epic spellcasting for martial initiators: brainstorm

[Stycotl]

ok, epic spellcasting feat, modified to work with sublime maneuvers and stances.

for the sake of my desire to be lazy, i'm just gonna copy from the other thread. this started out as a query to see if anyone had doen this yet. i am still wondering if anyone has done it yet, so if you know of a similar project, post the link please.

so. any thoughts as to epic sublime maneuvers? with maneuvers levelled 1-9, it would work off of pretty much the same system. i am just trying to figure out what would be the equivalent of know (arcane). there was the old know (warfare) or (strategy) or (siegecraft) or whatever it was called.

i am thinking along the lines of the currently srd-endorsed epic magic system. i know a lot of people have their own variants because of the brokenness of epic spellcasting, but for the sake of simplicity, i'm not looking along those lines.

note: yes, yes, we have already agreed that the epic spellcasting system (srd) is broken, and as is needs to be fixed. however, that being said, we are still using a variant of the same system for this project. those who have better systems in mind, feel free to post them here. we can run multiple variants on the same thread, or start another thread with linky goodness. i would like others' input, but if your input consists in its entirety of the brokenness of the current system, then you are just echoing pointless info. if you're the player, true. it's broken. nothing you can do about it. if you're the dm, it's only as broken as you let it be. so moot point.

[Stycotl]

originally posted by douglas:

Despite the parallel of Spellcraft and Martial Lore for identifying spells and maneuvers, I think I'd have Martial Lore replace the knowledge skill and use discipline key skills in place of Spellcraft. Discipline key skills match fairly well with Spellcraft as being the skill involved in actually doing things, while Martial Lore and Knowledge (Arcana) are about background knowledge. So, to develop (and maybe use) a Desert Wind epic maneuver, you'd have to make a Tumble check. Your ranks in Martial Lore would determine your number of epic maneuvers readied. Epic maneuvers that are combinations of different schools with different key skills could pick one as the main school involved, use the lowest skill modifier, or use the highest, whichever you think works best. I'd suggest going with the lowest key skill for involved disciplines to keep people from cherry-picking seeds for disciplines they don't use much and adding them on to something in their specialist school.

[Stycotl]

originally posted by stycotl:

you have some cool ideas here. i had figured it kind of the other way around, that spellcraft (and martial lore) were the equivalent to applicable knowledge of the art, while know (arcane) (and whatever martial variant we decide on) represented the actual knowledge, rote, memory, what-have-you of the art.

looking at it with your example makes more sense, and offers an easier route to making a working system.

but, the spellcraft equiv still offers a problem. i am intrigued by the idea of using discipline skills as base skills for an epic maneuver, and therefore determining epic seeds.

but, i am thinking that this will still lead to frustration and confusion, and will impede the fluidity of a seed-system. while epic spellcasting is broken, it is still fluid, and easy to manipulate and understand. i think basing this off of skills is possibly the wrong way to go.

this is just off the top of my head, but i am imagining something like this for seeds:

Desert Wind (Seed)
-energy (or evocate, blast, or whatever you want to call the sub-seed)
-movement (to include tumbling, flight, skirmish effects, etc)

Shadow Hand (Seed)
-stealth (to include concealment, hide-n'-plain-sight, etc)
-shadow (to include negative energy damage, etc)
-precision (to include sneak attack, nonmystical ability damage, etc)

White Raven (Seed)
-movement (to include charging, etc)
-morale (to include inspiring allies)

Diamond Mind (Seed)
-precision (to include touch attacks, masive damage, etc)
-

...where the seed would be the discipline itself, and would have ability directions, or sub-seeds that would be based off of what discipline it belonged to. we would need to come up with a good number of sub-seeds for every discipline.

even if we go the discipline-skill route, i think that this is how we could go about doing the seed.

anyway, these are just spur of the moment ideas. am still open to the discipline skill idea.

[Stycotl]

ok, so we're looking at something that uses martial lore in place of spellcraft, as the epic maneuver/day determining-skill, and either one of multiple possibilities for the know (arcane) variant:

a) the appropriate discipline skill (so an epic desert wind maneuver would be learnable depending on your tumbled ranks)

b) knowledge (strategy/warfare/tactics/siegecraft/insert other new (or not new if there is one already out there) tactical knowledge skill)

c) a better variant if others have any good ideas.

