Making a Tome game and...

[Hicks]

For a Tome Game, of 13th level, how would one go about making a powerful Spellsword and/or Gish?...

A Basic combination that's being proposed for the character, is Tome Fighter 1, Wizard 2, Eldritch Knight 10. Since not sure

Fighter 1
Thaumaturge 1 if you know your PHB spells, else Wizard 1
Eldritch Knight 8 or 10
Stranger with the Burning Eyes 10 or any full casting PrC.

Pick up still spell at 1st level
Pick up silent spell at 10th level as your Eldritch Knight bonus feat.

But there is an easier way: be a fighter (barbarian, monk, samurai, whatever), take the command feat at 6th level, and let your cohort be a cursed adamantine intelligent weapon (like out of the book of gears). All the benifits of a straight fihtan man, and you can cast spells while full attacking.

[nockermensch]

1) You don't. You just attack with a Greatsword and a Slam attack, or whatever. Or you take TWFing and attack with two daggers and a slam. Because that is how natural attacks work.

3)(a) Nothing, which is why it is too fucking powerful. Because that is what people do.

4) Delete that line, and continue playing a too powerful class as before, but now it is less interesting.

1) ...wait. At 11th level, a monk has a slam routine of +11/+6/+6, right? If he attacks with a greatsword, it'd be Greatsword +11/+6/+6, Slam +6. With two weapon fighting and two daggers would be: Daggers +11/+11/+6/+6/+6/+6, Slam +6... Right?

3) If we agree that this is becoming too boring I'll say this activates only after three hits or something. Nothing says "Monk" like combo mechanics. For the moment, let that monk shine.

4) I think I'll fix that like I "fixed" the druid's wildshape. Meaning, I crossed out that ability and gave a small list of stuff the druid could activate instead (movement forms, claws/bite or natural armor). For the fighter's case, I'll pour over the list of feats, chose some "iconic combat tricks" (whatever this means), and tell the player that once per hour he can use one of those. Things become much more manageable when it's "pick from this small list" instead "browse this 1 meter high pile of books for something"

[Josh_Kablack]

For a Tome Game, of 13th level, .... for someone who's new to 3rd edition that'll be playing it.

Really? That will be interesting.

[nockermensch]

But there is an easier way: be a fighter (barbarian, monk, samurai, whatever), take the command feat at 6th level, and let your cohort be a cursed adamantine intelligent weapon (like out of the book of gears). All the benifits of a straight fihtan man, and you can cast spells while full attacking.

The boss fight in my first tome game was pretty much this setup. Except the intelligent weapon was the actual bad guy and the "Fighter" was an immortal undead that reanimated one round after being destroyed, as long as the sword existed. If the players hadn't figured the exact trick at work by choosing to save an enslaved dragon this being was using as a mount, things would be much more "interesting" for them.

As it happened, they ignored the fighter and sundered the sword, which still took 3 rounds, which it being from adamantine, etc. Cool stuff.

[Red_Rob]

Question time, since I couldn't find a general Tome FAQ thread (in b4 someone points that it's on like page 2):

1) The Tome Monk lacks flurry of blows, but what happens if he takes the Two-Weapon Fighting feat? Or rather, other than "haste", how to give more slam attacks on a full attack to a tome monk?

The wording on the Tome Monk suggests you can always make iterative attacks with natural slams, whereas this isn't actually the case as far as I can tell. Maybe it was a rule in 3.0 that got changed in 3.5? Anyway, gaining additional slam attacks is pretty difficult as it's a natural weapon. TWF only works when you are wielding manufactured weapons, which the slam attack isn't.

2) Supposing I don't want to deal with fear rules, what would be good substitutes for the:

• The +11 BAB effect of Horde-Breaker
• The +11 BAB effect of Blitz

"Deal with" the fear rules? They seem pretty straightforward, the target makes a roll and if they fail they take -2 to all rolls for a bit. I guess you could standardise it to a Will Save or Shaken?

3) In Combat School, regarding the +6 BAB effect, is there something that stops one to saying that he's using the signature moves round after round? Finally, for an unarmed Combat School (this is another monk question) what would be a good substitute for the "+4 vs. Disarm" gained at +11 BAB?

Tome just kind of assumes warrior types start getting nasty on-hit effects at about this level. The Barbarian gets a save-or-Stun at level 7, Samurai gets to ignore all DR and Book of Gears weapons all provide an on-hit bonus. Combat School isn't too out of line here, the kickers being it triggering on every hit and the DC is Str-based which is a shortcut to insanity. You can fix this in a few ways. Kaelik went for adding half your str bonus and making you save once at the end of the turn, our group changed it to Con based and only work the first time you hit a target in a round. If you need a replacement for the +4 to disarms, make it +4 to resist another nasty combat maneuver, such as Trip or Grab. Honestly though taking 10 on attacks is probably plenty good enough.

4) If we don't want to deal with the complexity implied by Problem Solver (Tome Fighter) what would be a good alternate power?

One outstanding problem with Tome warrior classes is the lack of anything non-combat related really worth talking about. You could add something here I guess? Something like War Stories: The Fighter has travelled the world and picked up knowledge from the most unlikely places. By making a DC10 Int check (you cannot take 10) the Fighter gains ranks equal to their level in any one Knowedge skill for the next hour. Once the Int roll is attempted it cannot be made again for another hour whether successful or not.

Or you could just give it more combat powers I guess.