Why ban ToB?

[AntiAuthority]

He said he doesn't like
1. fluff (I told him this can be changed)
2. anime like moves (I told him spellcasters have been doing this for ages)
3. Replaces monk, fighter, and paladin (I told him those classes are horrible)
Also I think he hates how people dip the classes
Any other points to tell him?
Also he has banned Tome of Magic, Psionics, and Magic of Incarnum.

I'd recommend talking to your DM about this, maybe talking to other players and see how they feel about banning these books and if enough people agree, approach the DM as a group to air your complaints.

About being too anime... Your DM does realize Monks are in the game, right? Anime just heavily borrows from mythology (even if indirectly), so your DM might as well be saying "everything is too anime" since D&D was directly/indirectly inspired by mythology. If you think this'll help change his mind... Point him to the Cu Chulainn and Journey to the West videos by Overly Sarcastic Productions as for why "anime like moves" doesn't make sense, as those types of things are present in things that predate the medium by centuries/millennia. And yes, Wizards are also pulling from mythology, so they're pulling off "anime like moves" too, so he's basically playing a double standard.

Yeah... About them replacing already existing classes and him having a problem with you wanting to play something that feels useful... That sounds more like a him problem than anything with the book. If you're dead set on playing a martial class, you might want to bring this up to him, as you want to feel like you're not playing with a subpar class because of his hangups.

And about D&D being Western European Fantasy in regards to fluff/setting... It can be that thing, but that's not all it is. In the earlier versions of D&D, Monks and Psionics exist, showing it's not Sword & Sorcery. One of the first (or very first) D&D modules in existence had a BBEG that was an alien (possibly... Whatever he was, he wasn't native to their planet/dimension) and another one that Gygax had a hand in had the players go into an alien spaceship and fight malfunctioning robots. Nothing about these elements scream Sword & Sorcery to me, D&D's whatever you want it to be.

[Red Fel]

Shadow Hand early levels is what Shadowdancer PrC tried to deliver, and that's from the DMG.

Oh, yeah, no. Some of it, like the stealth stuff, is great. Other stuff, like literally teleporting or the Long Name Anime Death Touch of Murder, that's a bit trickier.

[Nifft]

Oh, yeah, no. Some of it, like the stealth stuff, is great. Other stuff, like literally teleporting or the Long Name Anime Death Touch of Murder, that's a bit trickier.

Shadowdancer also does the teleporting though, and so can a level 6 Warlock, and so can a Jaunter, and so can a Binder with Tenebrous. How is teleportation off-theme for Western shadowy PCs?


Five Finger Shadow Enervation Heart Stab Bad-Touch Icy McNasty is the sort of name you'd expect to see in martial arts films, and you can see the equivalent naming sensibility in Kill Bill (for example). There are certainly anime which also borrow from martial arts, but martial arts isn't anime just like Kill Bill isn't anime, and neither is Bad-Touch Icy McNasty.

It's no more anime than the 1e Monk's fabled attack, Quivering Palm:

The last ability gained, and perhaps the most terrible power, is that fabled attack which enables the monk to set up vibrations in the body of the victim, and the monk can then control such vibrations so as to cause death to occur when the monk stops them. Known as the “quivering palm”, the monk merely touches his victim to set up the deadly vibrations. (...)

Anime has borrowed "special attack" names from martial arts for coolness points, but anime also borrowed big eyes from Disney for cuteness points, and it would be unreasonable to decry every Disney character as being "anime" for using the traits anime borrowed from Disney.

It's similarly unreasonable to criticize martial arts for using the traits which anime borrowed from martial arts.

[Xervous]

There is the side detail of Naruto’s creator originally pitching it as Sages, rather than the Ninjas branding it ran away with.

Makes me wonder what people generally think the premier samurai weapon was...

Tangents aside, ToB and others are eye opening to the fact that some base 3.5e classes are the scrapings out of an otyugh hole. When such revelations come along assaulting what some hold as sacred cows reactions can be less than enthusiastic.

[Nifft]

There is the side detail of Naruto’s creator originally pitching it as Sages, rather than the Ninjas branding it ran away with.

IIRC that show was basically D&D wizards with some ninja flavor crystals thrown on top, but I mostly remember the fight scenes so maybe I'm wrong.