[Stycotl]

originally posted by aquillion:

The problem with this is that when it comes to magic, knowledge is how you do things (hence, spellcraft, which really represents 'practical magical knowledge'--eg recognizing spells as they're cast--is used for most epic magic things.)

With martial abilities, it's different. I would expect you to have to use Martial Lore to invent new epic manuvers, and your tumble (or whatever is appropriate to the discipline) to determine how good you are at it -- in other words, your uses per encounter. The other rolls could go either way, but it just doesn't make sense to me to have Martial Lore determine your number of uses per encounter... unlike with magic, that is purely a matter of physical ability, not insight. Someone with high Martial Lore and relatively low tumble (or whatever) should have no problem coming up with many epic manuvers, but should be more limited in actually executing them.

[Stycotl]

originally posted by arbitrarity:

If they are "sufficiently high", then that's feasible. However, if you simply remove most mitigating factors (10 minute initiator time? NO.), and remove perma/long term buffs, I can see it working.

Tippy has said that epic spellcasting mostly breaks due to stupid DC mitigation, and permanent buffs, and ToB excludes those.

[Stycotl]

dhaever had mentioned that knowledge (local) gets a little love in the tob, and therefore might have prededence as the know (arcane) equivalent. i can see his point, but disagree overall, as the utilization is different.

however, i am pretty sure that there was a martial knowledge skill, such as knowledge (warfare), or (martial) or something.

i am currently entertaining two different ideas.

a) utilize discipline skill as the determining factor on how powerful an epic maneuver you can initiate, AND require a discipline skill check as a component of the epic maneuver initiation.

or

b) use the above martial knowledge to determine how powerful of an epic maneuver you can initiate, AND still require a discipline skill check as a component of the epic maneuver.

now, if i am just going crazy and there is no knowledge (warfare) or something similar, and we decide to go this route, i can always make the skill up.

since i could never remember what it really was, i used to just come up with housruled effects, such as rolling knowledge (warfare) in order to gain tactical advantages, or in order to properly deploy troops, etc. i could come up with firm game mechanics for it so that players would actually want to buy ranks in it for use other than just epic maneuver initiation.

[Arbitrarity]

HoB or CWar had some sort of "knowledge: tactics" as I recall, but prehaps not, as I don't actually have the books.

Discipline skills need love though, and they reflect the nature of ToB classes: Not knowing everything. I'd say discipline skills for the initiation, and martial lore for the /day.

[Stycotl]

discipline skill checks required as part of epic initiation:

as arbitrarity mentioned, mitigational factors will not work so well with epic maneuvers. you can't really take 24 hours to 'cast' an epic maneuver. secondary casters won't help much either unless someone has an idea that i am not thinking of.

so an idea in the above post would be that every epic maneuver requires a skill check as part of the maneuver. that alons should mitigate some of the overall cost (though it does seem odd to me right off the bat that we would thus be using a skill check as prerequisite to lower the dc of the skill check...).

there could be other mitigating factors as well, even penalties to the attack rolls for extra damage or something.

this is where i am going to need a lot of help, cuz i am decent at theorizing and brainstorming, but the number crunching is definitely not my strength. i will need people who can analyze this and try to even it out to epic spellcasting (or if we get ambitious enough, we could attempt something that resembles balance).

[Stycotl]

HoB or CWar had some sort of "knowledge: tactics" as I recall, but prehaps not, as I don't actually have the books.

Discipline skills need love though, and they reflect the nature of ToB classes: Not knowing everything. I'd say discipline skills for the initiation, and martial lore for the /day.

there is a large part of me that is leaning this way. i am just trying to finalize the idea. let me figure out the (warfare) skill, and then we'll see which one people like more.

[Arbitrarity]

Even with epic spellcasting would be the broken. Yes, however, to mitigating factors directly relating to combat. Self-damage can work, attack/save/AC penalties, etc.

We need, however, a baseline power capacity, and a cost. Making manuvers in ToB is said to cst XP, so we need epic manuvers to cost XP, probably no gold. We also need to figure out how to scale.

A few manuvers could be used to compile together various effects and costs. I'd like to note than manuvers seem to scale at 2d6/level for a few types of similar strikes, first of all. This, of course, is shattered by strike of perfect clairity, but that's probably OK.

We also need epic initiator progressions.

