good measure, if they go sword and board pick a fighting style that emulates a maneuver. That’s more than the 3.5 single class Warblade gets.

Comparing the Warblade to the Battle Master seems extremely disingenuous. The whole point is that *every* fighter should be more like the Battle Master, with Manuvers being a core ability - not something limited to a single subclass.

Hence, if you really want to demonstrate that the Book of 9 Swords is perfectly covered by existing abilities, you should be using a subclass like the Champion.

Further, regarding your comparison, it seems very wrong to discount the Warblade's Manuvers Known. A Battle Master will only ever know 5 Manuvers and can't change them except by levelling up. In contrast, a Warblade can eventually ready up to 7 Manuvers, plus 4 Stances. However, he actually knows 13 Manuvers. Yes, he can only ready 7 of them on a given day (barring certain feats), but he still has a substantially larger pool to choose from and so can plan ahead depending on the situation. Indeed, it's not like preparing a Wizard's spells. A Wawblade needs just 5 minutes of change his readied Manuvers completely, so he can quickly adapt if the situation changes. Plus it's just another little option for Fighters, so that they're not constantly locked into the same tiny pool of Manuvers.


At the end of the day, you're free to look at it however you want. However, I do think it's telling that in your list of examples above, you were quickly forced to delve first into the only Fighter subclass to actually have Manuvers, and then into entirely different classes to try and prove the point that they're not needed in 5th.

[Waazraath]

Moving and attacking was great and all in 3.5, but any martial worth a damn had some way to move and full attack. There were plenty of magical items that allowed it as well as a few feats and class features (most notably the Lion Totem Barbarian, which allowed so with a single level dip).

I think you are erring in 2 ways. The first is chronology. Lion Totem was from Complete Champion, one of the latest in the "complete" series, and from 2007, while ToB was from 2006. So no, people couldn't take the single level lion totem dip when ToB was published, and it was appreciated highly for allowing martals to move and do something better than "hit once". Second, you are highly exaggerating how easy it was to move and full attack, especially before ToB. It really wasn't - up to the point that 10 levels of binder were considered great once in the edition because it gave you pounce. And of course, this is just optimization board stuff... for regular players that didn't visit these boards and played mostly single class characters and didn't went through 3 books to find the best fitting magic items, moving and full attack was something only to be dreamt about.

No. What ToB brought to 3.5 martials was something far better than what your post says. It brought them options.

Yes. The ability to move and attack. To reroll a saving throw. To reroll an attack. To replace a saving throw with a skill check. To move bit extra. I mentioned a lot of them in the OP.

No longer was the Fighter restricted to "I attack" every single round. Now you're playing as a Warblade, and you can move in, strike two foes in a single swoop, and then leap back out without provoking OAs. You can ignore any conditions because your fighting spirit is just that great. You can parry spells with your sword because you're that awesome.

In 5e, a monk can move in, strike two foes, stun one of them, and move back, without provoking OAs! A battlemaster can move in, strike two foes, tripping one and disarming the other, use action surge for disengage, and move back (jumping if he wants) without provoking AO's!

Oh, and you can do these things all day long.

Exagerated. All classes had a recharge mechanism for during combat, Crusader gave you random maneuvers (but without action costs), Warblade required a regular attack (or full attack) and swordsage was godawful and required a round to recharge 1 maneuver.

Very few options exist for non casters in 5e. Every martial class is limited to "I attack" every round. Sure, Rogues say "I hide then attack", the point is that you're always doing the same thing every round. These are the things I miss about ToB in 5e.

shove, grapple, the whole optional list from DMG, dash, disengage, dodge, any interactions with the environment, AND the whole list of class features each (sub)class gets...

Give me options, decent ones, that I can do all day long.

2 levels of thief for cunning action, 1 level of fighter for the protection fighting style, and you have quite a lot of those, if only you are willing to see it. I'm not against more, mind you. But there really is a lot already.

Well said.

And it's not exactly a secret that ToB had strong influences on 4e. And that 4e had influences on 5e. Whether or not there are direct influences I couldn't say, but given the way Mearls seems to think it wouldn't surprise me.