Makes me wonder what people generally think the premier samurai weapon was...

1 - Wealth (including diet and education)
2 - Being on a Horse
3 - Yelling at Peasants (social position)
4 - Bow
5 - Katana
6 - Honor
7 - Poetry

Tangents aside, ToB and others are eye opening to the fact that some base 3.5e classes are the scrapings out of an otyugh hole. When such revelations come along assaulting what some hold as sacred cows reactions can be less than enthusiastic.

Yeah, this is misdirected resentment at ruining some childhood memories because this edition's version of those classes kinda sucks.

It's not a reaction you can necessarily reason them out of, either, since it's an emotional reaction.

But you might be able to re-direct it onto better targets.

[Darrin]

We see these "ban ToB!" discussions quite often. From what I can tell, the most stubborn opponents to ToB basically boil down to "I don't like it!", which is particularly frustrating because there's not much you can do rhetorically except maybe drill-down into their personal biases and see if you can elucidate the sources of their hypocrisy.

At Gary Gygax's own table, he had a "no gunpowder" rule. As I understand it, Gygax didn't like gunpowder because it ruined in his mind the flavor of the genre he was trying to evoke: "High Fantasy". However, the existence of this rule is utterly perplexing, considering how often his group went adventuring into other "worlds" and mixed different genres into the game. The original "Temple of the Frog" (which I understand was largely Arneson's creation) featured aliens, spaceships, antimatter rifles, the "Solar Federation", etc. Gygax's own Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is full of sci-fi elements, which can be explained away somewhat as Gygax creating interest and attracting D&D players into trying Metamorphosis Alpha. He even sent one of his players to Barsoom, and Castle Greyhawk somewhat infamously includes the bridge crew of Star Trek's Enterprise (no gunpowder but phasers and tricorders are ok? Hmm.)

When Gygax did a crossover into the Wild West, Don Kaye brought back a pair of "six-shooters" for his Murlynd character. Gygax was insistent that there was still "no gunpowder" in Greyhawk, but created a loophole specifically for Don Kaye: his revolvers were NOT using gunpower, but were magic wands that produced a loud sound and shot out magic projectiles that worked much like bullets (but were totally not bullets, definitely definitely not bullets). You'd think that after successfully merging so many genres into D&D, Gygax might have learned his lesson, and maybe loosened up his "head canon" a bit, but he did not. When he wrote Lejendary Journeys, he included a homage to his dear friend, "Kaydon's Thunderous Bolters", which worked very much like Murlynd's old six-shooters, but yet again he made it very clear that these devices fired their projectiles via magic, not gunpower.

As you've pointed out, the objection to not allowing "anime-style" martial-arts attacks in D&D is ludicrous. They've existed in the game for as long as monks have been in the game. Also, the monk completely *SUCKS* at it, so much so it is hard to describe how badly the class is designed with just words. It feels like the Monk designer saw half of a Hong Kong martial arts movie, created the class from that, and blatantly tried to ignore the rich tradition of Wuxia and martial arts movies we've all come to know and love. We already have several decades of Japanese RPGs showing us exactly how you can add "sword techniques" and special magic attacks to fighters and it absolutely does not harm the "fantasy" genre at all.

So it sounds like your DM has a "no gunpowder" rule, and while it's important to respect the DM's right to declare what can or cannot be included in his campaign world... I think you might try pointing out that the practice of RPGs involves building a cooperative narrative that is shared with the players. And while fighters hopping around casting "spells" with their swords might ruin his sense of immersion, it's hurting your enjoyment as a player. Try approaching this discussion with something like, "Look, I know you don't personally like this book all that much, but I enjoy it immensely, and it would really mean a lot to me if I could use this as part of my character."

[el minster]

Shadowdancer also does the teleporting though, and so can a level 6 Warlock, and so can a Jaunter, and so can a Binder with Tenebrous. How is teleportation off-theme for Western shadowy PCs?


Five Finger Shadow Enervation Heart Stab Bad-Touch Icy McNasty is the sort of name you'd expect to see in martial arts films, and you can see the equivalent naming sensibility in Kill Bill (for example). There are certainly anime which also borrow from martial arts, but martial arts isn't anime just like Kill Bill isn't anime, and neither is Bad-Touch Icy McNasty.

