Using the Tome Series as in 3.5e made sane!

[Zephyros]

Well first of all I gotta thank all those guys for their efforts building up such tremendous gaming material. Special thanks to bossmiley for helping us -playgrounders- know it exists.

And now the real deal: Well for starters, I familiarized myself with all that awesome-sauce deal of changes (really funny of them that some of those are already incorporated in my game --polymorph fixnerf eg) and then I let my players of-the-soon-to-start-campaign do the same. But right now I am facing some dilemmas.

Should I use only the Tomes material or allow for crossovers with WotC 3.5? I was thinking about banning all materials except other classes? For example I ll let a player use a Warblade but no feats from other sources except for the Tomes feats or perhaps ToB feats. Where I get confused is about someone playing a wizard along with a Summoner or a druid along with an Elementalist.
Any feedback?

Thanks in advance

[Zephyros]

Meh... No luck...

[Allene]

Okay, heres the thing.

The Tomes are not complete, so you can't really ban anything else.

Secondly, the Tomes are meant to be balanced against the good things in regular WotC stuff. 40% of the Tomes ceases to exist if you take away Wizard/Cleric, since most of the PrCs advance casting.

You are suppossed to play a Wizard, with some Tome PrCs aside a Summoner with or without Tome PrCs, alongside a Tome Fighter, alongside a Fiend, ect.

[Fizban]

Well, the two Tomes (Magic and Battle) do different things. Battle brings melee-types up in survivability and fun towards core casters, and Magic brings magic-types down towards core melee-ers. Furthermore, Tome of Magic won't replace the core casters very well, as one is more rogue/spiffy ability, one is a straightjacketed wizard/sorcerer (which is why it's closer in power to core melee), and the last is broken (as in doesn't actually work).

You'll have to allow the core casters if for no other reason than the Tome of Magic classes can't really make magic items. I'm pretty sure the Shadowcaster can, but not well enough to support a whole setting, unless they're all from an ancient civilization and the classes that made them are lost. Secondly, healing: Binder does get some out of combat healing, but that won't hold up against higher level monsters, and the Truenamer can't do anything. If not the core casters, then instead some more limited splatbook casters that can take the healing role, and some kind of dedicated crafting class to supply items.

Core feats (except Natural Spell) will need to be allowed, as many are prerequisites for other feats and PrC's, even in just the tomes. If you're cutting out the core casters (and similar full casting classes, like the Arhcivist), then you should be fine with most splatbook material. I'm pretty sure even the most cheesy of splatbook stuff is gone without full casters, and the Shadowcaster by itself doesn't have enough versatility to make it to the same level. I would suggest if you're only going to use the Shadowcaster, that you make some more paths, and make it into more of a Planar Adept (I believe Fax Celestis did some work on the boards for that class), to allow for non-shadowy casters (unless of course you've got a setting reason for why all high level arcane magic must be shadowy, but anyway).

[RukiTanuki]

I'm a big fan of using the classes from Tome of Battle and the Expanded Psionics Handbook, myself. With psionics reflavored as magic, it brings melee and magic to within a respectable power level of each other.

[streakster]

Wait - are we talking Frank and K's tomes here, or the official books?

[RagnaroksChosen]

Do you have links to said tomes as my google-fu sucks.

[Zephyros]

We are talking about Necronomicon Tome of Fiends, Dungeonomicon blah blah blah. Check bossmileys sig. I am a bit in a hurry guys. Thanks anyways

[zeruslord]

If there is a tome option available for something, it is meant to replace the original. The paladin and ranger don't have fixes in the Tome material, and the skill and magic item systems were never replaced.

[Fizban]

Okay, I seem to have taken the initiative in the completely wrong direction. Those tomes are completely different. I've only read the Dungeonomicon and Races of War, but both have very solid fluff and economy ideas and such. The actual homebrewed material ranges from crazy overpowered to useless to "works, but realize that you're making statements about what kind of game you're playing". I'll be looking over it again, and I'll give some more detailed opinions on those two after I'm done. In general though, ^ has it right: the tome stuff is meant to fix core stuff and bring it in line with core casters, IIRC, so you should take all replacements they have, and make sure splatbooks will be able to keep up (statistically and fun-ically both).

Edit: The monk has a number of crazy powerful abilities (stun at will, con damage at will with any attack, etc). The Jester isn't so bad, though it gets full bard strength casting and nearly full sneak attack.