Thnx.

edit @ Dr. Cliché: I think I answered some of your points already, but to reply to me being "extremely disingenuous" and "moving the goalposts several fields away"; shall we try to keep it civil at least?

The list you are refering to isn't about the BM fighter, it's about how ToB maneuvers are covered by all 5e martial classes, so there's no moving goalposts. Swordsage / Shadow Monk for example is another obvious overlap next to warblade / BM fighter. As for comparing BM with Warblade: I don't think it is disingenuous at all, since it illustrates that players who want a ToB type of character can have one. Given how happy many players are with a simple option (champion), I think it would be a terrible mistake to make all fighters like the BM - even though I do like the subclass. Finally, if I take the champion, and give it the protection fighting style, and the sentinel feat at 6, I still have a character that simulates quite a number of maneuvers with those two (look 'em up in the list) action surge and second wind.

[Boci]

Yes. The ability to move and attack. To reroll a saving throw. To reroll an attack. To replace a saving throw with a skill check. To move bit extra. I mentioned a lot of them in the OP.

Unfortunatly the ability to add rider effects to your attacks is conviniently absent. Probably because you couldn't find a 5e parralel.

shove, grapple, the whole optional list from DMG, dash, disengage, dodge, any interactions with the environment, AND the whole list of class features each (sub)class gets...

3.5 had those and more (disarm, grapple, bullshrush, trip, overrun), and yet people still liked ToB for giving martials more options.

[Waazraath]

Unfortunatly the ability to add rider effects to your attacks is conviniently absent. Probably because you couldn't find a 5e parralel.

3.5 had those and more (disarm, grapple, bullshrush, trip, overrun), and yet people still liked ToB for giving martials more options.

Many of the rider effects were rules that were discarted because of the simplification of 5e. Is adressed in my OP. And BM maneuvers have them. The disarm grapple etc. in 3.5 had a heavy feat tax - the options existed, but needed feats to be played with effectively, or could only be used mid game (and then only 1 or 2 of them). So they weren't that available, mostly trip being used in highly optimized/specialized builds.

[Boci]

Many of the rider effects were rules that were discarted because of the simplification of 5e. Is adressed in my OP. And BM maneuvers have them. The disarm grapple etc. in 3.5 had a heavy feat tax - the options existed, but needed feats to be played with effectively, or could only be used mid game (and then only 1 or 2 of them). So they weren't that available, mostly trip being used in highly optimized/specialized builds.

5e grapple has feat tax too, less feat tax but also less feats. Grappling in 3.5 did something out the grates, it gaves penalties. In 5e a fair few enemies if you don't have the grappler feat there's limited point in grappling them, they'll just attack you, which they would do anyway.

Here's what my level 4 swordsage could do in 3.5, translated into 5e mechanics as best as possible:
1/short rest - roll an extra dice of damage and ignore damage resistance of my target, or deal double damage to items
1/short rest - an enemy attacking me provokes an AoO I roll with advantage dealing 4d6 fire damage on a hit
1/short rest - bonus action turn invisible until the end of my turn
1/short rest - If I pass an opposed insight roll against the opponent, roll with advantage and deal an extra 1d6 damage (and attack at disadvantage with disadvantage if I fail the check)
1/short rest - roll an attack with advantage, if the lower attack stil hits deal +1d6 cold damage (fluffed as the shadow of my blade also cutting the enemy)

Also always active I can either
A - ignore difficult terrain and gain advantage against anyone in difficult terrain not ignoring it
B - whenever I move at least 20ft enemies have to reroll crits against me

Switching between the two as a bonus action.

How exactly do I make them in 5e?

[Pex]

3.5 had those and more (disarm, grapple, bullshrush, trip, overrun), and yet people still liked ToB for giving martials more options.

Because in 3E you needed feats to avoid attacks of opportunity, feat chains, didn't do damage, and they didn't work often enough to some people's taste against boss monsters due to scaling game math. Tome of Battle required no feats, did damage in addition, and scaled better in effect and the ability to affect boss monsters.

I did and still do like 3E, but Tome of Battle was the best for warriors. If only the stance progressions weren't so screwed up it would have been perfect.

