The Gaming Den

PREFACE: I actually liked the Tome of Battle. It made playing a "melee" class alot more enjoyable in 3.5e. However, they do not even begin to match the wizard in power level or versatility. This is an attempt to write a single class that can use all nine schools of manuevers, and is a viable and powerful part of the team at all levels. Unfortunately, those who do not have The Tome of Battle will not be able to use this class because it relies on material found within that book.

Disciple of the Nine
"My weapon is is a wand.. look. 'Wingardium leviosa!'"

Through intense study, the disiple of the nine is capable of preforming extraordinary feats with their blades. From producing fire, to invoking the divine spirit of some diety above to heal them or their allies.

Alighment: Anything, ever. Cmon.

Starting Age: As monk.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: Balance(Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration(Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Hide(Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 6+Int
BAB: Good(1/1), Saves: Fort: Bad; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Proficiencies: All armors and Shields, Simple, Martial, and an exotic weapon.
Level, Benefit
1: Martial Maneuvers and Stances, Battle Insight
2: Combat School(One of the nine disciplines)
3: Quick Counter
4: Battle Insight(Damage)
5: Defensive Stance
6: Multi-Striking
7: Stance Dancing, Battle Insight (Initiative)
8: Dual Boosts
9: Battle Insight(Attack)
10: Dual Stances
11: Strike of Opportunity
12: Dual Counter
13: Expert Tactician
14: Imp. Dual Boost
15:
16: Triple Stance
17:
18: Imp. Dual Counter
19:
20: Master of the Nine

(All abilities are Extraordinary, and the DC for any maneuver is 10+1/2Initiator level+Int Mod)

Martial Maneuvers and Stances: The DoN gains knowledge of 6 manuevers at first level, and 1 stance. These can be chosen from any of the nine sublime schools. Every level in DoN counts as a full initiator level, any other class counts as half an initiator level (rounded down).
Every level the DoN gains an additional maneuver known, and gains a stance every even level. The DoN does not need to ready maneuvers and can use them at will.

Battle Insight: DoNs are usually highly intelligent combat tacticians. They have The Edge on anyone who's intelligence is less than theirs regardless of BaB. At 4th level, the DoN gains his intelligence modifier (if positive) to damage, at 7th level this applies to initiative, and at 9th level it applies to attack rolls. All of these bonuses are insight.

Combat School: At 2nd level the DoN gains combat school as a bonus feat, the school must be one of the nine disciplines, and applies to any weapons associated to that discipline. The DoN gains a +2 to DCs using any abilities within the chosen discipline.

Quick Counter: At 3rd level, the immediate action used to initiate a counter no longer consumes your swift action (Although you may still only use a single counter maneuver a round, unless you have dual counter).

Defensive Stance: At 5th level you gain a +2 insight bonus to AC and Saves.

Multi-Striking: During a full-round attack, you may strike with all your attacks that are granted by BaB(does not include TWF attacks). The first attack in your attack routine may be any standard action strike you can initiate. The strikes on iterative attacks must be atleast a level less than the maximum you can initiate. Negatives and bonuses from strikes do not stack. (6th level DoN can attack with a 3rd level manuever at +6, and a 2nd level maneuver at +1)

Stance Dancing: At 7th level, when you use your swift action to do any action other than change your stance, you may change one or all of your active stances.

Dual Boost: At 8th level, when you use a boost manuever, you may also activate a boost atleast one level less than your maximum.

Dual Stances: At 10th level, whenever you change stances you can activate 2 stances.

Strike of Oppourtunity: At 11th level, the first attack of opportunity you use every round can be a strike instead.

Dual Counter: At 12th level you may use 2 counters every round, but the 2nd counter you use must be atleast a level lower than the maximum you can initiate.

Expert Tactician: At 13th level, You gain expert tactician as a bonus feat. If you already have these feat, choose another [combat] feat instead.

Improved Dual Boost: At 14th level, the 2nd boost you activate using Dual Boost no longer must be a level lower than the maximum you can initate.

Triple Stance: At 16th level, you may have three active stances at once.

Improved Dual Counter: At 18th level, the 2nd counter you activate using Dual Counter no longer must be a level lower than the maximum you can initiate.

Master of the Nine: At 20th level, you gain knowledge of every martial maneuver. Your iterative attacks granted by BaB are no longer limited, and may be up to 9th level maneuvers.

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This a draft write-up, and I have not tested the class yet, but will soon. Anyone notice any glaring problems?[/b]

Glaring problem number 1: You have no weapon or armour proficiencies listed.

Glaring problem number 2: Why are you using ToB material without at least relevelling it to make abilities within a level sit on anything resembling the same pegs?

I do have proficiencies..

and, can you elaborate a on 2? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

You have proficiencies set up in an odd place. They usually are first written at the top of the rest of class features.

maddd0g wrote:I do have proficiencies..

and, can you elaborate a on 2? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

Aside from about six maneuvers in the entire book, they are like 4E powers in that they aren't even worth keeping track of.

maddd0g wrote:I do have proficiencies..

and, can you elaborate a on 2? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

I believe what Sinister meant was that you assumed that all the maneuvers are balanced and pegged at their level properly aka WotC writers did a perfect job at writing the maneuvers.

Which is wrong.

I mean, look at the Devoted Spirit level 9. It's a level 6 spell. That's a level 9 maneuver. 6/=9.

And 99% of the Desert Wind is just pile-o-d6's, which is not useful. At all.