So, first input: I recommend that the "manuver level equivalent" for balance, be assumed to be DC 15 + 2*manuver level, give or take about 10. The problem is, with all the skill boosters (custom items, Epic Skill Focus), it can be easy to exceed the DC "for your level". Therefore, higher DC. But that seems like a decent baseline.

We need different baselines for strikes, counters, and boosts, as well as standard/full round initiation times. Seeds can contain the esoteric effects.

In my opinion, the epic initiation system should, at the very least, contain all, or almost all, of the existing manuvers (except for rare cases, like... White Raven Tactics (borken).

Are epic stances also included in this?

Mmmkay. Lessee.

Swordsage

Epic Swordsage
Hit Die
d8

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
6 + Int modifier
Maneuvers and Stances: The epic swordsage does not gain any more manuevers, stances, or readied manuevers after 20th level, though his initiator level continues to increase as normal.

Dual Boost(Ex):
The epic swordsage gains an extra use of dual boost each day every 6 levels beyond 20'th.

Defensive Stance(Ex):
The swordsage selects an additional discipline to apply this ability to at 24'th, 32'nd, and every 8 levels thereafter. The Epic Swordsage may select a discipline already selected by this ability, to add an additional +1 to its effects.

Quick to Act(Ex):
The epic swordsage gains an additional +1 to this ability every 5 levels after 20'th.

Insightful Strike(Ex):
The epic swordsage may select an additional discipline to apply this ability to at 21'st level, and every 8 levels thereafter.

Bonus Feats
The epic swordsage gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic swordsage bonus feats) every four levels higher than 20th.


List TBD.

We also need epic feats.

[Stycotl]

ok, scratch the knowledge (warfare) idea. i have been perusing heroes of battle and complete warrior, and they offer kind of the same thing as far as tactical advantages go, but with knowledge (history) checks, etc.

i like the mechanical idea of one (warfare)-type skill as opposed to many, but one of the points to this exercise is to make it mesh with the systems that are already set up. so, no know (warfare).

and i think i remember where i had gotten the idea. i think it actually was a proficiency in 2nd ed ad@d birthright, but i can't remember for sure. either way, it was the birthright campaigns that inspired me to make it a 3rd ed skill.

so we are looking at martial lore to determine number of epic maneuvers/day, and discipline skills to determine the power level of any of those maneuvers.

[Stycotl]

aquillion's idea was interesting. utilizing martial lore to determine dc, as spellcraft is used in epic spellcasting, and then using the key discipline skill to determine number of uses, but instead of per day, making it per encounter, as the nonepic maneuvers are used.

that is a possibility, though it would be straying from the epic spell template. we would have to make them much less powerful, as a potential character could have a few different epic maneuvers and stances from multiple disciplines at the same time, all availible for a single encounter.

[Stycotl]

Are epic stances also included in this?

i definitely want to make epic stances. how to do it? i am not yet sure.

maybe give them a x2 research cost, or say that you can only have 1 epic stance per 20 ranks in the appropriate skill (probably will end up being martial lore, unless we end up using aquillion's model, or one similar), as opposed to the maneuvers which would have 1 maneuver/day/10 levels in the appropriate skill.

[Arbitrarity]

That is, after all, the point of epic manuvers.

What's the recovery method? Cannot be might be a good idea.

Note that none of these classes in epic continue to gain additional manuvers known or readied, or stances known. Feats for gaining additional manuvers readied and known would be appropriate. Note also that initiator level continues to scale as normal into epic (Though prehaps not, or burning blade will > all.)

Epic Crusader
Hit Die
d10

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
4 + Int modifier
Maneuvers and Stances: The epic crusader does not gain any more manuevers, stances, or readied manuevers after 20th level, though his initiator level continues to increase as normal.

Steely Resolve(Ex):
The epic crusader increases the maximum size of his delayed damage pool by 5 points every 4 levels past 20'th

Smite(Ex):
The epic crusader gains an additional use of this ability per day every 6 levels past 18'th.

Furious Counterstrike(Ex):
The bonus provided by this ability increases at a rate of +1 per 10 points of damage in the delayed damage pool beyond 30.

Bonus Feats
The epic crusader gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic swordsage bonus feats) every 4 levels higher than 20th.

Hmm. These need some tweaking. Bonus feats, and how steely resolve/furious counterstrike scale, for example.

