Why ban ToB?

[Gusmo]

While I love the Riddick movies the 2nd one in particular often has criticisms levied against it for how ridiculous it is.

Oh I could definitely write paragraphs criticizing that movie too. I enjoy it, but it's very flawed.

Anyway, is the problem shadows and fire regardless of whether it's anime themed? This makes more sense if you're just banning all fire and shadow themed martial stuff, anime themed or otherwise. Similar to how people don't want gunpowder, whether it relates to gunslinger Western tropes or swashbuckling tropes, but banning only one would likely be incoherent. However, right now ToB seems to be occupying this weird place where people are saying they don't want the anime fire and shadows (and perhaps more elements, but I'll stick with fire and shadows as being all inclusive for the sake of argument), even though, pages into this thread, and in countless prior threads, nobody has ever laid out anything anything resembling a convincing case that the fire and shadow stuff is intrinsically anime. You can find all of the same stuff in so many other fantasy genres that I find the anime accusations to be a fad that's long overdue for retirement.

Also as other people have suggested, having such great martial skill that you shoot out shadows and fireballs is another hypermundane or plain supernatural thing that may not mesh thematically for many. Hell, the video you linked shows a dude with pretty explicitly supernatural powers. A minute in and he's literally sucking Vin Diesel's soul out. Not a great counterexample man.

I find it conspicuous you are not commenting on the other example I posted that contains nothing supernatural (Mountain vs Oberyn). Also, the warblade is described in the classes chapter intro as lacking supernatural powers.

Edit: if necessary I may have to troll for such flamboyant fight scenes from older Zorro movies and the like, that were made before anime had any popularity in the rest of the world. Suffice to say, all of the flamboyant things you're deriding are not unique to anime. So, if you want to eliminate such flamboyant movements, do so. It's just not internally consistent if you only eliminate anime ones, because there's no such thing.

[Lord Raziere]

Oh I could definitely write paragraphs criticizing that movie too. I enjoy it, but it's very flawed.

Anyway, is the problem shadows and fire regardless of whether it's anime themed? This makes more sense if you're just banning all fire and shadow themed martial stuff, anime themed or otherwise. Similar to how people don't want gunpowder, whether it relates to gunslinger Western tropes or swashbuckling tropes, but banning only one would likely be incoherent. However, right now ToB seems to be occupying this weird place where people are saying they don't want the anime fire and shadows (and perhaps more elements, but I'll stick with fire and shadows as being all inclusive for the sake of argument), even though, pages into this thread, and in countless prior threads, nobody has ever laid out anything anything resembling a convincing case that the fire and shadow stuff is intrinsically anime. You can find all of the same stuff in so many other fantasy genres that I find the anime accusations to be a fad that's long overdue for retirement.

That and anime isn't strictly eastern fantasy. there has always been western fantasy animes out there, even a gritty cynical GoT-type one called Berserk. more recently, there has been Isekai everywhere thats just generic western fantasy settings like Overlord or That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime or Konosuba. Fairy Tail is shonen western fantasy, so is Black Clover. One Piece has some eastern elements to it like some samurai, but is mostly western pirates with superpowers unrelated to specific martial arts. why look at the most recent anime featured on crunchyroll there is: Ascendance Of A Bookworm, The 8th Son? Are you Kidding Me? and My Next Life As A Villainess that are all western fantasy in aesthetic.

so technically western fantasy is anime or at least anime is also western fantasy. therefore to get rid of anime would be to get rid of western fantasy entirely

[Kelb_Panthera]

First off, I'm not opposed to ToB, I like ToB, I'm just providing counterarguments in a thread where people are pretty heavily on the ToB wagon.

Yeah, okay. And I'm deconstructing those arguments to the best of my abiility.

The average DnD player does not look like your optimising Giantitp forum player. You cannot generalise and expect people to have system mastery of such a broad and customisable game. If Fighters are 1 to 8, Warblades are 6-8 and for tables who ban ToB outright it can make balancing martials easier and cut that hassle out.

The window is definitely a big one. Again, the average player does not nearly optimise as much as necessary to compensate.

Most of what I've said is true at minimal, put-your-best-score-in-strength levels of competence. It's less 1-8 for non-adepts and 4-8 for adepts than it is 1-8 and 2-8. You've got to be making decisions where you're all but actively sabotaging your non-adept warrior to dip below the floor of the martial adepts.

Furthermore regardless of optimisation level, an optimised Fighter is still a permanent DPR beatstick while Warblades have so many other combat utility features to contribute that it will always feel like it's capable in a way that can overtake the Fighter or Barbarian's role and then some.. and then some.

That's just not true. A straight fighter 20 almost -can't- put all of his feats into just one trick unless he goes for the entire weapon focus line. If he does, he's going to hit more reliably and harder than a warblade just like the barbarian already was.

This perception that warblades do -so- much more than a fighter is an erroneous one. It only seems that way because of the tendency to discount feats as "stuff everyone can do." A fighter that takes improved trip, improved sunder, improved bull rush, etc can take -all- of those and be decent at all of those combat maneuvers, using whichever is appropriate to the current situation. Most other classes -can't- grab multiple feat-based tricks, including the martial adepts, and that -matters-.

Even if the fighter puts all his bonus feats on 11 different weapon focuses, a terrible decision, but otherwise selects his gear and character feats well then he can still do just as much damage as an equal level warblade in combat. If he does something intelligent with his bonus feats, though, he'll either outstrip the warblade's damage output or he'll have a number of tricks that's comparable, else split the difference and have fewer tricks and only be a little ahead on damage. The two classes are -much- more comparable than is typically ascribed.

Now if you want to talk about CW samurai, swashbucklers, or even MoI's soulborn (poor sod) then you've probably got a point. Those classes don't do much more than hit with the pointy stick and the classes don't give them enough options to make up the difference between themselves and the martial adepts but the ranger, paladin, and fighter all keep up just fine. The barbarian always was the DPR machine and serves admirably enough in that role that if what you -want- to be is the premier face wrecker, it still -obviously- stands as a good alternative to the martial adepts.

For the monk/ swordsage. Yeah. You got me there. Monk just doesn't do what it's supposed to very well. Adequately, perhaps, but not well. Not unless you pull so many ACFs out of so many sources that it doesn't even resemble what you started with anymore. Of course, allowing the monk does completely undermine the arguments about eastern flavor given its obvious roots in kung-fu movie tropes.

Having any limited resource to be able to use an attack for supposed mundanes can feel spellcasting lite. Your provided abstraction of it is fair, it's what I roll with in my mind. Although for martials I tend to prefer systems where repeated use is tagged with increasing DCs rather than being rendered unusable, just feels more realistic and has less counterexamples that can contradict the idea. E.g. adamantine bones, where you need to attack and if you successfully hit, you become as hard as adamantine and gain 20 DR for 1 round. This doesn't glue well with the suggested fluff.