Edit2: Fine, so the backing up data page doesn't redirect. Anyway, Assassin gets Hide in Plain Sight at too low of a level, and a 9th level spell at 13th, but is otherwise okay-ish: might drop death attack if it's too easy to hit the full attack. Thief Acrobat gets a full climb speed too early as well, Death From Above is crazy good if you can get a full attack at the end of it I think. The Dungeonomicon PrC's except for the Elothar Warrior are fine, except for multiple spell hits from the seeker.

[Tempest Fennac]

Just thinking about Psionics: how good are they for healing? I know there are a few abilities which can be used for that purpose, but they didn't look that effective on their own to me.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Just thinking about Psionics: how good are they for healing? I know there are a few abilities which can be used for that purpose, but they didn't look that effective on their own to me.

There is body adjustment, which can vastly improve as you level and are capable of putting more power points into it. It's like a healing spell except you only have to learn it once.

[tyckspoon]

Just thinking about Psionics: how good are they for healing? I know there are a few abilities which can be used for that purpose, but they didn't look that effective on their own to me.

Not very. Body Adjustment is a self-heal only, and it's not even all that good at doing that (base return: 1d12 for a 3rd level power as a Psion. Equivalent Cure track: Cure Serious for 3d8 + Caster Level. Body Adjustment can be augmented, sure, but it still doesn't beat out the Cure line and it never gets anywhere near the efficiency of Heal.) The Egoist discipline abilities can handle some of the more dangerous damage types and sort of do death at higher levels with Psionic Restoration (6th level) and Psionic Revivify, but psionic healing in general is damaged by the lack of anything like the efficient one-action healing of the Heal spell or the general status utility of Lesser Restoration, or even basic treatments for poison and disease.

The actual homebrewed material ranges from crazy overpowered...

When you're reading the Tome classes, keep in mind that Frank and K are deliberately targeting the high end of the game. The monk gets to stun and do Con damage and force effective save-or-dies because they're not writing him to compete with the Fighter or even the Swordsage: they're writing classes that are supposed to keep up with Wizards that can drop 4 negative levels (Quickened Enervation+ Rod of Maximize) on a target and follow it up with a Finger of Death in the same round. Or, to go out of just the core books, the DMM Persist Cleric who is buffed to the point of being roughly an avatar of his god (almost literally- Greater Visage of the Deity is a favored spell) at an unbreakably high caster level.. while still being able to drop a Slay Living, Plane Shift, Bestow Greater Curse, or Holy Word spell when just breaking heads doesn't do it. Basic competency at that level demands at least one save-or-suck (preferably die) technique that can be used regularly with comparable save DCs to wizard spells.

You can disagree with that as the balancing point, of course- many people do- but if you do disagree you should be aware that many of the Tome classes simply are not for you. The essays on economics, social structure, and other really dumb things the game does are still good and can inform your own attempts to find solutions, but the classes themselves won't work for everybody.

[Tempest Fennac]

Thanks for telling me. I remember seeing 1 Homebrew Power which heals 1d6-worth of HPs/PP spent on it (I think that was how it worked, but I know it was a level 1 Power). A mass Basic Psionic Cure could cost 2 PPs/target with each additional point/person restoring an extra 1d6-worth of HPs. I suppose homebrewing Psionic condition removers wouldn't be too hard (I'll try making one now), but they would need to be ranged to compensate for Psions having rubbish HPs and AC.

Psionic Rejuvanation Psychometabolism (Healing)
Level: Psion/Wilder 3, Psychic Warrior 2
Display: Auditory and material
Manifesting Time: 1 round
Range: Personal/ 1 creature within close range.
Target: 1 creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Power Points: Psion/Wilder 5, Psychic Warrior 3

Removes all trace of 1 Disease or Poison from the target or cures Blindness or Deafness.

Augment: Spending 2 more PPs will allow you to remove another negative condition (eg: spending 7 points would cure a target of both poison and deafness if they had both of these conditions).

I'll try thinking of a Heal equivalent which doesn't merely copy Heal (ironically, the fact that Psions can restore lost limbs at an earlier level then Clerics is useful if your DM likes to mutilate your characters ). Any other single target spells really need to be able to target other people as well (except possibly Body Adjustment if the power I mentioned at the start of this post is in use).