Integrating Tome of Battle with the Tome Series

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:40 pm

I'm an unapologetic Tome of Battle fanboy. I also like many ideas in the Tome Series.

So if I wanted to use ideas from both sources in a campaign, is there anything I should take into account? I'm concerned mostly in regards to maneuvers/classes/etc rendered useless or superfluous due to existing alternatives in one document or the other? Has anybody else combined the two before? If so, what were your experiences?

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:49 pm

There's a fair bit of thematic overlap between the Warblade and the Soldier, but you can easily handwave the difference as coming from different power or sources or something. Really, at a guess, you'd just have to deal with the fact that ToB maneuvers are going to be, by and large, drastically less powerful than their tome equivalents. I'm not sure where the Soldier standards on the Tome power scale (with Assassin on one end and Gadgeteer/Fighter on the other), but the Soldier's capstone abilities are seriously no-save instakills, while ToB maneuvers cap out at just doing a fair bit of damage.

Also, there's the fact that there's been some effort to give martial classes some measure of out-of-combat versatility and problem-solving capability in the Tomes. I couldn't tell you how successful that's been, but there exists no equivalent stuff for the ToB classes, which could lead to a significant imbalance.

At a guess, if you wanted to integrate them, you'd really have to go through the classes and the manuevers with a fine-toothed comb, buffing pretty much everything and introducing new class features on par with the rest of the Tome.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:54 pm

I believe that the Tome ruling was each level of maneuver was appropriate to that level of character, so Girallon Windmill Fleshrip was for 9th-level characters, and one maneuver that you could scale up was worth a feat.

I haven't had any experience with using that as a system, and my gut reaction is that it makes maneuvers way too strong for where they're allocated, but there you go.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:18 am

Tome's combat feats largely replace the function of maneuvers in ToB yeah?

There is also Tome Monk's fighting styles.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:51 am

I've run Tome/ToB games before. One thing I noticed was that a lot of Tome abilities try to maximize the utility of a full attack action. Whereas most ToB strikes are standard action single attacks. This tends to be fairly anti-synergistic.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:54 pm

Initiation [Combat]
There are a lot of styles in the world... but this one's mine.
Benefit: Pick a martial discipline. You become proficient in all of the weapons related to your chosen discipline and the related skill becomes a class skill for you, if already a class skill you gain a +3 bonus. You gain the ability to ready 3 maneuvers + 1 maneuver every three levels. Your initiator level is equal to your BAB and you automatically know all stances and maneuvers from your chosen discipline as long as your BAB is equal to the maneuver level. Any save DCs work off your highest mental ability modifier and you can spend a full round action to recover all your spent maneuvers.
Special: This feat can be taken multiple times, each time it applies to a new martial discipline. However, taking this feat more than once only ever lets you ready three more maneuvers in addition to your normal amount.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:22 pm

Dominicius wrote:Initiation [Combat]
There are a lot of styles in the world... but this one's mine.
Benefit: Pick a martial discipline. You become proficient in all of the weapons related to your chosen discipline and the related skill becomes a class skill for you, if already a class skill you gain a +3 bonus. You gain the ability to ready 3 maneuvers + 1 maneuver every three levels. Your initiator level is equal to your BAB and you automatically know all stances and maneuvers from your chosen discipline as long as your BAB is equal to the maneuver level. Any save DCs work off your highest mental ability modifier and you can spend a full round action to recover all your spent maneuvers.
Special: This feat can be taken multiple times, each time it applies to a new martial discipline. However, taking this feat more than once only ever lets you ready three more maneuvers in addition to your normal amount.

Yes, because when he said "integrate Tome of Battle with the Tomes" what he meant was "Make Tome Fighters stronger, because they aren't strong enough yet."

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:41 am

1) You have a problem with the Tome Fighter that goes beyond this feat.

2) The feat offers diminishing returns the more you take it, so dumping huge amounts of bonus feats into it is not worth it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:21 am

Dominicius wrote:1) You have a problem with the Tome Fighter that goes beyond this feat.

This has nothing to do with my problems with the Tome Fighter.

When someone says they want to integrate Tome of Battle (a balance point well below Tome Fighter) with the Tomes (an average balance point below Tome Fighter) they do not mean that they want to play a Tome Fighter that is more powerful than the normal Tome Fighter.

Dominicius wrote:2) The feat offers diminishing returns the more you take it, so dumping huge amounts of bonus feats into it is not worth it.

It has nothing to do with taking it multiple times. If I write up a Combat feat that is more powerful than every existing combat feat and stacks with them, then I have made the Tome Fighter more powerful.