It's not a limited resource unless you're not a martial adept. If the fight drags on for in-game hours (dear gods, please no) you can use any given maneuver dozens of times. You've just got to use your refresh mechanic. For both the warblade and crusader, that means just keep fighting. Only the swordsage needs to actually pause his assault on the enemy to get a maneuver back and gradually degrades to fighting like the non-adept warriors if things drag on too long and even he can fix that with a single feat; adaptive style.

Also, it does feel gamey to limit particular 'movements' to being so significantly more powerful than others. You seem like you're reasonably versed on martial arts. I fight in a cage with other idiots for a living. You could probably imagine there's no flowery movement that generates significant power than the very basic 'power attack' that is, yes, a roundhouse or hook,cross and overhand. Spinning is used to mask the attack, e.g. the initial movement of a spin can be converted to both a hook kick or a back kick.

Yeah, that tornado kick I mentioned earlier. It's a real PiTA to land but it hits like a freight-train when it does. The full 360 spin takes too long to try and deliver it cold so you've got to set it up. There's a rolling kick in karate that also hits -extremely- hard but it's a sacrifice move that leaves you on the ground whether it hits or not. In muay thai, there's a maneuver where you actually climb the other guy and deliver an elbow directly down into the opponent's skull, although you don't see that one in most circuits because of the difficulty in execution and the likelihood of doing the opponent permanent or lethal injury. A hook or roundhouse from the power side hit a lot harder than a jab or front-kick from the lead leg but they're still much simpler and less damaging than these.

And yeah, I'm kind of a fight nerd.

I'm not nearly as well versed on HEMA so forgive me if I'm wrong. But even in Western HEMA there are only 8 angles of attack by sword? And Miyamoto provided 5 classifications of attack for Japanese swordsmanship. At some point the distinctions between 'Dancing Mongoose' and 'Raging Mongoose' become pithy in meaning and only exist in name and power level.

Wow no. Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) swordsmanship and kenjutsu are pretty radically different because of the substantial differences in blade geometries and material qualities of western longswords and the japanese katana as well as the prevalence of high-quality armor in classical euorpe and japan.

As for the idea that a higher level maneuver being an improved version of a lower level one, that's no different from a number of feats that come in more than one grade; (improved) expertise, (greater) multishot, the two-weapon fighting line, etc. Just because it's folded into the martial adepts' initiator level system for prerequisites instead of BAB or skill ranks doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Obviously spinning and dancing was an anecdotal example. In general I refer to the flourishy and overabundant categorisation of attacks mixed with hypermundane powers. Again this is a table by table preference thing but there is a difference between being really good at the mundane and being hypermundane that can turn people off. For example, a really good mundane defense could be having extremely efficient dodging on the spot on top of great blocks and parries. A hypermundane like from ToB make his body durable as adamantine by thinking it true. A really good mundane might have such great awareness and alertness that it can react to threats as soon as they are cognizant. By syncing thought and body a hypermundane could move faster than the speed of thought, because it can. Is it problematic for some people? Probably. Some people might prefer the immersion of the guy at the gym even though that thought really hampers martials past the 2nd tier of play.

Depends on the gym, I suppose. I've seen clips of men that do some pretty outrageous stuff like bending a chinese spear by placing the tip in the hollow of his neck, shove their hands in between massive stone rollers, take a cannonball or battering ram to the body and either stand up just fine or merely be staggered backward, snap off a couple rounds from a revolver so fast that even electronic devices only register one shot, etc and so on.

Turning stuff like that up to 11 puts ToB into a different perspective for what constitutes "hypermundane," I guess. It's not like even an epic warblade is chopping the tops off of mountains.

Yes, plenty of Western Fantasy massively outstrips the realistic. On the other hand, as written the 3 base martials do not bypass reality other than in function where they can supposedly contend and land hits on godlike creatures just by their high BAB being really really good at waving a stick. They can become good at tripping and tackling people but, other than Epic, don't have feats that explicitly make you hop mountains.

Hopping a mountain, yeah. You're looking at epic for that, ToB or no. Beating real world long and broad jump records while wearing 20 lbs of armor though, just keep your ranks in jump maxed and you'll get there incidentally by mid levels. If you actually decide you want to be good at jumping, then you really will be leaping around like jet li in crouching tiger by level 20.

Also as other people have suggested, having such great martial skill that you shoot out shadows and fireballs is another hypermundane or plain supernatural thing that may not mesh thematically for many.

Even in ToB, those are explicitly supernatural. If you don't want your non-caster doing it, just don't pick those maneuvers or ban those maneuvers/ disciplines rather than the whole book. One of the contributing factors to the general sword-mystic perception surrounding the book has got to be desert wind being the first discipline as you flip through it. The first discipline you see is the most magical of the 9 by a long, long ways.

Hell, the video you linked shows a dude with pretty explicitly supernatural powers. A minute in and he's literally sucking Vin Diesel's soul out. Not a great counterexample man.

That wasn't me. Like I said, most of desert wind and around half of shadow hand are explicitly supernatural. There's a little bit in devoted spirit that probably ought to be that isn't marked as supernatural. The rest of the maneuvers are all pretty clearly just martial prowess taken to an extreme.

[el minster]

Deasert Wind never seemed asian to me; more middle-eastern actually.

[Gusmo]

That and anime isn't strictly eastern fantasy. there has always been western fantasy animes out there, even a gritty cynical GoT-type one called Berserk. more recently, there has been Isekai everywhere thats just generic western fantasy settings like Overlord or That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime or Konosuba. Fairy Tail is shonen western fantasy, so is Black Clover. One Piece has some eastern elements to it like some samurai, but is mostly western pirates with superpowers unrelated to specific martial arts. why look at the most recent anime featured on crunchyroll there is: Ascendance Of A Bookworm, The 8th Son? Are you Kidding Me? and My Next Life As A Villainess that are all western fantasy in aesthetic.

so technically western fantasy is anime or at least anime is also western fantasy. therefore to get rid of anime would be to get rid of western fantasy entirely

On that note, I've always thought the use of the terms anime and manga were interesting cases of borrow words. Are they borrow words? What do the Japanese call Western comics and animation?

Deasert Wind never seemed asian to me; more middle-eastern actually.

Agree 100% about Desert Wind. The only one that strikes me as being Eastern is Tiger Claw I guess? Tigers are native to Asia.

[el minster]

Agree 100% about Desert Wind. The only one that strikes me as being Eastern is Tiger Claw I guess? Tigers are native to Asia.