[heavyfuel]

I think you are erring in 2 ways. The first is chronology. Lion Totem was from Complete Champion, one of the latest in the "complete" series, and from 2007, while ToB was from 2006. So no, people couldn't take the single level lion totem dip when ToB was published, and it was appreciated highly for allowing martals to move and do something better than "hit once". Second, you are highly exaggerating how easy it was to move and full attack, especially before ToB. It really wasn't - up to the point that 10 levels of binder were considered great once in the edition because it gave you pounce. And of course, this is just optimization board stuff... for regular players that didn't visit these boards and played mostly single class characters and didn't went through 3 books to find the best fitting magic items, moving and full attack was something only to be dreamt about.

Yes. The ability to move and attack. To reroll a saving throw. To reroll an attack. To replace a saving throw with a skill check. To move bit extra. I mentioned a lot of them in the OP.

In 5e, a monk can move in, strike two foes, stun one of them, and move back, without provoking OAs! A battlemaster can move in, strike two foes, tripping one and disarming the other, use action surge for disengage, and move back (jumping if he wants) without provoking AO's!

Exagerated. All classes had a recharge mechanism for during combat, Crusader gave you random maneuvers (but without action costs), Warblade required a regular attack (or full attack) and swordsage was godawful and required a round to recharge 1 maneuver.

shove, grapple, the whole optional list from DMG, dash, disengage, dodge, any interactions with the environment, AND the whole list of class features each (sub)class gets...

2 levels of thief for cunning action, 1 level of fighter for the protection fighting style, and you have quite a lot of those, if only you are willing to see it. I'm not against more, mind you. But there really is a lot already.

I'm well aware of the chronology. My point still stands, people could move and full attack, it just wasn't as simple as Lion Totem Barb (though it has been as simple for people playing for the last decade). And even though it wasn't as easy, it's still far from the books largest contribution.

If what you take from ToB is that "it's the book that lets people move and attack", you should re-read it.

I reacently starded a thread asking for a character that could do cool things in combat at will other than "I attack" and the answers I got were either "play a spellcaster" or "play this class that allows a single extra cool thing"

Both Monk and BM are restricted with uses per rest in their abilities, AND they're not nearly as cool. Whereas ToB all about "yeah, I'll use my fists to break this adamantine cage because I can ignore object hardness infinity times per day" or "yeah, I'll go scouting because I have at will tactical teleport and greater invisibility". These things go so beyond grappling and shoving an enemy I'm surprised you're considering them to be same thing.

Cool, varied and at will options. You simply don't have these for martials in 5e.

Walking up to a guy and shoving him with your bonus action is fun when you start doing it at level 4. It's not fun when it's 12 levels later and you're still doing the exact same thing, just with higher bonuses.

[Boci]

I did and still do like 3E, but Tome of Battle was the best for warriors. If only the stance progressions weren't so screwed up it would have been perfect.

Yeah, also I haven't played my swordsage in quite a few years, so I had to check what some of those abilities did. And I do feel it was a bit of a slip up to have a Discipline called Desert Wind yet have Step of the Wind be a Setting Sun stance. But that's just me nitpicking.

[Asisreo1]

We should probably get out of the way that 5e is not 4e or 3.5e or any other TTRPG's. There's similarities and differences but they are balanced completely differently.

Now, if people don't think they have options, I believe they're taking options with too narrow a perspective. It's not about "options" it's about being a martial spellcaster which 4e did.

People have already made a list of possible options via actions and bonus actions a martial character has but nobody really discusses the deeper decision-making that any one of those actions force. Okay, you can attack...but who exactly do you attack? Do you attack the one engaged with melee with you? Or do you target the spellcasters? Should you go after the one threatening the cleric? That's just one type of decision-making.

Should you rather dodge and run through the enemy's frontlines? If they take the bait, they lose their reactions to OA at disadvantage and other party members can move past scott-free.

Should you break down the door? Throw acid? Make a ranged or melee attack? Prone the enemy? Or move them 5ft? Or grapple them?

There's already so many options for a fighter in D&D. The other subclasses give nice options but giving the base chassis of martials options they must balance every class is just bloat.

It's part of the reason why 4e and even 3.5e was harder to get into than 5e from a beginners perspective. More options means more you have to learn and more "trap options." A first-time D&D player is still figuring out how to even resolve their attacks at 2nd level and they probably don't have a good understanding of the options available.