Epic Warblade
Hit Die
d12

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
4 + Int modifier

Maneuvers and Stances: The epic warblade does not gain any more manuevers, stances, or readied manuevers after 20th level, though his initiator level continues to increase as normal.
Bonus Feats
The epic warblade gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic swordsage bonus feats) every 3 levels higher than 20th.

Hmm. These need some tweaking. Bonus feats, and how steely resolve/furious counterstrike scale, for example.

We need something like:
Discipline: Shadow Hand
Seed: Mobility (Base DC 19)

Type: Boost
As a standard action, you may step up to 50 ft through shadow.

This seed may be augmented as follows:

For a +6 to the DC, this manuver becomes a move action. For an additional +6, this manuver becomes a swift action. Furthermore, you may extend the maximum distance you can cover with this manuver by an additional 20 ft per point you add to the DC. Lastly, allies may be affected by this manuver, for an additional +8 to the DC per ally affected. Allies must be adjecent, though the distance from you to an affected ally may be increased by 10 ft/point added to the DC. Allies who teleport appear in squares adjacent to you of their choice. If this is impossible, they appear in the nearest open (or set of open) squares.

Type: Strike
As a full round action, you move up to your speed, and make a single attack at any point during this time.

For an additional +8 to the DC, you may remain hidden while preforming this action: That is, you may hide as normal after attacking, without penalty to your hide check, if you can find cover or concealment. Furthermore, the results of your hide and move silently checks are not affected by your movement or attack. You may add additional distance to the maximum traversed by this manuver at a rate of of +4/your speed. You may reduce this action to a standard action for an additional +6 to the DC.

Type: Counter
You may instantly move as a response to an opponent's attack, after the results of the attack are checked. You may move up to 5 ft with this manuver. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

For an additonal +10 to the DC, you may move before the results of your opponent's attack are checked, resulting in an automatic miss, if you move outside of your opponent's reach. If not, the attack is rerolled. You may move an extra 5 ft for every +2 to the DC of this manuver. For an additional +6 to the DC, this movement becomes teleportation, and you ignore difficult terrain and other impassable terrain.

It's late, so I can't do the stances.

[Douglas]

Be very careful with mitigating factors, they are a huge part of what makes epic spellcasting broken. Clever mitigation can boost achievable spellcraft DCs far beyond anything reasonable for your level while costing far less than it should. On the other hand, going with no mitigation at all generally leaves you trying to squeeze as much as you can out of the spellcraft DC you can actually make and still not getting anything worth the epic feat and research cost - unless you happen to be in very high epic and can take advantage of the purely linear scaling of epic spells instead of the quadratic scaling everything else has.

In general, try to make it so that worthwhile maneuvers can be made with no mitigation at all, and then restrict all possible mitigation factors to things people are practically guaranteed to care about. A penalty on the attack roll is a good mitigation factor - even if you can hit on a 2, that's still less power attack damage. A penalty to AC is usually reasonable, but be careful - beyond a certain point, there's no real penalty for dropping AC even further. An xp cost would theoretically work, but it doesn't fit with the existing system - no maneuver costs xp to use. Material components are out for the same reason.

[Stycotl]

Even with epic spellcasting would be the broken. Yes, however, to mitigating factors directly relating to combat. Self-damage can work, attack/save/AC penalties, etc.

i'm not really sure what you're saying here. i think you are mentioning how broken epic spellcasting is. i agree. but i also think that it is a pretty decent system, and am inclined to use it, allowing for dm-godlike housruling and number-fudging.

We need, however, a baseline power capacity, and a cost. Making manuvers in ToB is said to cst XP, so we need epic manuvers to cost XP, probably no gold. We also need to figure out how to scale.

yep, agreed. xp costs for research, and in some cases for maneuver initiation would be par for the course.

A few manuvers could be used to compile together various effects and costs. I'd like to note than manuevers seem to scale at 2d6/level for a few types of similar strikes, first of all. This, of course, is shattered by strike of perfect clairity, but that's probably OK.

we will probably want to come up with the limits and stuff by the individual seeds, though there would be some that apply universally, such as damage, etc.

So, first input: I recommend that the "manuver level equivalent" for balance, be assumed to be DC 15 + 2*manuver level, give or take about 10. The problem is, with all the skill boosters (custom items, Epic Skill Focus), it can be easy to exceed the DC "for your level". Therefore, higher DC. But that seems like a decent baseline.

in my opinion, this is too low. i think that use a base dc for each seed, as in epic spellcasting. however, i am inclined to make each seed have the same base dc. but this will probably need to be a case-by-case decision based on the final seeds.