Shadow hand is screaming ninja, but yeah tiger claw makes me think of India.

[Bohandas]

The most common reason I've found for DMs to ban things that aren't full-casters or abusive combos are:

* It's unfamiliar (and therefore presenting as either a lot of work to figure out, or fear that it will be overpowered)

* They have poor power-level assessment

Seconding these two possibilities and adding the third possibility that it may be thematically incompatible with whatever campaign they have planned

That and anime isn't strictly eastern fantasy. there has always been western fantasy animes out there, even a gritty cynical GoT-type one called Berserk. more recently, there has been Isekai everywhere thats just generic western fantasy settings like Overlord or That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime or Konosuba. Fairy Tail is shonen western fantasy, so is Black Clover. One Piece has some eastern elements to it like some samurai, but is mostly western pirates with superpowers unrelated to specific martial arts. why look at the most recent anime featured on crunchyroll there is: Ascendance Of A Bookworm, The 8th Son? Are you Kidding Me? and My Next Life As A Villainess that are all western fantasy in aesthetic.

Don't forget Seven Deadly Sins, which is chock full of characters from Arthurian legend, including several that are kind of obscure

[Crake]

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.

I always took it more as a nod toward the kill bill "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique", as it seems moderately similar to "Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervating Strike", even down to the same number of words in the name.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I always took it more as a nod toward the kill bill "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique", as it seems moderately similar to "Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervating Strike", even down to the same number of words in the name.

Yeah, I vaguely recall that one of the devs confirmed it was an intentional shoutout shortly after ToB came out, but obviously with Gleemax dead I can't go back and find a quote.

[upho]

I get it. There are a few PoW (Really, ToB can’t do the same things, PoW is stronger) powers that feel overpowered to me. There are black seraph maneuvers that do more than level x D6 AOE damage of an unresistable type that also does extra damage to good things and carry debuff riders. That’s going to make any but a highly optimized blaster caster feel terrible.

Oh yes. And even if disregarding the maneuvers which were tagged for errata long ago*, such as some Black Seraph ones, I think it's pretty obvious PoW's op-ceiling relative that of the most powerful 1PP PF classes is considerably higher than that of ToB relative the other most powerful 1PP 3.5 classes, most notably in terms of how challenging combat they can reliably handle. And I really mean considerably higher, as very few 1PP PF builds can solo ROFL curb-stomp enemies far above their level even remotely as well as high-op PoW builds can, especially not in higher levels. And AFAIK, none of the 1PP builds which are the closest to matching that combat power are based on full casters, and neither these 1PP builds or the PoW ones are dependent on high level spells. Whereas in 3.5, not only does high-op full casters dominate every aspect of the game, but the overall power range between the PC classes is also far greater than they are in a 1PP PF + DSP** game.

So when comparing the power of PoW with ToB, I think it's worth keeping in mind that for example a straight human fighter in PF can arguably be more useful against truly challenging combat opponents than a wizard even from 10th to 20th level. As an extreme example from a recent thread, I seriously doubt you'll find any PF full caster build with commonly allowed options able to one-shot several CR 20 balors before high levels, while a human fighter can do it at 9th. That same fighter could also and end up having a more than fair chance against many of the most dangerous 1PP creatures ever published (including CR 30 monsters), many of which would simply be beyond a wizard's abilities to fight effectively.

The bottom line is that just like when it comes to 1PP content, PoW requires a gentlemen's agreement on the acceptable power range for PCs before the game starts. Which is likely far less often needed to keep ToB in check in 3.5 games including full casters.

*Errata which unfortunately now seem highly unlikely to ever be completed and released by DSP due to the sad circumstances. But in short, AFAIK it would've addressed for example the over-tuned stuff found especially in Broken Blade (like Steel Flurry Strike), but also in Primal Fury (like Cornered Frenzy Strike) and Black Seraph (such as Bilious Strike).

**Excluding the Monster Classes series, as balance is explicitly less of a concern and the range varies quite wildly.

And with some TOB classes you can spam that every round and recover it as a swift or move.

Did you mean to write "PoW classes" here, not "TOB classes"?

If not, seems I've missed/forgotten some important possibilities in ToB (other than d2 crusader shenanigans)...

It’s not actually stronger than common tier 1 tricks. Planar binding, or wild shaping into an aberration that casts from a different plane, or whipping up a legion of commanded Incorporeal undead. But if your group bans or gentlemen’s agreements those or hasn’t discovered them It feels very strong.

When it comes to combat, I'd actually say PoW can be stronger than any common T1 tricks in PF. For example, AFAIK there are no forms of planar binding, wild shaping or legions of undead that will notably improve a caster's chances against say Cthulhu, not even at 20th level. But please tell me if I'm missing/forgetting something here.

(But yeah, also high-op fighter 20 would probably need less than 30 seconds of prep to have a very good chance of turning Cthulhu into fine red mist or beating him dazed and/or scared into uselessness before he can act. And neither such a high-op fighter or PoW build is necessarily any less capable in combat against multiple foes.)

My group started out stalker (DSP), arcanist, magus, rogue/cleric and is now stalker(DSP), vizier (DSP), dragon (DSP), rogue/cleric/warlord (DSP). And we rock combats brutally.

We aren’t actually stronger than a party with T1s. We can’t teleport or scry or stuff like that. And my group wasn’t abusing the more abusable spells anyway. In our case it plays great. It’s like a whole new game and whenever a new character comes in we are all “wow what’s this thing going to do”. But we really are at the very top edge of Tier 3 and it would be hard to enter at this point as anything other than DSP or an optimized full caster.

Heh, yeah, I have very similar experiences.

OT, but I simply have to ask: rogue/cleric/warlord? What the...?

This surely looks pretty darn suspicious. You must keep this player under close watch, Gnaeus! They're obviously reaching for some very smelly cheese, trying to distract everyone with that ridiculous class combo...

Seriously though, I gotta hear how that build works!

They're not. They're mostly in the completes, OA, and PHB2.

Yay! My memory actually still works sometimes!

I don't know PF so I can't speak to any of its material.

Ah, I should've made it more clear that last part was primarily addressing anyone who believes introducing ToB would require non-ToB martials to be "ToB-ified" to avoid becoming redundant, reminding them that there are already easily backported rules for this.

As a sidenote, in this particular case, I'm pretty certain you'd merely need to briefly check out the material to be able to speak of it as backported to 3.5 (with the disciplines exchanged for suitable ToB ones). With the potential minor exception of deciding on how to deal with a few replaced class features which don't exist in 3.5, it should be really simple.