At best, new players will forget the maneuvers and they'll be severely lacking in combat (since the system is balanced off of it). It happens with even the Champion Fighter and his improved critical, and it's a passive skill.

[Dienekes]

Many of the rider effects were rules that were discarted because of the simplification of 5e. Is adressed in my OP. And BM maneuvers have them. The disarm grapple etc. in 3.5 had a heavy feat tax - the options existed, but needed feats to be played with effectively, or could only be used mid game (and then only 1 or 2 of them). So they weren't that available, mostly trip being used in highly optimized/specialized builds.

I think you kind of hit it on the head here. Possibly unintentionally. There are a bunch of things that ToB could allow martials to do that are now possible to do without ToB maneuvers. They were just made less mechanically interesting, often less useful relative to the system they're in, and with fewer decision points as a result of the simplification of 5e.

The problem occurs that the fans of ToB loved the fact that the classes were more mechanically intensive and with a vast array of decision points.

I mean just the simple fact that after using a maneuver it could not be used again without using a unique in combat refresh mechanic is already more tactically interesting than seeing if you have any uses of the same ability left or should take a Short Rest.

For my own part I'm currently playing a 5e Battlemaster Fighter and a 3.5 Warblade and there really just isn't any comparison. I can see how the Battlemaster was designed to be the spiritual successor of the Warblade. But on a round per round gameplay basis and on a leveling basis the Warblade is so much more interesting.

[heavyfuel]

There's already so many options for a fighter in D&D. The other subclasses give nice options but giving the base chassis of martials options they must balance every class is just bloat.

It's part of the reason why 4e and even 3.5e was harder to get into than 5e from a beginners perspective. More options means more you have to learn and more "trap options." A first-time D&D player is still figuring out how to even resolve their attacks at 2nd level and they probably don't have a good understanding of the options available.

At best, new players will forget the maneuvers and they'll be severely lacking in combat (since the system is balanced off of it). It happens with even the Champion Fighter and his improved critical, and it's a passive skill.

It would be great if most options weren't garbage 90% of the time. Most options are straight up inferior to attacking, because killing an enemy is better than forcing it to spenf half its movement getting up from prone.

Just because the game should be simple for beginners, it doens't mean there shouldn't be mechanically complex characters for those who want it. A beginner can still play a Champion Fighter (or a Brute Fighter if they also want a subclass that isn't ridiculously bad - talk about a trap option right there).

A martial initiator class that requires better system mastery without overshadowing the Fighter's damage output is perfectly viable. It's basically what full casters alrady do.

[Warwick]

There's already so many options for a fighter in D&D.

If you go dumpster diving for every possible action a fighter could theoretically take in 5e, you can assemble a decent list. The issue is that on a turn-by-turn basis, most of them are unavailable or strictly worse than just attacking with your weapon of choice. You might technically have some choices, but the choices aren't especially interesting because most of the time they don't matter or are obviously inferior.

--

IMO 5e suffers from the decision to put nearly everything except basic attack analogs on a short/long rest schedule. One of the things that most intrigues me about the ToB is the class power schedules (e.g. the Crusader's deck-based maneuvers). I think there's a lot of design space for combat-time refresh paradigms that evoke the mechanical feel people want for a martial character, but they've been unexplored in 5e.

[Scarytincan]

Both Monk and BM are restricted with uses per rest in their abilities, AND they're not nearly as cool. Whereas ToB all about "yeah, I'll use my fists to break this adamantine cage because I can ignore object hardness infinity times per day" or "yeah, I'll go scouting because I have at will tactical teleport and greater invisibility". These things go so beyond grappling and shoving an enemy I'm surprised you're considering them to be same thing.

Cool, varied and at will options. You simply don't have these for martials in 5e.

Walking up to a guy and shoving him with your bonus action is fun when you start doing it at level 4. It's not fun when it's 12 levels later and you're still doing the exact same thing, just with higher bonuses.

Just to be nit picky, a shadow monk can do all of this. :P

That being said...

I think you kind of hit it on the head here. Possibly unintentionally. There are a bunch of things that ToB could allow martials to do that are now possible to do without ToB maneuvers. They were just made less mechanically interesting, often less useful relative to the system they're in, and with fewer decision points as a result of the simplification of 5e.