It's no more anime than the 1e Monk's fabled attack, Quivering Palm:

Anime has borrowed "special attack" names from martial arts for coolness points, but anime also borrowed big eyes from Disney for cuteness points, and it would be unreasonable to decry every Disney character as being "anime" for using the traits anime borrowed from Disney.

It's similarly unreasonable to criticize martial arts for using the traits which anime borrowed from martial arts.

Shadow dancers teleportation is extremely limited.

[Elves]

Calling it martial spells is also a misnomer. Nothing is inherently spell-like about the power format used for spells and maneuvers. You could apply it to anything. That's exactly what they did in 4e.


Basic Attack
Initiation Action: 1 standard action
Range: Melee
Target: One creature

As part of this maneuver, make a melee attack at your highest base attack bonus.


Flurry of Blows
Level: Monk 1
Initiation Action: 1 full-round action
Range: Melee
Target: One or more creatures
Saving Throw: No

Make a full attack using your unarmed strike or a monk weapon. As part of this full attack, you may make an extra attack at your highest base attack bonus, but every attack is made at a -2 penalty.


Etc.

[Nifft]

Shadow dancers teleportation is extremely limited.

Sure, but the limit is different than what Shadow Hand gives.

Shadowdancer can use dimension door up to 160 ft. each day with no limitation about bringing friends along.

Shadow Hand grants teleportation up to 50 ft. at a time, self-only, with some delay between uses.


IMHO Shadow Hand is more fun for a PC, but it also has limits. They're just limits which are better designed specifically for use in combat.

[Xervous]

1 - Wealth (including diet and education)
2 - Being on a Horse
3 - Yelling at Peasants (social position)
4 - Bow
5 - Katana
6 - Honor
7 - Poetry

Oh shush, I was expecting people who don’t understand the “he’s a good swordsman” insult.

[Chaos Jackal]

1 - Wealth (including diet and education)
2 - Being on a Horse
3 - Yelling at Peasants (social position)
4 - Bow
5 - Katana
6 - Honor
7 - Poetry

You mean it's not their ruby nightmare katana?

[el minster]

Sure, but the limit is different than what Shadow Hand gives.

Shadowdancer can use dimension door up to 160 ft. each day with no limitation about bringing friends along.

Shadow Hand grants teleportation up to 50 ft. at a time, self-only, with some delay between uses.


IMHO Shadow Hand is more fun for a PC, but it also has limits. They're just limits which are better designed specifically for use in combat.

Yeah but you could just get a 1 a day use magic item instead of dipping shadow dancer

[Nifft]

You mean it's not their ruby nightmare katana?

In the deepest fires of the earth, this ruby has been folded over a thousand times.

Yeah but you could just get a 1 a day use magic item instead of dipping shadow dancer

By 10th level it's up to 16/day, and it moves the whole party.

[el minster]

By 10th level it's up to 16/day, and it moves the whole party.

only 10 feet!!

[Nifft]

only 10 feet!!

The bars on a jail cell are how thick?

The lich's wall of force is how thick?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

At Gary Gygax's own table, he had a "no gunpowder" rule. As I understand it, Gygax didn't like gunpowder because it ruined in his mind the flavor of the genre he was trying to evoke: "High Fantasy". However, the existence of this rule is utterly perplexing, considering how often his group went adventuring into other "worlds" and mixed different genres into the game. The original "Temple of the Frog" (which I understand was largely Arneson's creation) featured aliens, spaceships, antimatter rifles, the "Solar Federation", etc. Gygax's own Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is full of sci-fi elements, which can be explained away somewhat as Gygax creating interest and attracting D&D players into trying Metamorphosis Alpha. He even sent one of his players to Barsoom, and Castle Greyhawk somewhat infamously includes the bridge crew of Star Trek's Enterprise (no gunpowder but phasers and tricorders are ok? Hmm.)

When Gygax did a crossover into the Wild West, Don Kaye brought back a pair of "six-shooters" for his Murlynd character. Gygax was insistent that there was still "no gunpowder" in Greyhawk, but created a loophole specifically for Don Kaye: his revolvers were NOT using gunpower, but were magic wands that produced a loud sound and shot out magic projectiles that worked much like bullets (but were totally not bullets, definitely definitely not bullets). You'd think that after successfully merging so many genres into D&D, Gygax might have learned his lesson, and maybe loosened up his "head canon" a bit, but he did not. When he wrote Lejendary Journeys, he included a homage to his dear friend, "Kaydon's Thunderous Bolters", which worked very much like Murlynd's old six-shooters, but yet again he made it very clear that these devices fired their projectiles via magic, not gunpower.