You misunderstand. The PhD comment was for having the kind of deep, extensive knowledge to do -all- of what ToB offers. To do any of it requires far less knowledge and the fairly common sources I mentioned above.

Yes, and my point was that it nevertheless obviously requires quite a bit more knowledge to build a martial PC of a certain capability without ToB than to build a martial PC with the same capability with ToB. Or more precisely: when Average Joe builds a martial PC based on a ToB class, that PC is highly likely to be noticeably stronger than the martial PC Joe would've built in a game which doesn't allow ToB.

Again, in a large majority of games, I believe it doesn't really matter whether it's actually possible to build martial PCs using non-ToB sources which are just as strong as ToB builds, because if the players can't or won't make use of that possibility, the higher floor of the ToB classes also means the builds based on them are going to be stronger. IOW, in most games, the height of a martial class' floor has a major impact on the strength of the PCs based on that class, while the height of the class' ceiling has virtually no impact at all.

Btw, I believe a similar relationship exists between the PF fighter and the most similar PoW classes: the fighter's ceiling isn't that much lower, but I'm fairly certain a vast majority of the builds based on the PoW classes which are actually played are nevertheless very clearly more powerful, because the floors of those classes are significantly higher than that of the fighter.

Those comments I made above on damage dealing; the comparison that I made was with sources restricted to core + ToB. The more splat you add, the harder it gets for ToB to keep up. The major advantage of ToB over not-ToB is in that the former guarantees you have more options than just the bog-standard ones available to all characters.
/snip/
Once you have -any- means of swift action movement or pounce, the difference in damage dealing capability favors the full attack.
/snip/
The comparison between crusader and paladin is just laughable in anything -but- a core+ToB game though. With just complete champion and the spell compendium the paladin surges so far ahead that it's ridiculous.

While what you say here are undoubtedly undeniable facts, I again question the relevance. Because AFAICT, these comparisons all assume that the PC uses the strongest options found in the allowed sources, while I strongly suspect that the opposite assumption would be about close to how a vast majority of PCs are built in reality.

In detail, assuming we were actually able to examine all the martial PCs which have ever been played in a game including the relevant sources, I'm certain that an exceedingly small proportion of those PCs had any of for example the following options/abilities, even if we limit the selection only to those builds which would have the most to gain from one of them (and even if those builds actually already met the most important/demanding prereqs, such as levels in a specific class):

• Swift action movement (especially not of any distance great enough to have much impact)
• Pounce
• Battle Blessing
• Great Throw
• Combat Brute

Now special attacks are another matter. You actually have to go looking for those. While anyone can trip a foe, you have to spend resources to be able to do damage with it and move your foe from his space; OA's great throw or setting sun's mighty throw. Being able to sunder or disarm a foe's weapon and attack them in the same move; the combat brute tactical feat's sundering cleave maneuver or iron heart's disarming strike. As a martial adept you're more likely to see several of these than anything but a fighter.

Yes, and the "actually have to go looking"-bit is key here, because we can also pretty safely assume that most players don't really know what to look for, much less where to find it and to access it.

In contrast, a player building a PC based on a ToB class is vastly more likely to find strong appropriate options, as a large majority of them are in the very same book or the PHB, and in the case of maneuvers, can often be easily accessed in a way the player is likely to consider "at no cost". ("Opportunity cost" is a difficult concept for most people, or at least it's difficult for them to make reasonable estimations of it in 3.5 without considerable system mastery.)

So, to make your comparisons between ToB builds and martial builds based on other classes relevant, you should probably assume that the former typically have few truly sub-par options, while the latter typically have few of the stronger options available to them and many of the weaker ones (think an average usefulness ranging from say Weapon Specialization to Spring Attack).

People suck at complex math and detailed comparison.

Definitely. And they also suck at PO (in many cases likely for much the same reasons)...

[Max Caysey]

A DM of mine, for example, hated ToB with a passion. He believed that it was full of broken classes that essentially replaced the core martials (the latter part is true, of course). Said DM, of course, thought that monks are good mage-killers, that Dwarven Defender is a great PrC, that factotums are overpowered, that Phantasmal Killer is a strong spell, and actively encouraged the new player who had made a sorceress to pick both Fireball and Lightning Bolt.

So your DM could be among those who think ToB was a book full of broken options. Or he could just dislike long weird names for attacking moves or anime (and while I dislike the anime culture, european swordsmanship manuals actually have plenty of weird names for moves, so it goes both ways).

So, so many DMs are like that. I was like that for many years... basically until I started coming here to this forum. First then did I actually understand what was powerful and what was not. I remember so vividly having discussions about how powerful the monk was... man were we wrong!

[Manyasone]

...Hopping a mountain, yeah. You're looking at epic for that, ToB or no. Beating real world long and broad jump records while wearing 20 lbs of armor though, just keep your ranks in jump maxed and you'll get there incidentally by mid levels. If you actually decide you want to be good at jumping, then you really will be leaping around like jet li in crouching tiger by level 20...

Chow Yun-fat I believe, dear sir

[Tvtyrant]

Oh yes. And even if disregarding the maneuvers which were tagged for errata long ago*, such as some Black Seraph ones, I think it's pretty obvious PoW's op-ceiling relative that of the most powerful 1PP PF classes is considerably higher than that of ToB relative the other most powerful 1PP 3.5 classes, most notably in terms of how challenging combat they can reliably handle. And I really mean considerably higher, as very few 1PP PF builds can solo ROFL curb-stomp enemies far above their level even remotely as well as high-op PoW builds can, especially not in higher levels. And AFAIK, none of the 1PP builds which are the closest to matching that combat power are based on full casters, and neither these 1PP builds or the PoW ones are dependent on high level spells. Whereas in 3.5, not only does high-op full casters dominate every aspect of the game, but the overall power range between the PC classes is also far greater than they are in a 1PP PF + DSP** game.

So when comparing the power of PoW with ToB, I think it's worth keeping in mind that for example a straight human fighter in PF can arguably be more useful against truly challenging combat opponents than a wizard even from 10th to 20th level. As an extreme example from a recent thread, I seriously doubt you'll find any PF full caster build with commonly allowed options able to one-shot several CR 20 balors before high levels, while a human fighter can do it at 9th. That same fighter could also and end up having a more than fair chance against many of the most dangerous 1PP creatures ever published (including CR 30 monsters), many of which would simply be beyond a wizard's abilities to fight effectively.

The bottom line is that just like when it comes to 1PP content, PoW requires a gentlemen's agreement on the acceptable power range for PCs before the game starts. Which is likely far less often needed to keep ToB in check in 3.5 games including full casters.