The problem occurs that the fans of ToB loved the fact that the classes were more mechanically intensive and with a vast array of decision points.

I generally agree with this. Yes I think 5e core chassis is generally more martial friendly, and is definitely a step in the right direction, but it WOULD be nice to have more meaningful choices in building a martial in particular. Especially a monk.

[Boci]

I generally agree with this. Yes I think 5e core chassis is generally more martial friendly, and is definitely a step in the right direction, but it WOULD be nice to have more meaningful choices in building a martial in particular. Especially a monk.

Also worth noting that whilst some of the ToB are available to a 5e monk, for many you'd have to lock yourself in as that. A swordsage could take Shadow Hand maneuvres, but then also take maneuvres from the fire based Desert Wind, as well as Stone Dragon, Diamond Mind, Tiger Claw and Setting Sun.

[heavyfuel]

Just to be nit picky, a shadow monk can do all of this. :P

No, it can't. The teleporting and invisibility are limited by light, and you get regular invis, not the greater version, only at level 11.

[Dr. Cliché]

edit @ Dr. Cliché: I think I answered some of your points already,

I'm afraid you actually haven't.

but to reply to me being "extremely disingenuous" and "moving the goalposts several fields away"; shall we try to keep it civil at least?

I'm sorry if I came across as uncivil. That honestly wasn't my intent.

However, when you say that Fighters don't need Book of Nine Swords Manuvers because said Manuvers were already converted into abilities in 5e, only to then cite abilities from an entirely different class that Fighters get no access to, that is moving the goalposts.

However, reading your subsequent posts, I think we may fundamentally disagree on what constitutes 'fun things for Fighters to do in combat'.

[MaxWilson]

edit @ Dr. Cliché: I think I answered some of your points already, but to reply to me being "extremely disingenuous" and "moving the goalposts several fields away"; shall we try to keep it civil at least?

For whatever it's worth: I've noticed that a lot of people on the Internet seem to misunderstand what "disingenuous" means. It means "insincere, dishonest, arguing in bad faith" but I've noticed people sometimes use it to mean "logically flawed" or "non sequitur", or sometimes even just "unpersuasive."

In any case, I believe you are arguing in good faith, Waazraath. I have no dog in the fight w/rt 3rd edition stuff (never played it), but you're clearly not disingenuous.

I reacently starded a thread asking for a character that could do cool things in combat at will other than "I attack" and the answers I got were either "play a spellcaster" or "play this class that allows a single extra cool thing"

Grapple, Shove, Dodge, throwing nets, using caltrops/ball bearings, and especially DMG Disarm are pretty neat IMO. There's quite a lot of monsters especially in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes which lose 80%+ of their offense when you Disarm them and steal their weaponry.

It would be great if most options weren't garbage 90% of the time. Most options are straight up inferior to attacking, because killing an enemy is better than forcing it to spenf half its movement getting up from prone.

On the other hand, shoving an enemy prone then attacking twice at advantage, taking an opportunity attack at disadvantage, and then being out of range of its full attack sequence (because it had to spend half of its movement getting up from prone) is typically better than attacking three times without advantage and then taking a full attack sequence in response.

So yeah, if you can kill an enemy in one hit (like a kobold), don't bother Shoving it prone, but if it's an Oni or something you should consider something more sophisticated than just attack-attack-attack.

If you go dumpster diving for every possible action a fighter could theoretically take in 5e, you can assemble a decent list. The issue is that on a turn-by-turn basis, most of them are unavailable or strictly worse than just attacking with your weapon of choice. You might technically have some choices, but the choices aren't especially interesting because most of the time they don't matter or are obviously inferior.

I don't understand this mentality. You're part of a team. Is chess (or XCOM: UFO Defense) tactically boring just because there's only one thing to do with a knight/bishop/rook/king (or Heavy Plasma)? No!

However, it's boring if you always win. My suspicion is that you're just bored with winning all the time, and that if you turn up the difficulty until there's a good ~30% difficulty the PCs will lose any given fight if they don't use correct tactics, you'll be a lot less bored with decisions such as "Should I attack or Dodge this turn? Should I risk an opportunity attack to change my positioning?" Etc.