To say nothing of the fact that level 3 contains both Lion's Roar (which is so terrible that you will never take it) and White Raven Tactics (which is so good you will always take it). Auto-choices and non-choices are both bad, and that needs to be addressed.

Blicero wrote:I mean, look at the Devoted Spirit level 9. It's a level 6 spell. That's a level 9 maneuver. 6/=9.

And 99% of the Desert Wind is just pile-o-d6's, which is not useful. At all.

Do I detect a functional programmer?

Well, the fact that it's a 6th level spell isn't, on it's own, a problem. Many spells are dubiously levelled, Heal is more useful when it's added onto an attack for free, and (especially with this class) it's usable at will.

Now the fact that some manuevers aren't balanced against each-other is a problem, especially for a class that gets them all at-will, but I don't think that makes it unusable. I mean, Polar Ray is the same level as Prismatic Wall and Mind Blank, but you don't see people saying that makes the spell system unusable.

Ice9 wrote:I mean, Polar Ray is the same level as Prismatic Wall and Mind Blank, but you don't see people saying that makes the spell system unusable.

Trap options are bad. No-brainer options are just as bad. Seriously, in the case of ToB, the benchmarks used were way-hella-weird. I, for one, find it egregiously offensive that Polar Ray and Mind Blank are at the same level, because all it does it propagade idiocy and confuse new people.

If you're writing a class based on a variant system, at least make the system work first. Frankly, if something is mis-levelled, correct the level.

Mister_Sinister wrote:

Ice9 wrote:I mean, Polar Ray is the same level as Prismatic Wall and Mind Blank, but you don't see people saying that makes the spell system unusable.

Trap options are bad. No-brainer options are just as bad. Seriously, in the case of ToB, the benchmarks used were way-hella-weird. I, for one, find it egregiously offensive that Polar Ray and Mind Blank are at the same level, because all it does it propagade idiocy and confuse new people.

If you're writing a class based on a variant system, at least make the system work first. Frankly, if something is mis-levelled, correct the level.

This argument probably held water a couple years ago, but nowadays everyone who actually uses and likes the Tome of Battle knows what the good options are and knows what the bad options are.

There should not be any 'bad' options.

Also, if you re-write something, you're assuming that people who never used the material will now have a chance of using it, without having to navigate a minefield of fail or auto-win.

Surgo wrote:This argument probably held water a couple years ago, but nowadays everyone who actually uses and likes the Tome of Battle knows what the good options are and knows what the bad options are.

And if we're talking about a new player, who thinks Lion's Roar is amazingly awesome, and wants to play this class because he liked the fluff?

Seriously, that argument is bullshit in seven different flavours. You're essentially raising the entry bar to playing the game at the same level as everyone else on the basis of totally arbitrary information, which you (or your group) may or may not possess. This is ridiculous on so many levels, I'm not even sure where to begin.

Of course, if you want a game where people who have been playing for years are at a supreme advantage to those who haven't, and where you have to be mechanically-knowledgeable to make some concepts work at all, frankly, you should be playing Pathfinder.

If it's an option, it must be good. If it's not good, it should not be an option.

CatharzGodfoot wrote: Do I detect a functional programmer?

Not as it so happens.

If you're writing a class based on a variant system, at least make the system work first. Frankly, if something is mis-levelled, correct the level.

Fixing the ToB completely would be a good thing, but not a mandatory step to making any reference to it. By that logic, no Tome class should have spellcasting or use spell-based items (wands, scrolls, etc) until the spell lists have been completely fixed.

Ice9 wrote:

If you're writing a class based on a variant system, at least make the system work first. Frankly, if something is mis-levelled, correct the level.

Fixing the ToB completely would be a good thing, but not a mandatory step to making any reference to it. By that logic, no Tome class should have spellcasting or use spell-based items (wands, scrolls, etc) until the spell lists have been completely fixed.

What do you think I've been doing lately?

Mister_Sinister wrote:

Ice9 wrote:

If you're writing a class based on a variant system, at least make the system work first. Frankly, if something is mis-levelled, correct the level.

Fixing the ToB completely would be a good thing, but not a mandatory step to making any reference to it. By that logic, no Tome class should have spellcasting or use spell-based items (wands, scrolls, etc) until the spell lists have been completely fixed.

What do you think I've been doing lately?

Hinting at a potentially interesting body of work, occasionally leaving tantalizing previews, and generally trying to build hype?

TarkisFlux wrote:Hinting at a potentially interesting body of work, occasionally leaving tantalizing previews, and generally trying to build hype?

Well, in a nutshell. The hype is not really intentional, though.

Mister_Sinister wrote:Seriously, that argument is bullshit in seven different flavours.

No, it's not. He's making a class to use a system. The system doesn't have to not have bad options as a precondition of him making the class. If that was the case nothing would ever get done.

Other than what the other people are saying, the class could make some use out of hombrewed schools I see at some places. No it shouldn't necessarily make use of all of those schools, but it should have to ability to pic other schools of it's choice. Maybe you should allow the choice of nine different schools of the players choice if they use more than that.

the_unthinkable wrote:Other than what the other people are saying, the class could make some use out of hombrewed schools I see at some places. No it shouldn't necessarily make use of all of those schools, but it should have to ability to pic other schools of it's choice. Maybe you should allow the choice of nine different schools of the players choice if they use more than that.

Don't the players always have this choice?

This is just as made up as everything in the game.

maddd0g wrote:This is just as made up as everything in the game.

Words to live by.