*Errata which unfortunately now seem highly unlikely to ever be completed and released by DSP due to the sad circumstances. But in short, AFAIK it would've addressed for example the over-tuned stuff found especially in Broken Blade (like Steel Flurry Strike), but also in Primal Fury (like Cornered Frenzy Strike) and Black Seraph (such as Bilious Strike).

**Excluding the Monster Classes series, as balance is explicitly less of a concern and the range varies quite wildly.

Did you mean to write "PoW classes" here, not "TOB classes"?

If not, seems I've missed/forgotten some important possibilities in ToB (other than d2 crusader shenanigans)...

When it comes to combat, I'd actually say PoW can be stronger than any common T1 tricks in PF. For example, AFAIK there are no forms of planar binding, wild shaping or legions of undead that will notably improve a caster's chances against say Cthulhu, not even at 20th level. But please tell me if I'm missing/forgetting something here.

(But yeah, also high-op fighter 20 would probably need less than 30 seconds of prep to have a very good chance of turning Cthulhu into fine red mist or beating him dazed and/or scared into uselessness before he can act. And neither such a high-op fighter or PoW build is necessarily any less capable in combat against multiple foes.)

Heh, yeah, I have very similar experiences.

OT, but I simply have to ask: rogue/cleric/warlord? What the...?

This surely looks pretty darn suspicious. You must keep this player under close watch, Gnaeus! They're obviously reaching for some very smelly cheese, trying to distract everyone with that ridiculous class combo...

Seriously though, I gotta hear how that build works!

Yay! My memory actually still works sometimes!


Ah, I should've made it more clear that last part was primarily addressing anyone who believes introducing ToB would require non-ToB martials to be "ToB-ified" to avoid becoming redundant, reminding them that there are already easily backported rules for this.

As a sidenote, in this particular case, I'm pretty certain you'd merely need to briefly check out the material to be able to speak of it as backported to 3.5 (with the disciplines exchanged for suitable ToB ones). With the potential minor exception of deciding on how to deal with a few replaced class features which don't exist in 3.5, it should be really simple.

Yes, and my point was that it nevertheless obviously requires quite a bit more knowledge to build a martial PC of a certain capability without ToB than to build a martial PC with the same capability with ToB. Or more precisely: when Average Joe builds a martial PC based on a ToB class, that PC is highly likely to be noticeably stronger than the martial PC Joe would've built in a game which doesn't allow ToB.

Again, in a large majority of games, I believe it doesn't really matter whether it's actually possible to build martial PCs using non-ToB sources which are just as strong as ToB builds, because if the players can't or won't make use of that possibility, the higher floor of the ToB classes also means the builds based on them are going to be stronger. IOW, in most games, the height of a martial class' floor has a major impact on the strength of the PCs based on that class, while the height of the class' ceiling has virtually no impact at all.

Btw, I believe a similar relationship exists between the PF fighter and the most similar PoW classes: the fighter's ceiling isn't that much lower, but I'm fairly certain a vast majority of the builds based on the PoW classes which are actually played are nevertheless very clearly more powerful, because the floors of those classes are significantly higher than that of the fighter.

While what you say here are undoubtedly undeniable facts, I again question the relevance. Because AFAICT, these comparisons all assume that the PC uses the strongest options found in the allowed sources, while I strongly suspect that the opposite assumption would be about close to how a vast majority of PCs are built in reality.

In detail, assuming we were actually able to examine all the martial PCs which have ever been played in a game including the relevant sources, I'm certain that an exceedingly small proportion of those PCs had any of for example the following options/abilities, even if we limit the selection only to those builds which would have the most to gain from one of them (and even if those builds actually already met the most important/demanding prereqs, such as levels in a specific class):

• Swift action movement (especially not of any distance great enough to have much impact)
• Pounce
• Battle Blessing
• Great Throw
• Combat Brute

Yes, and the "actually have to go looking"-bit is key here, because we can also pretty safely assume that most players don't really know what to look for, much less where to find it and to access it.

In contrast, a player building a PC based on a ToB class is vastly more likely to find strong appropriate options, as a large majority of them are in the very same book or the PHB, and in the case of maneuvers, can often be easily accessed in a way the player is likely to consider "at no cost". ("Opportunity cost" is a difficult concept for most people, or at least it's difficult for them to make reasonable estimations of it in 3.5 without considerable system mastery.)

So, to make your comparisons between ToB builds and martial builds based on other classes relevant, you should probably assume that the former typically have few truly sub-par options, while the latter typically have few of the stronger options available to them and many of the weaker ones (think an average usefulness ranging from say Weapon Specialization to Spring Attack).

Definitely. And they also suck at PO (in many cases likely for much the same reasons)...

This is a very good point. I have been in groups where PA on a two hander was above the curve for optimization on a fighter, and something like Shock Trooper would be considered impossible levels of cheese. This was when the edition was new and we were teens, but people have bad instincts when it comes to optimization.

[el minster]

This is a very good point. I have been in groups where PA on a two hander was above the curve for optimization on a fighter, and something like Shock Trooper would be considered impossible levels of cheese. This was when the edition was new and we were teens, but people have bad instincts when it comes to optimization.

They really do.

[Gusmo]

This is a very good point. I have been in groups where PA on a two hander was above the curve for optimization on a fighter, and something like Shock Trooper would be considered impossible levels of cheese. This was when the edition was new and we were teens, but people have bad instincts when it comes to optimization.

I have also been in this exact same scenario. My overpowered build was a core-only barbarian with power attack and a greatsword.

[Lord Raziere]

On that note, I've always thought the use of the terms anime and manga were interesting cases of borrow words. Are they borrow words? What do the Japanese call Western comics and animation?

I dunno, what do they call it, to the googles!

....apparently even in japan the terms "anime" and "manga" have a connotation of when you say it your talking things made in japan. their terms for western stuff is アニメーション (animeeshon) and コミック (komikku) or アメコミ (amekomi or American comics).

but your right, anime and manga are loan words, but as they got exported, anime and manga came to mean stuff specifically from japan, the definition narrowed over time from just being words for the same thing to be specific about this or that. whether this is because of the fans making that distinction or the companies doing that, is unknown.

[Zanos]

Oh I could definitely write paragraphs criticizing that movie too. I enjoy it, but it's very flawed.

Anyway, is the problem shadows and fire regardless of whether it's anime themed? This makes more sense if you're just banning all fire and shadow themed martial stuff, anime themed or otherwise. Similar to how people don't want gunpowder, whether it relates to gunslinger Western tropes or swashbuckling tropes, but banning only one would likely be incoherent. However, right now ToB seems to be occupying this weird place where people are saying they don't want the anime fire and shadows (and perhaps more elements, but I'll stick with fire and shadows as being all inclusive for the sake of argument), even though, pages into this thread, and in countless prior threads, nobody has ever laid out anything anything resembling a convincing case that the fire and shadow stuff is intrinsically anime. You can find all of the same stuff in so many other fantasy genres that I find the anime accusations to be a fad that's long overdue for retirement.