[Dr. Cliché]

For whatever it's worth: I've noticed that a lot of people on the Internet seem to misunderstand what "disingenuous" means. It means "insincere, dishonest, arguing in bad faith" but I've noticed people sometimes use it to mean "logically flawed" or "non sequitur", or sometimes even just "unpersuasive."

In any case, I believe you are arguing in good faith, Waazraath. I have no dog in the fight w/rt 3rd edition stuff (never played it), but you're clearly not disingenuous.

I fear I have to disagree. Though firstly, I do not (and did not, though that appears to have been ignored) claim that Waazraath was arguing in bad faith throughout. I merely called out a specific argument he made as being disingenuous.

However, if you claim that 5e Fighters don't need Manuvers because the core 5e rules and core fighter abilities already accomplish the same thing, you cannot then use the only fighter subclass that actually gets Manuvers and use that as your sole comparison. That is arguing in bad faith because it is not at all representative of the Fighter class in general.

[Asisreo1]

It would be great if most options weren't garbage 90% of the time.

If you go dumpster diving for every possible action a fighter could theoretically take in 5e, you can assemble a decent list. The issue is that on a turn-by-turn basis, most of them are unavailable or strictly worse than just attacking with your weapon of choice.

This is part of the problem. If damage was always so important all of the time, why would a spellcaster grab a spell like Fly, Invisibility, Shield, Bane, etc. The answer is obvious, some things are worth more than damage. Nobody is saying that your options are equal all the time, of course a fighter should spend their turns mostly attacking, but the options available are more than satisfactory when things go poorly and damage won't get you out of combat alive.

For instance, you could prone and grapple a ranged attacker. The ranged attacker now has disadvantage on his attacks, must use an action to remove this, and you can do it again next turn. This is while other frontliners can attack him with advantage and spellcasters can force saves or maintain concentration nearly uncontested. There's no damage that can quite compare to the priceless boon of tipping action economy towards your friends. If he doesn't use his action to escape, you also get to attack with advantage until he finally does escape.

I've heard a party once grappled acerack and the monk silenced him. This enormous advantage couldn't have happened with a grapple.

Battlefield control, especially at later levels, becomes invaluable to any party and the fighter is the first to engage an enemy.

You might technically have some choices, but the choices aren't especially interesting because most of the time they don't matter or are obviously inferior.

--

IMO 5e suffers from the decision to put nearly everything except basic attack analogs on a short/long rest schedule. One of the things that most intrigues me about the ToB is the class power schedules (e.g. the Crusader's deck-based maneuvers). I think there's a lot of design space for combat-time refresh paradigms that evoke the mechanical feel people want for a martial character, but they've been unexplored in 5e.

Even attacks, as I've said before, comes with interesting decision making. Let's say you attack nothing but minions, and the spellcaster eventually casts fireballs centered on your wizard uncontested. Now, let's go in a different direction. What if the fighter targets the spellcaster? Now the spellcaster has a huge threat staring it in the face. But then again, who's protecting your wizard from the minions you'd be ignoring?

You have to coordinate with your teammates and make decisions based on them as well.

Most options are straight up inferior to attacking, because killing an enemy is better than forcing it to spenf half its movement getting up from prone.

Just because the game should be simple for beginners, it doens't mean there shouldn't be mechanically complex characters for those who want it. A beginner can still play a Champion Fighter (or a Brute Fighter if they also want a subclass that isn't ridiculously bad - talk about a trap option right there).

A martial initiator class that requires better system mastery without overshadowing the Fighter's damage output is perfectly viable. It's basically what full casters alrady do.

But then, isn't there both the Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight? Isn't Champion the exception, not the rule? In fact, every single martial class opens up options from both the base class and the subclasses. Look at monks, look at rogues, how about Barbarians?

Barbarians must choose judiciously how they expend rages and even Berserkers must decide their frenzies.

[Kane0]

Yes, a lot was integrated.

But a lot was also missed. I’d be interested in seeing the disciplines make their way into new subclasses, maybe with a twist like some of those subclasses can be taken by multiple classes.