This isn't actually as confusing or hypocritical as it might seem at first glance. There are several different sections in the 1e DMG regarding crossovers between settings (including the infamous Boot Hill and Gamma World conversion rules), and in those sections Gygax talks about the kinds of crossovers he's run in his own games (including an Alice in Wonderland crossover on top of the ones you mentioned) and encourages making crossovers with all sorts of settings. However, the two points he makes repeatedly are that (A) the game works best (at least in his opinion) when the game's baseline assumption is "realms [of] fantasy as found in swords & sorcery or myth" and incorporates cowboys and aliens and such only in isolated dungeons or as part of brief side adventures, rather than trying to throw everything into a single totally-kitchen-sink setting and (B) incorporating nonstandard monsters/classes/items/etc. can be a lot of work for a DM on both the mechanical and the setting side and DMs "will be hard pressed [to incorporate such elements] unless you rely upon other game systems to fill the gaps."

It's kind of like how--speaking of Star Trek--the crew of the Enterprise constantly runs into one-off aliens and technologies that make for a great episode or two but would dramatically impact the show if they stuck around for longer than that. Voyager did the equivalent of "bringing gunpowder from Boot Hill to Greyhawk" when it picked up a bunch of high-tech stuff from the Borg like ablative armor generators and transwarp conduits and such and brought it all back to the Federation in its final few episodes...and ever since then Star Trek has been focusing on endless prequels instead of trying to set things after Voyager (with the exception of Picard and Discovery, which basically ignore all of the post-Voyager tech developments) because dealing with that kind of shake-up to the setting's previous technology base makes it hard for writers to come up with new threats and challenges for the protagonists.

So I feel it's plenty reasonable to try to restrict the kinds of unintended/out-of-genre influences one lets into the game, for conservation of detail and easing the DM workload if nothing else. But of course that point doesn't really apply to incorporating ToB because, as has been pointed out already, even if you feel it's "too anime" the monk and sorcerer were doing their thing long before ToB came around.

[el minster]

The bars on a jail cell are how thick?

The lich's wall of force is how thick?

There are somany easier ways to do that

[Nifft]

This isn't actually as confusing or hypocritical as it might seem at first glance. There are several different sections in the 1e DMG regarding crossovers between settings (including the infamous Boot Hill and Gamma World conversion rules), and in those sections Gygax talks about the kinds of crossovers he's run in his own games (including an Alice in Wonderland crossover on top of the ones you mentioned) and encourages making crossovers with all sorts of settings. However, the two points he makes repeatedly are that (A) the game works best (at least in his opinion) when the game's baseline assumption is "realms [of] fantasy as found in swords & sorcery or myth" and incorporates cowboys and aliens and such only in isolated dungeons or as part of brief side adventures, rather than trying to throw everything into a single totally-kitchen-sink setting and (B) incorporating nonstandard monsters/classes/items/etc. can be a lot of work for a DM on both the mechanical and the setting side and DMs "will be hard pressed [to incorporate such elements] unless you rely upon other game systems to fill the gaps."

It's kind of like how--speaking of Star Trek--the crew of the Enterprise constantly runs into one-off aliens and technologies that make for a great episode or two but would dramatically impact the show if they stuck around for longer than that. Voyager did the equivalent of "bringing gunpowder from Boot Hill to Greyhawk" when it picked up a bunch of high-tech stuff from the Borg like ablative armor generators and transwarp conduits and such and brought it all back to the Federation in its final few episodes...and ever since then Star Trek has been focusing on endless prequels instead of trying to set things after Voyager (with the exception of Picard and Discovery, which basically ignore all of the post-Voyager tech developments) because dealing with that kind of shake-up to the setting's previous technology base makes it hard for writers to come up with new threats and challenges for the protagonists.