I mean if you find anime to be an 'accusation' that's kind of the issue here, isn't it? You probably aren't to be able to argue with people who think semi-mystical martial arts have an Eastern flavor, because flavor is subjective. Personally I feel that training real hard until you can punch fire is a pretty Eastern theme, even if it's been adopted by things that are made in the West. The fact that I consider the swordsage 'anime' isn't bad in all contexts, just in the context of the flavor of certain settings.

[Telok]

This is a very good point. I have been in groups where PA on a two hander was above the curve for optimization on a fighter, and something like Shock Trooper would be considered impossible levels of cheese. This was when the edition was new and we were teens, but people have bad instincts when it comes to optimization.

Seriously. Although I think my group caught on about 6 months after 3e came out. Just the practice of having run ad&d wizards and clerics made my first sorcerer have more hp than the monk at 10th level just by having 16+4item con. Then 3.5 came out right after I started spamming large elementals and it made the twf half-celestial fighter lose the crit range stacking on his rapiers. Circle kick and haste wasn't enough for the monk to keep up either.

[Mordaedil]

That and anime isn't strictly eastern fantasy. there has always been western fantasy animes out there, even a gritty cynical GoT-type one called Berserk. more recently, there has been Isekai everywhere thats just generic western fantasy settings like Overlord or That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime or Konosuba. Fairy Tail is shonen western fantasy, so is Black Clover. One Piece has some eastern elements to it like some samurai, but is mostly western pirates with superpowers unrelated to specific martial arts. why look at the most recent anime featured on crunchyroll there is: Ascendance Of A Bookworm, The 8th Son? Are you Kidding Me? and My Next Life As A Villainess that are all western fantasy in aesthetic.

so technically western fantasy is anime or at least anime is also western fantasy. therefore to get rid of anime would be to get rid of western fantasy entirely

I do find that a lot of people using that excuse of banning things because of anime have seen exactly two anime (used to be one, the first one) and they are ninja scroll and Naruto.

At least, that seems to be my impression for why people have the knee-jerk reaction. Even in the AD&D Oriental Adventures though, Gary Gygax himself engages in some of that grandstanding attitude towards eastern elements in his games by kinda soft-mocking martial arts movies which were growing in popularity at the time. I think that was originally part of why the monk class was featured in early as well.

[AntiAuthority]

That and anime isn't strictly eastern fantasy. there has always been western fantasy animes out there, even a gritty cynical GoT-type one called Berserk. more recently, there has been Isekai everywhere thats just generic western fantasy settings like Overlord or That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime or Konosuba. Fairy Tail is shonen western fantasy, so is Black Clover. One Piece has some eastern elements to it like some samurai, but is mostly western pirates with superpowers unrelated to specific martial arts. why look at the most recent anime featured on crunchyroll there is: Ascendance Of A Bookworm, The 8th Son? Are you Kidding Me? and My Next Life As A Villainess that are all western fantasy in aesthetic.

so technically western fantasy is anime or at least anime is also western fantasy. therefore to get rid of anime would be to get rid of western fantasy entirely

I'm just going to go ahead and add onto what you said by leaving this and this here. Going by the two links, even Western mythology has anime-esque stuff going on in it.

As for the list (and this is including video games)... Final Fantasy 1, most Dragon Quest games, Goblin Slayer, Danmachi, Slayers, Record of Lodoss Wars, Fire Emblem, Rising of the Shield Hero and the Legend of Zelda all take place in Western medieval-esque settings. Of note, some of these were basically Lord of the Rings and D&D video games and anime (the spells in FF1 were more or less directly lifted from older D&D and Goblin Slayer is heavily implied to be a D&D 5E game in-universe.)

Besides... Anime's a medium, not a genre lol. It'd be like saying something is too cinematic or too picturesque, a movie isn't a genre anymore than a picture is. The stuff you'd see in Shonen battle anime is no different from the type of stuff you'd see in mythologies (being impossibly skilled/fast/strong/whatever enough to keep pace with/defeat armies/monsters/gods/concepts/celestial bodies etc.), they're just being told in an updated medium. (For sake of reference, Berserk has Dragon Slayer while Final Fantasy 7 has the Buster Sword, both being impossibly heavy weapons for normal humans to wield... But Game of Thrones has an incredibly heavy warhammer that Ned Stark couldn't wield, Gilgamesh had 180 pound throwing daggers and Osla Big Knife had a sword large enough for armies to use as a bridge... This isn't even getting into the army-slaying mountaintop-cleaving rainbow-trail-leaving sword Caladbolg.)

[Lord Raziere]

I do find that a lot of people using that excuse of banning things because of anime have seen exactly two anime (used to be one, the first one) and they are ninja scroll and Naruto.

At least, that seems to be my impression for why people have the knee-jerk reaction. Even in the AD&D Oriental Adventures though, Gary Gygax himself engages in some of that grandstanding attitude towards eastern elements in his games by kinda soft-mocking martial arts movies which were growing in popularity at the time. I think that was originally part of why the monk class was featured in early as well.

Well I haven't seen ninja scroll, but I'm a big Naruto fan and I find people disliking TOB based on Naruto is ironic. because if someone's problem with that kind of anime nonsense is that you achieve all your magic through hard work or whatever- Naruto is perhaps the worst anime to level that criticism at, because among anime fans its widely derided for not living up to its own aesop of hard work over talent. the main character has a big magic fox sealed in him that he uses to win....at least most of his fights by berserking or tapping into it, power which was given to him by super-powerful dead father who in contrast DID actually achieve all he did through hard work, but then died basically giving his son incredible power at birth (though has downsides that I won't get into here). the other characters that emphasize the kind of hard work martial stuff that would fit ToB are Rock Lee and Might Guy, who both break their bodies going up against people wielding the closest thing to shards of divinity their world has. (they do get mad props for doing so however because those flashes of hard work bloodying the super-hax guys noses are awesome) followed by those hax guys being defeated by Naruto's hax.

and then Boruto happened, who is Naruto's son, who randomly inherits eye hax and then decides to use tech to cast any spell he wants to pass the ninja exam/olympics everyone goes to, Naruto disqualifies him for cheating when its not much different from a bloodline that can also copy any spell for the user so they can use it, a member of which is allowed to compete in the same thing he is. considering Naruto got to where he is today by having a hax of his own its kinda hypocritical (but then again one of Naruto's themes is teamwork, so I guess teamwork with a magical giant fox counts as teamwork and not cheating for some reason, so that stupid shinobi gauntlet would be okay if it just had an artificial intelligence?) and the most powerful people in Boruto and Naruto are all the guys who leverage and optimize their hax bloodline/inheritance abilities to their utmost while using the naruto equivalent of illusions, conjurations and evocations aside from the rare few who use the closest thing to druid magic, and if you screw that magic up you turn to stone.

but yeah, its ironic that Naruto would be associated with ToB, as most of its nonsense is technically arcane or druid magic from a DnD perspective.