[OldTrees1]

In 3rd edition there were feats like the Knockback feat which allowed you to do something (send an enemy flying) every attack. The Three Mountains feat for example imposed Nausea (a Stun like condition).
ToB's Maneuvers were in a similar vein. They let you do something interesting (depends on maneuver, but Dazing Strike would daze them for a similar stun-like example), at the cost of only doing one attack that round and having to recharge these techniques. The single attack, every round, every combat, all day was a reasonable restriction. The recharge amnesia mechanics were controversial. However in return you could have more techniques available than the feat tree method allowed.

In 5E Battle Master lets you do a few (3-6) interesting attacks per short rest. Oh but only if you pick the 1-2 interesting maneuvers. This limitation is partially a result of the design decision of having a rolled superiority die. The Die is a limited resource that burns out to quickly, was made a limited resource to limit the accuracy/damage buff of the die, and prevented/made it harder for WotC to think of maneuvers that did not get a boring accuracy/damage buff.


Sure ToB was not perfect. But 5E's Battle Master missed the point. Martials could have multiple at-will offensive options that each provide something interesting and threatening other than mere accuracy/damage. Every round would be a choice between their options. In contrast 5E Battle Master is quickly stuck with "I attack. Here is the damage. Pass turn."

[MaxWilson]

IMO 5e suffers from the decision to put nearly everything except basic attack analogs on a short/long rest schedule. One of the things that most intrigues me about the ToB is the class power schedules (e.g. the Crusader's deck-based maneuvers). I think there's a lot of design space for combat-time refresh paradigms that evoke the mechanical feel people want for a martial character, but they've been unexplored in 5e.

FWIW, I agree enough about the badness of rest-gated abilities that I have a few houserules to cover this scenario (emphasis added):

For Champion:

Improved Critical: you crit on a 19-20. Furthermore, when you inflict a critical hit, roll damage once and then double the total damage (including any bonuses from Strength/magic weapons/etc.), instead of just rolling twice the normal number of dice.

Furthermore, Remarkable Athlete now stacks with proficiency. So a Str 18 Champion 9 with Athletics proficiency would have +4+4+2=+10 to Strength (Athletics) checks, not just +8.

For Arcane Archer:

You have three shots per short rest instead of two.

For Battlemaster:

You can temporarily regain expended superiority dice, up to your normal maximum, by studying enemies for weaknesses. For every Attack you forgo during the Attack action, you regain one expended superiority die, which is usable only against creatures you can see at the time you regain the die. This temporary die expires after one minute if it has not already been used, as do any temp HP gained from Rally with it.

For Berserker:

When you end a Frenzy rage, if you pass a DC 15 Con save you do not suffer any exhaustion.

In particular, with these rules the Battlemaster is a good class if you're the kind of guy who likes to wait for the perfect moment to strike, but Berserker, Champion, and Battlemaster all have cool non-rest-based nonmagical shticks (as well as Rogues of course).

======================================

I'm sorry if I came across as uncivil. That honestly wasn't my intent.

Calling someone disingenuous (insincere, arguing in bad faith) is always uncivil. It's better to say something else, like "that comparison is inappropriate because XYZ," instead of jumping straight to the ad hominem judgments about bad faith.

I'd give you the benefit of the doubt here except that you've reiterated and reemphasized that you really did mean "disingenuous" according to the dictionary definition (insincere, dishonest, bad faith). Unlike "that's wrong", which is a statement about the merits of an argument, there's no way to interpret "you're dishonest and arguing in bad faith" as anything other than a personal attack.

Moving forward let's just pretend you said "that's wrong" instead of "that's disingenuous."

[Chaosmancer]

I'm well aware of the chronology. My point still stands, people could move and full attack, it just wasn't as simple as Lion Totem Barb (though it has been as simple for people playing for the last decade). And even though it wasn't as easy, it's still far from the books largest contribution.

If what you take from ToB is that "it's the book that lets people move and attack", you should re-read it.

I reacently starded a thread asking for a character that could do cool things in combat at will other than "I attack" and the answers I got were either "play a spellcaster" or "play this class that allows a single extra cool thing"

Both Monk and BM are restricted with uses per rest in their abilities, AND they're not nearly as cool. Whereas ToB all about "yeah, I'll use my fists to break this adamantine cage because I can ignore object hardness infinity times per day" or "yeah, I'll go scouting because I have at will tactical teleport and greater invisibility". These things go so beyond grappling and shoving an enemy I'm surprised you're considering them to be same thing.