So I feel it's plenty reasonable to try to restrict the kinds of unintended/out-of-genre influences one lets into the game, for conservation of detail and easing the DM workload if nothing else. But of course that point doesn't really apply to incorporating ToB because, as has been pointed out already, even if you feel it's "too anime" the monk and sorcerer were doing their thing long before ToB came around.

Agreed.

Looking at the older "alien" modules, what I see are items that break the rules, but have limited charges -- and can't ever be recharged.

In play, those might function congruently with the Star Trek "single-episode power" gear. You'd get a special rule-breaking thingy, but it's so constrained in operation that you can't leverage it to break or even significantly change the setting.


ToB very much is a setting-changer. It's a good change in my opinion, because I like Zorro and Conan and Grey Mouser and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon -- rules which allow non-wizards to be awesome are good for my games.

But that's because I can recognize the feats of Zorro and Conan and Grey Mouser in the ToB mechanics, and I didn't mind mixing a bit more Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon into my game. If the aesthetics of the latter were inappropriate, I'd have to do some work to extract the Swordsage -- no, wait, I'd just ban the Swordsage and the Monk. Done. Easy fix.

There are somany easier ways to do that

Don't try to move the goalposts. I showed that the limitations on the two powers were different.

We all already know Shadowdancer isn't a good class, but that's not related to my point.

[Rhyltran]

1 - Wealth (including diet and education)
2 - Being on a Horse
3 - Yelling at Peasants (social position)
4 - Bow
5 - Katana
6 - Honor
7 - Poetry

You forgot the Yari before Katana ;)

[Red Fel]

Shadowdancer also does the teleporting though, and so can a level 6 Warlock, and so can a Jaunter, and so can a Binder with Tenebrous. How is teleportation off-theme for Western shadowy PCs?

It comes back to the "guy at the gym" fallacy, essentially. You expect an explicitly magical class, like a Binder, to be able to do magical stuff. But a guy with a sword - or even a super-sneaky guy with a knife - to be teleporting willy-nilly? That's just wacky.

I agree with you, for what it's worth. It should still be a sell. But from a practical perspective, especially with a predisposed DM, it's a harder one.

Five Finger Shadow Enervation Heart Stab Bad-Touch Icy McNasty is the sort of name you'd expect to see in martial arts films, and you can see the equivalent naming sensibility in Kill Bill (for example). There are certainly anime which also borrow from martial arts, but martial arts isn't anime just like Kill Bill isn't anime, and neither is Bad-Touch Icy McNasty.

To be fair, while I always remembered cool attack names from my favorite wuxia films, I never remembered them being quite so long. Buddha Palm, Cotton Belly Defense, Iron Shirt, etc. - they were poetic, reasonably descriptive, but brief. An attack name longer than five words feels more modern to me - more like another genre impersonating wuxia.

And yes, I know, not all martial arts films are wuxia. But I have standards.

It's no more anime than the 1e Monk's fabled attack, Quivering Palm:

Anime has borrowed "special attack" names from martial arts for coolness points, but anime also borrowed big eyes from Disney for cuteness points, and it would be unreasonable to decry every Disney character as being "anime" for using the traits anime borrowed from Disney.

It's similarly unreasonable to criticize martial arts for using the traits which anime borrowed from martial arts.

And what does a D&D Monk have anything to do with martial arts? They're not even proficient in unarmed strikes!

[Nifft]

You forgot the Yari before Katana ;)

It comes back to the "guy at the gym" fallacy, essentially. You expect an explicitly magical class, like a Binder, to be able to do magical stuff. But a guy with a sword - or even a super-sneaky guy with a knife - to be teleporting willy-nilly? That's just wacky.

I agree with you, for what it's worth. It should still be a sell. But from a practical perspective, especially with a predisposed DM, it's a harder one.

I'd like to think that Guy-At-The-Gym fallacy is not a central tenet of Western fantasy.

To be fair, while I always remembered cool attack names from my favorite wuxia films, I never remembered them being quite so long. Buddha Palm, Cotton Belly Defense, Iron Shirt, etc. - they were poetic, reasonably descriptive, but brief. An attack name longer than five words feels more modern to me - more like another genre impersonating wuxia.

And yes, I know, not all martial arts films are wuxia. But I have standards.

I think the name length is also to disambiguate the maneuvers.