As for Gygax- well thats just another reason I'll add to why I personally don't particularly value or listen to his viewpoint: the age of it is showing, and it has not aged well.

Besides... Anime's a medium, not a genre lol. It'd be like saying something is too cinematic or too picturesque, a movie isn't a genre anymore than a picture is. The stuff you'd see in Shonen battle anime is no different from the type of stuff you'd see in mythologies (being impossibly skilled/fast/strong/whatever enough to keep pace with/defeat armies/monsters/gods/concepts/celestial bodies etc.), they're just being told in an updated medium. (For sake of reference, Berserk has Dragon Slayer while Final Fantasy 7 has the Buster Sword, both being impossibly heavy weapons for normal humans to wield... But Game of Thrones has an incredibly heavy warhammer that Ned Stark couldn't wield, Gilgamesh had 60 pound throwing daggers and Osla Big Knife had a sword large enough for armies to use as a bridge... This isn't even getting into the army-slaying mountaintop-cleaving rainbow-trail-leaving sword Caladbolg.)

I mean yeah, basically.

when are going to get Ragnarok the anime? or Greek Gods Vs. Titans the anime? we need more anime to just retell old myths and be completely literal about their feats. show the world how freaking insane old myths were and that weren't just dark fairy tales.

[Rater202]

[QUOTE=Lord Raziere;24558068Naruto is perhaps the worst anime to level that criticism at, because among anime fans its widely derided for not living up to its own aesop of hard work over talent.[/QUOTE]

That was never an Aesop. That was people seeing something that wasn't there becuase they conflated the hangups of two different characters: Lee's philosophy that even someone with no talent can become great if they work hard enough contrasted against Neji's philosophy that your entire life is predetermined at birth: If you have no talent then you'll never amount to anything.

Let's see how that was resolved: Neji lost a fight that he was convinced he was destined to win(Becuase Nartuo has little natural talent) becuase Naruto learned how to use the Nine-Tail's power to supplement his own(was not an automatic thing) and that was something that Neji could never see coming...

...And Kakashi points out that only a Genius could have achieved the same level of skill with the Eight Inner Gates that Lee had achieved t his age.

There is no "Genius/HArd Work Dictonomy." It's a series of different kinds of genius achieving greatness with different degrees of hard work.

On Naruto: The Nine-Tailed Fox was a liability: Having that much raw power as a side effect of the Fox's power made it harder to control his chakra(See the clone Jutsu: Naruto produces too much energy, ends up not using enough, and the excess gets wasted) and he could only use it when his life was in danger, when he was too angry o function, or when he was out of his own power... And it hurt him to use it. And tended to make him go on a murderous ramage.

Naruto was only able to benefit from the Nine-Tails power four years after learning it was in him after he independently gained enough power to kick it's ass. Which he did by working his ass off. Worked his ass off in the Land of Waves to build up chakra control tree walking. Worked his as of to learn the summoning Jutsu. Then he spent three years learning the basics he failed to learn in the academy. Spent the equivalent of anywhere between 80s and 300 years practicing a single relatively basic technique until he completely mastered it.

Naruto works hard for his power-ups. It's just, people ignore the Downsides of the Nine-Tails and have a narrow-minded view that Lee's intense, body breaking workouts must be the only kind of hard work there is.

(Honestly, Lee would probably be stronger if he worked out slightly less. Keeping going till your body breaks is going to drastically reduce the returns you get from it.)

[Nifft]

You know...

Ninja Scroll is the story of a dude with a sword killing a bunch of villains with weird powers, and the conflict at its root is about a chest full of gold.

It's pretty darn close to D&D for a cartoon not actually based on D&D.

[AvatarVecna]

ToB is

1) A new subsystem

2) that gives fighters nice things

3) and feels waaaaaaaaay too anime

None of the above are problems, unless you're an uncultured anti-mundanes bigot afraid of change.

[Lord Raziere]

*cut for length*
Naruto works hard for his power-ups. It's just, people ignore the Downsides of the Nine-Tails and have a narrow-minded view that Lee's intense, body breaking workouts must be the only kind of hard work there is.

(Honestly, Lee would probably be stronger if he worked out slightly less. Keeping going till your body breaks is going to drastically reduce the returns you get from it.)

1. cool, thanks for making me like Naruto even more.

2. if you want to see a naruto fan fic point that Rock Lee thought there out and do something with it, I recommend Yet Again With a Little Extra Help its bonkers in all the right ways.

3. but to steer the conversation away from the naruto misconception, I'm reading the disciplines and the classes within and I honestly do not see how one could connected Naruto abilities with these. like, these disciplines can't even emulate half the stuff a naruto ninja can do. in fact I'd say that looking to most modern anime even shonen battle ones for inspiration for these disciplines, would be a little misguided. Devoted Spirit could work for the animes where your strength of virtue matters more than your actual skill, and Diamond Mind seems to be the Iaijutsu discipline, but Naruto doesn't do the latter and the only time you can argue the former with Devoted Spirit is when the Rasengan is pulled out...

but overall I wouldn't say ToB is emulating anime, because if anything its a little too grounded in actual fighting styles, and would say its more accurately emulating wuxia. which is a chinese genre, not a japanese one. you can still say its "anime", but its like confusing it with shonen anime's twin chinese literary cousin. I mean I get why you'd mistake one for the other they have a lot of similar elements, but they're technically not the same. I won't go into the differences unless people ask.

(and even in the ToB itself references things like final fantasy, soul caliber, kill bill, and the Matrix, none of which are anime, its says japanese anime is apart of it, but so is hong kong action movies and popular video games, so....anime is far from the only influence ToB seems to have. I get the feeling that things like Jade Empire and Thunderbolt Fantasy are better sources of inspiration than Naruto or Bleach for ToB)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yes, and my point was that it nevertheless obviously requires quite a bit more knowledge to build a martial PC of a certain capability without ToB than to build a martial PC with the same capability with ToB. Or more precisely: when Average Joe builds a martial PC based on a ToB class, that PC is highly likely to be noticeably stronger than the martial PC Joe would've built in a game which doesn't allow ToB.