We need different baselines for strikes, counters, and boosts, as well as standard/full round initiation times. Seeds can contain the esoteric effects.

if i read you right, you are saying that the mechanics of building a boost will be different than building a strike, or a stance, and will have different costs and mitigating factors. is that right? if so, i agree.

In my opinion, the epic initiation system should, at the very least, contain all, or almost all, of the existing manuvers (except for rare cases, like... White Raven Tactics (borken).

i think that the epic maneuvers should resemble their seed discipline, but i don't think that we need to incorporate nonepic maneuvers, or just make epic variations of them. i'd liek them to be related, but different, unique.

Epic Swordsage

isn't there a site out here somewhere that already has epic tob class progressions?

We also need epic feats.

100% agreed, among them of course would be Epic Martial Initiating, though i don't like the name. for simplicity's sake, i figured it ought to echo the Epic Spellcasting name, but for asthetic reasons, i'm inclined to not...

[Stycotl]

Be very careful with mitigating factors, they are a huge part of what makes epic spellcasting broken. Clever mitigation can boost achievable spellcraft DCs far beyond anything reasonable for your level while costing far less than it should. On the other hand, going with no mitigation at all generally leaves you trying to squeeze as much as you can out of the spellcraft DC you can actually make and still not getting anything worth the epic feat and research cost - unless you happen to be in very high epic and can take advantage of the purely linear scaling of epic spells instead of the quadratic scaling everything else has.

In general, try to make it so that worthwhile maneuvers can be made with no mitigation at all, and then restrict all possible mitigation factors to things people are practically guaranteed to care about. A penalty on the attack roll is a good mitigation factor - even if you can hit on a 2, that's still less power attack damage. A penalty to AC is usually reasonable, but be careful - beyond a certain point, there's no real penalty for dropping AC even further. An xp cost would theoretically work, but it doesn't fit with the existing system - no maneuver costs xp to use. Material components are out for the same reason.

i agree with some of this. we will be working with a nerfed mitigation baseline as it is, so that should help with some of that.

beyond that, i've been contemplating coming up with a system to limit how much an epic spell (or in this case, a maneuver) can be mitigated. i hate seeing the dc 1 epic spells on the boards. it defeats the purpose. maybe come up with categories that an epic effect falls into, with a minimum dc (meaning a maximum level of mitigation).

i don't agree with making maneuvers that need no mitigating factors. i might be capable of being convinced otherwise, but i think that mitigating factors and the possibilities that they bring are one of the cool things about epic spellcasting--when used appropriately.

i also don't agree with no xp costs. i think that epic power such as this begs to charge xp from the initiators. components on the other hand, yes, i totally agree with you.

[Arbitrarity]

There are epic initiator progressions already? Excellent, can I get a link?

[The Demented One]

I think it might be helpful to, while using the base mechanics for epic spellcasting, move away from the seed system of doing things. I think it would probably be better to do it by finesse, with a few guidelines - a maneuver that deals xd6 damage should have a DC of at least y, and so on. This would give the system a great deal of flexibility, which the current epic spellcasting system desperately needs. For fun, look at the epic spells in the EHB, and see how many involve a bending of the seed system rules in terms of using seeds in ways other than in their description or using ad modifiers. I count 22 out of 46. If you have to rely that heavily on ad hoc modification, why bother with the rigid math in the first place? Using that kind of rigid, overly math-y system makes it very hard to use the creativity and flexibility homebrew requires.

[Arbitrarity]

Very true, TDO. You also seem to be the most prolific at creating ToB disciplines, so input is most definitely appreciated.

[Stycotl]

i ought to clarify, when i say i think it important to utilize mitigating factors, i do mean it. but i think we can make them not so gamebreaking and as much of a crutch as they are in epic spellcasting. maybe rather than ignoring them, we could just minimize them. create maneuvers whose dc's are just higher than reasonable, and then mitigate them down a touch to reasonable.

that way we are incorporating them, but not dependent upon them as are so many of the epic spells.

and i do like the idea of setting final dc's high enough that for their conceivable level of power, the initiators can use them without skill-boosting treasure, but that their chances are increased (though not assured) if they have such treasure.