Cool, varied and at will options. You simply don't have these for martials in 5e.

Walking up to a guy and shoving him with your bonus action is fun when you start doing it at level 4. It's not fun when it's 12 levels later and you're still doing the exact same thing, just with higher bonuses.

Whereas ToB all about "yeah, I'll use my fists to break this adamantine cage because I can ignore object hardness infinity times per day" or "yeah, I'll go scouting because I have at will tactical teleport and greater invisibility". These things go so beyond grappling and shoving an enemy I'm surprised you're considering them to be same thing.

Cool, varied and at will options. You simply don't have these for martials in 5e.

If at will teleport and greater invisibility are your standard you don't have cool, varied options at all in 5e.

No one has an at-will teleport except the shadow monk, which is specifically from one area of dim light or darkness to another you can see within 60 ft. Casters are much more limited in their teleporting.

Greater Invisibility? I guess the Gloomstalker Ranger, but again, that requires Darkness and the creature you are invisible to has to be using Darkvision. And again, at-will invisibility isn't a thing most casters can pull off either. Warlocks can, either crappy by level 5, or actual at-will invisibility (not greater) by level 15.


And I think this gets into part of the issue as well, the general power difference between what is possible in 3.5 and what is possible in 5e. Like Druids wildshaping into monsters instead of just beasts.

-cut-

Got distracted and didn't finish reading, will do more talking once I'm done with a whole host of other things

[Dr. Cliché]

Calling someone disingenuous (insincere, arguing in bad faith) is always uncivil. It's better to say something else, like "that comparison is inappropriate because XYZ," instead of jumping straight to the ad hominem judgments about bad faith.

If you want to have a discussion of arguments in good faith, come back when you understand what 'ad hominem' actually means.

[heavyfuel]

This is part of the problem. If damage was always so important all of the time, why would a spellcaster grab a spell like Fly, Invisibility, Shield, Bane, etc. The answer is obvious, some things are worth more than damage. Nobody is saying that your options are equal all the time, of course a fighter should spend their turns mostly attacking, but the options available are more than satisfactory when things go poorly and damage won't get you out of combat alive.

Are you seriously comparing attempting to shove an enemy to grant your allies advantage to having reality bending magical powers?

Those two things aren't even in the same ballpark. Flying isn't good because "it's not damage". It's good because it's a straight up "i win" card against enemies that lack a ranged attack. It also helps immensely in the exploration department, being able to trivialize whole non-combat encounters.

Comparing the two is, at best, misconceived. At worst, disingenuous. Though I do believe you fall in the first group.

[MaxWilson]

If you want to have a discussion of arguments in good faith, come back when you understand what 'ad hominem' actually means.

You do understand the difference between an ad hominem argument and an ad hominem judgment, I hope?

=============================================

Are you seriously comparing attempting to shove an enemy to grant your allies advantage to having reality bending magical powers?

Those two things aren't even in the same ballpark. Flying isn't good because "it's not damage". It's good because it's a straight up "i win" card against enemies that lack a ranged attack. It also helps immensely in the exploration department, being able to trivialize whole non-combat encounters.

Eh, the "I win" only happens if the whole party is flying/kiting and the enemy has no way to retreat. A single Fly spell can't do that--you'd have to upcast to Fly VI to cover six PCs, and people don't generally do that. And any enemy who can be destroyed purely by Fly could probably have been destroyed just as easily by another kiting strategy like spending 60 gold per PC on horses.

As far as exploration, 5E makes climbing so ubiquitous and speedy (anyone can climb at half-speed), and the Fly spell's duration is so gimped (10 minutes, really? that's only 2.3 miles at top speed) that I actually can't imagine the scenario you're envisioning where Fly trivializes an encounter that couldn't be trivialized by nonmagical equipment. Can you elaborate?

[Dr. Cliché]

You do understand the difference between an ad hominem argument and an ad hominem judgment, I hope?

Just as you understood the difference between calling a person disingenuous and calling a specific argument disingenuous.