Not really. A bit but not quite a bit. While there's some truth to Average Joe (calling him AJ now) having an easier time with making an effective martial adept than an equivalent non-adept warrior, the gap is unlikely to be all that big. The biggest factor will almost certainly be the one book vs three to four books for the former vs the latter. AJ is -very- likely to stop at complete warrior or maybe OA and not bother to look through the other two or three needed to make an equivalent warrior to what he could make with most martial adept builds that draw almost entirely from ToB.

It's easy to forget that the crusader and warlbade barely get a dozen maneuvers known.

AJ will almost certainly spend a good chunk of his warblade maneuvers known on damage boosters rather than options to harry the enemy instead of harm him. With just a -little- more effort, he could make a fighter that does just as much damage and has as many or near as many options to not just hit the enemy with his pointed stick again.

The paladin is every bit the crusader's equal with just the PHB. Damage output is comparable and even the anemic list in the PHB gives the paladin more options than the crusader will ever get.

If the swordage comparison has to be the monk... maybe tattooed monk or drunken master looks kind of okay beside it?

Again, in a large majority of games, I believe it doesn't really matter whether it's actually possible to build martial PCs using non-ToB sources which are just as strong as ToB builds, because if the players can't or won't make use of that possibility, the higher floor of the ToB classes also means the builds based on them are going to be stronger. IOW, in most games, the height of a martial class' floor has a major impact on the strength of the PCs based on that class, while the height of the class' ceiling has virtually no impact at all.

I need to clarify again. When I did the comparisons between the martial adepts and their PHB counterparts, the comparison was made to system minimum expectations; start with a 15 in strenght, pick up simple +x to Y bonus gear in accordance with the MIC guidelines, etc. That's a bit higher than the floor for either side of the comparison but nowhere even close to the ceiling. You have to be making actively detrimental build decisions to dip lower.

It wouldn't have been a terribly useful comparison if it had been conducted right at the floor or anywhere near the ceiling.

As for builds based around martial adepts, the fact that initiating actively rewards sticking with it works against low-op builds pulling ahead of non-adept builds. If you started on fighter and are going through several base and prestige classes, you don't really care about you fighter level. You cared about the feats and the BAB that don't rely on whatever else your character might be. If you're a martial adept and you're not taking more levels in the same class or one of the book's prestige classes (other than bloodstorm blade) then you're losing IL and the ability to reach the highest level maneuvers. You're also defacto reducing the comparative effectieness between your maneuvers and your full attack.

Again, ToB gives the -appearance- of being more than its competition without actually exceeding it much in substance, if at all.

While what you say here are undoubtedly undeniable facts, I again question the relevance. Because AFAICT, these comparisons all assume that the PC uses the strongest options found in the allowed sources, while I strongly suspect that the opposite assumption would be about close to how a vast majority of PCs are built in reality.

As I said above, this is not the case. They were made assuming minimal competence. As long as you're not making choices that actually make either character worse at their job and pulling them toward their floors, it should hold.

In detail, assuming we were actually able to examine all the martial PCs which have ever been played in a game including the relevant sources, I'm certain that an exceedingly small proportion of those PCs had any of for example the following options/abilities, even if we limit the selection only to those builds which would have the most to gain from one of them (and even if those builds actually already met the most important/demanding prereqs, such as levels in a specific class):

• Swift action movement (especially not of any distance great enough to have much impact)
• Pounce
• Battle Blessing
• Great Throw
• Combat Brute

Yes, and the "actually have to go looking"-bit is key here, because we can also pretty safely assume that most players don't really know what to look for, much less where to find it and to access it.

Great throw, I've got to give you. The actual feat text ended up in the errata file, although it is mentioned in the feat table.

Pounce? Maybe. Complete Champion was a late addition to the game. It's such an obviously good choice for a barbarian though that I have considered restricting it in my own games. When you have an array of options and one stands head-and-shoulders above the competition like that, it's difficult to ignore. Before that, with the few means of acquiring it, yeah, that'd be fairly rare.

Combat Brute? Hold up. Complete Warrior was pretty close to the 3.5 changeover and it's a really obvious choice for a character that fits its nominal description both from prerequisites and what it does. I doubt it's all that rare.

Battle Blessing could go either way. It's practically the paladin's "natural spell" for function but, again, CC was a late entry.

Swift movement still isn't easy to come by other than a couple MIC items for short range. You're probably right about that one.


It is worth noting, perhaps, that what's possible -is- a strong point against the "overpowered" accusation if you're willing and able to show the comparisons. At least IMO.

In contrast, a player building a PC based on a ToB class is vastly more likely to find strong appropriate options, as a large majority of them are in the very same book or the PHB, and in the case of maneuvers, can often be easily accessed in a way the player is likely to consider "at no cost". ("Opportunity cost" is a difficult concept for most people, or at least it's difficult for them to make reasonable estimations of it in 3.5 without considerable system mastery.)

As long as they stick to the martial adept, sure. ToB arguably punishes martial adepts for multiclassing non-adept classes as much as it rewards non-adepts for taking a dip. It's not as rough as a spellcaster in that regard but still moreso than any non-adept warrior class.

Definitely. And they also suck at PO (in many cases likely for much the same reasons)...

Lack of attention to detail and even greater lack of give-a-damn?

[Cliff Sedge]

I have two questions:

1. Why can't a valid reason be "because the DM just doesn't want it?"
Isn't the game master, like, in charge of setting those sorts of details for the particular campaign?

2. Why are the vast majority of replies to questions like these always greedy powergamers who try to bully game masters into using their pet supplement or "homebrew I found on the Internet" and call them stupid or inexperienced if they don't allow it?

[JNAProductions]

I have two questions:

1. Why can't a valid reason be "because the DM just doesn't want it?"
Isn't the game master, like, in charge of setting those sorts of details for the particular campaign?

2. Why are the vast majority of replies to questions like these always greedy powergamers who try to bully game masters into using their pet supplement or "homebrew I found on the Internet" and call them stupid or inexperienced if they don't allow it?

1) It's a valid reason, but also a reason that can easily turn away players. Arbitrarily banning things isn't a good image to have. And usually, you can be more specific than that, which often leads to it being revealed that the reasoning behind not using it is flawed.

2) We must be reading different threads, because you're describing an enormous jerk. I've not been seeing that in this thread.

[Thunder999]

Not liking something isn't a real reason anyway, the real reason is whatever causes them to dislike it, and by saying it's because they don't like it rather than stating the real reason it rather implies that it's probably not a particularly good or compelling one.

[Cygnia]

Not liking something is a perfectly valid reason. It doesn't need to be a thesis defending the dislike.