Like, your character might literally be wearing an iron shirt (a "chain shirt" with iron as its material). You need to disambiguate the maneuvers from each other, from real equipment, and from all the spells which have colonized the design namespace.

It's the same reason late-edition spells got longer names -- Visions of the Omniscient Eye, as an example -- while early-edition spells got simpler names like Dream.

[Elves]

The animeness or craziness of TOB is way overstated. You don't even have to reach for comparisons to uber-heroes of legend. Like I said earlier, ban Shadow Hand and Desert Wind and perhaps select Devoted Spirit maneuvers, and at that point even the swordsage is completely non-magical and non-anime and is as accurate a game representation as any of a "guy at the gym" mundane melee fighter. The Setting Sun capstone is the only thing I can think of that would strain credibility.

People just get conditioned to correlate a certain game rules format presentation with a certain type of thing depicted, when there's no actual correspondence.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In addition to adding a new subsystem for GMs to have to learn...

This is a valid criticism.

Book of Nine Swords commits a cardinal sin. Instead of improving the Fighter, Monk, and Paladin-- or doing anything with the Barbarian and Ranger-- it completely invalidates all of those classes. I would happily allow Book of Nine Swords or Path of War (but not both) material in a 3.PF game, but I am not likely to ever allow the base classes from those books.

This is not.

The feats, items, and prestige classes all make the book's subsytem available to characters of -all- base classes. While you're generally better off dipping one of the base classes than meeting the PrCs' maneuver requirements with martial study/stance you still have that option.

Want a few maneuvers on a wizard? 5 levels of Jade Phoenix Mage will cost you -one- caster level and three feats to get you 5 maneuvers and 2 stances, an extra 5 hp over what you'd have had as a straight wizard, and 3 extra points of BAB.

TWF ranger? Bloodclaw master is right there, my dude. C'mon.

If you're a rogue and you're not looking -hard- at how to get some shadow hand maneuvers what are you even doing?

Probably the single greatest paladin build -ever- is one that includes ruby knight vindicator.

Then there's the nonsense "replacement" argument. Maybe, -maybe- that argument half-ass holds water for the swordsage & monk. Fighter/ warblade though, nah fam. A well built fighter can have every bit as many tricks as a warblade and makes the enemies fall down just fine. Crusader/ paladin? Get the hell out of here. There's nothing a crusader can do that a paladin can't do better.

Like I said, ToB didn't really give martials anything new. It just consolidated and streamlined it all so you don't have to have a 3.5 PhD to do all those things.

[Gusmo]

Regarding firearms, at least they are almost entirely absent from 3rd edition. Stormwrack has some stuff, and I'm sure there other other mentions, but it's basically negligible. It's the difference between removing an entire category and selected parts of a category. The problem with ToB is that we're dealing with martial weapons and martial arts, and it's very weird to say that some martial weapons and martial arts are stupid, don't fit or otherwise have no place at the table, but other martial weapons and martial arts are totally fine. Melee combat, armed and unarmed, has existed in probably all cultures across the globe throughout history. Yet if you bring a character built for unarmed combat to a D&D table, a disturbing number of people immediately bust out Eastern stereotypes.

[Zarrgon]

@Zarrgon: What 3.5 psionics did was fix all the bad decisions that had gone into the base spellcasting system.

Yea, it's too bad they did not make it a new system though instead of just copying D&D magic.

As for ToB in particular, it's easily the least difficult to implement and troubleshoot.

A big problem is ToB was made for so players could be annoying:

The player will just goof off until some combat happens, then they will crazily demand that they used just the right maneuver or stand thingy one second before the combat started. And lots of DMs allow this.

Psionics... psionics

Psionics is even worse with the silly Focus mechanic and the player that demands their character is "focused" all the time.

I would never let a character "do over" and like let them cast Stoneskin or drink a potion of barkskin one round before the fight starts AFTER their character gets hit and they whine "but I was goofing around and forgot".

And yet far too many players of a martial or psonic character will demand this.

As you've pointed out, the objection to not allowing "anime-style" martial-arts attacks in D&D is ludicrous.

But why?

Like most DMs I like a set type of game with set things like style, flavor, etc. I like X, my game is about X; I don't like Y and my game is not about Y.

Calling it martial spells is also a misnomer. Nothing is inherently spell-like about the power format used for spells and maneuvers. You could apply it to anything. That's exactly what they did in 4e.