[Stycotl]

I think it might be helpful to, while using the base mechanics for epic spellcasting, move away from the seed system of doing things. I think it would probably be better to do it by finesse, with a few guidelines - a maneuver that deals xd6 damage should have a DC of at least y, and so on. This would give the system a great deal of flexibility, which the current epic spellcasting system desperately needs. For fun, look at the epic spells in the EHB, and see how many involve a bending of the seed system rules in terms of using seeds in ways other than in their description or using ad modifiers. I count 22 out of 46. If you have to rely that heavily on ad hoc modification, why bother with the rigid math in the first place? Using that kind of rigid, overly math-y system makes it very hard to use the creativity and flexibility homebrew requires.

are you saying just come up with baseline costs for certain maneuver traits, then add them all together or something?

example:

maneuver
costs 2 points per 1d6 damage done.
costs 2 points per extra square of reach granted.

therefore, the Rending Tiger strike, which does 20d6 damage, and grants its initiator two extra squares of reach on the attack would have a dc of 44.

[Stycotl]

are you saying just come up with baseline costs for certain maneuver traits, then add them all together or something?

i do like that idea for a couple of reasons. namely, flexibility, as you mentioned. we would just come up with a lare list of traits that we could use to build the maneuvers, like lego bricks.

i still like the idea of using a seed though. but i am envisioning the seed being more of a guideline than anything. maybe instead of sayign that a tiger claw maneuver can do this (A), but not this (B), we could say that tiger claw has certain affinities. each affinity would be a select few of the total traits that we come up with for the maneuvers in general.

example:

Tiger Claw (Seed)
Affinities:
Jump
Charge
etc
etc
etc
An epic Tiger Claw maneuver gains a 10% discount to DC cost for the above traits.

[The Demented One]

are you saying just come up with baseline costs for certain maneuver traits, then add them all together or something?

I think more just a few basic guidelines, probably for damage and bonuses on attacks, and leave the rest to judgment and comparison. Just to work out a base rule for damage, it would seem that, for most maneuvers that are only damage bonuses, 1d6/level is pretty standard. So for a maneuver that deals xd6 damage, I'd say a baseline DC of 13 + x would work, with the number of 13 coming from 10, the average of a d20, plus the max skill cap being three greater than your level. Once you've got a damage guideline down, pretty much any other effect can be finessed just by looking at existing maneuvers that cause similar effects, and comparing them to the damage guideline.

[Stycotl]

i can see what you are saying, i believe. i think that even if we try to keep the actual rules sytem minimal, we'd still have to come up with a pretty good-sized list. we would at least have to flesh out damage. dr penetration/dr grants, combat effects (stun, sicken, stagger, etc), movement types and penalties/bonuses, attack bonuses/penalties, ac bonuses/penalties, skill/save bonuses/penalties, and plenty of others that i'm not thinking of yet.

though i do like leaving some things to ad hoc.

[Stycotl]

There are epic initiator progressions already? Excellent, can I get a link?

i know i have seen some, though i can't remember if they were official or homebrew, and i can't remember where.

give me a minute and i'll post it on the gaming forum to see if anyone has them handy.

[Stycotl]

so as it stands now:

Reasearch: will be similar to epic spells, with xp and time costs, (i cannot yet see gp costs being logical, so we may have to do away with that; maybe increase research time or something).

Martial Lore: determines how many epic maneuvers you can use per day.

Discipline Key Skill: will be used to determine how powerful an initiator has to be in order to use this maneuver. Initiator will be required to meet the DC for both reasearch and initiation.

Martial Discipline Seeds: each will have either affinities, or abilities that are based off of the characteristics of the base discipline. at the moment these are seeds in the loosest sense, and so for now i am going to call them as such. if at a later time we come up with their exact mechanical nature, and a better name, then it will change.

Utilization: as it stands now, these would be usable as maneuvers/day. they would not be recoverable, and there would be no readying or changing of readied maneuvers. if we can come up with a system that allows readying/recovering/etc, great.

Maneuvers: will be broken up into their respective categories, each with their own characteristics. Namely, Boosts, Counters, Strikes, and Stances (am i forgetting any?).

[Stycotl]

originally posted by stycotl

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards...dBookOf9Swords

i found the one that i had run across once. so now we have three different progressions to choose from, or to modify.

[Arbitrarity]

Ah, there we go. Your URL breaks for me, so a bit of work, and here.

Those are probably better for our purposes. We also need to get some feats, but the initiating system comes first.