Are the "Not Spells" a collection of set actions that you can "Not Cast" to effect the game? Why yes they are! A spellcaster knows set spells that they can cast, a ToB class knows a set of things they can use: exactly the same format. Again, they just copied a bunch of spells and refluffed the magic into "not magic".

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yea, it's too bad they did not make it a new system though instead of just copying D&D magic.

... You know that psionics stems from 2e, right? It's as much D&D as anything else in 3e. The 3.5 changeover streamlined and rebalanced some things and made it way less of a weird PiTA. You can go back to the attack and defense modes and psychic combat things if you really want something different but good luck making it work in a way that doesn't bog things down.

A big problem is ToB was made for so players could be annoying:

The player will just goof off until some combat happens, then they will crazily demand that they used just the right maneuver or stand thingy one second before the combat started. And lots of DMs allow this.

That's not a system problem, it's a player problem. You solve that by being firm with the problematic player. Being in a stance when combat begins is logically suspect but mechanically trivial. Anything else in the system requires actions -in combat- and there's nothing any player can do about that except lie to you. If that's happening the system and its bits are the least of your problems by far.

Psionics is even worse with the silly Focus mechanic and the player that demands their character is "focused" all the time.

The idea that a person who can bend reality with a thought could hold a small charge of psychic energy in his head for as long as he's conscious is too much for you, really? Even if that doesn't make sense to you, it's still mechanically trivial to a degree even greater than the stance thing. By itself, all it does is let you take 15 on a concentration check. If you're worried about metapsionics, this is actually a significant limiting factor that casters don't have.

I would never let a character "do over" and like let them cast Stoneskin or drink a potion of barkskin one round before the fight starts AFTER their character gets hit and they whine "but I was goofing around and forgot".

Again, thats a player issue not a system one. Tell 'em flat, "you forgot, too bad. Don't forget next time."

And yet far too many players of a martial or psonic character will demand this.

Like I said, you have a problem with players not the system.

But why?

Like most DMs I like a set type of game with set things like style, flavor, etc. I like X, my game is about X; I don't like Y and my game is not about Y.

Cool. Nobody's objecting to that. You can make pure taste choices as a DM and that's perfectly valid. It's your erroneous and falacious arguments to justify that taste to which people are objecting.

Are the "Not Spells" a collection of set actions that you can "Not Cast" to effect the game? Why yes they are! A spellcaster knows set spells that they can cast, a ToB class knows a set of things they can use: exactly the same format. Again, they just copied a bunch of spells and refluffed the magic into "not magic".

That's just an argument against discrete abilities altogether. A fighter with a bunch of active use feats has an array of things he knows how to do that he can use. By this definition, things like kiai shout, goad, greater multishot, and a whole host of other feats are just refluffed spells. Unless you have a problem with tactical and style feats, you don't have a valid argument against maneuvers.

[Nifft]

... You know that psionics stems from 2e, right?

1e actually ;)

It's the first appendix in the PHB, and every monster in the first Monster Manual had a line about its psionic capabilities.

[Elves]

Are the "Not Spells" a collection of set actions that you can "Not Cast" to effect the game? Why yes they are! A spellcaster knows set spells that they can cast, a ToB class knows a set of things they can use: exactly the same format.

Right, exactly. The format is neutral, unrelated to whether the action it describes is magical or not. It's just a way of presenting a particular game action you can take.

[el minster]

Right, exactly. The format is neutral, unrelated to whether the action it describes is magical or not. It's just a way of presenting a particular game action you can take.

Precisely !!!

[Darrin]

Like most DMs I like a set type of game with set things like style, flavor, etc. I like X, my game is about X; I don't like Y and my game is not about Y.

That's fine. You're welcome to like X or not like Y.

However, if the players sitting at your table are saying, "We really like Y. We'd love to be able to use Y in this game," perhaps that might be something a good DM would put under consideration? Presumably, you're all sitting at the table where all participants have entered into a social contract to play a collaborative game, and the opinions and desires of all the players are considered valid and important. If the DM is saying, "I don't like Y and I don't care if you like it, it's not happening here, there's the door!" then I would advise the DM to perhaps re-examine whether that's a valid stance that benefits everyone's enjoyment.