If he doesn't like the balance point of "Tome Fighter" why do you think "Tome Fighter+" is going to be what he wants?

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:37 am

Even if we agree on the fact that this is better than any combat feat ever there is still the fact that it won't always be a 'Tome Fighter+' and instead be 'Whatever Tome Martial Classes I Allow In My Games+'.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:51 am

Dominicius wrote:Even if we agree on the fact that this is better than any combat feat ever there is still the fact that it won't always be a 'Tome Fighter+' and instead be 'Whatever Tome Martial Classes I Allow In My Games+'.

Why the fuck would the fact that is also boosts the Tome Barbarian and the Tome Samurai who are also already too powerful and completely obviate Tome of Battle undermine my point that this feat is a straight powerup to the classes that he is trying to power down?

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:56 am

Where does he say that he seeks to power down those classes?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:24 am

Libertad wrote:I'm an unapologetic Tome of Battle fanboy. I also like many ideas in the Tome Series.

What do you like about them, and why?

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:40 am

I never explicitly said that I wanted a lower power level than the Tome Fighter, but I would prefer that.

@OgreBattle: I like ToB because it gives a lot of versatility to melee builds. I like its flavor and its per-encounter format for maneuvers. I prefer it over the standard RoW classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai) because I find those options to be a little too powerful for my games, especially when going up against standard monsters. I did decide to incorporate the Tome Series Monk and Knight, though, in my current campaign.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 5:49 am

Korgan0 wrote:Also, there's the fact that there's been some effort to give martial classes some measure of out-of-combat versatility and problem-solving capability in the Tomes. I couldn't tell you how successful that's been, but there exists no equivalent stuff for the ToB classes, which could lead to a significant imbalance.

It's kinda funny/sad, because while my first instinct was to say "not very successful at all" the fact of the matter is that it doesn't take too much to trump a ToB class on that end. Let's stick with Soldier as our comp since it's got stances and maneuvers and is thus vaguely weeaboo. First off, the Tome series assumes Leadership feats are completely kosher and Soldiers get Command as a bonus feat at level 6 and enough BAB progression to nab a cohort that way by level 8, so there's no real opportunity cost in having a pet wizard around to provide some utility while you bring your own largely level appropriate bag of combat tricks to the partnership. Secondly, another level 8 perk is that you gain access to a stance that puts every spell on your list for the purposes of activating spell trigger items. Not a particularly powerful set of kludges, I'll admit, but again, we're competing here with official martial classes, which is a very sad lot indeed.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 7:10 am

Leadership feats are completely kosher

Tome assumes armies are kosher. The cohort from leadership is broken to hell and back, which is why leadership feats appear not to grant cohorts.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 5:00 pm

There's also a blurb that mentions Leadership feats and such as being completely optional, but aside from that I'm giving you a big ol' whatever. The Command, Leadership, Lord of Death, Master of Terror and Monster Rancher feats say stuff like "9: You persuade someone that you are so awesome that they should follow you around all the time, acquiring a cohort," which to me sounds an awful lot like you acquire a cohort. The tomes in general seem to be written from the POV that getting access to abilities that you could have had 2 levels ago if you were a different class isn't particularly shocking or worth stressing out about; you show me a spell slot from a few levels ago and I'll show you a slot that's likely filled with a buff or utility power that is mostly exciting if you're not already a wizard or cleric. I also suspect that it isn't really a coincidence that narrower martial themed tome classes like Soldier and Knight get the ability to write "Has a sidekick" as a class feature right around the time you stop being able to solve problems with just your deltoids.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 2:45 am

Whipstitch wrote:There's also a blurb that mentions Leadership feats and such as being completely optional, but aside from that I'm giving you a big ol' whatever. The Command, Leadership, Lord of Death, Master of Terror and Monster Rancher feats say stuff like "9: You persuade someone that you are so awesome that they should follow you around all the time, acquiring a cohort," which to me sounds an awful lot like you acquire a cohort. The tomes in general seem to be written from the POV that getting access to abilities that you could have had 2 levels ago if you were a different class isn't particularly shocking or worth stressing out about; you show me a spell slot from a few levels ago and I'll show you a slot that's likely filled with a buff or utility power that is mostly exciting if you're not already a wizard or cleric. I also suspect that it isn't really a coincidence that narrower martial themed tome classes like Soldier and Knight get the ability to write "Has a sidekick" as a class feature right around the time you stop being able to solve problems with just your deltoids.

a) There is also an enormous looming cloud of everyone-knows-leadership-is-stupid thought, and it blows my mind that you think it's fine and dandy.

b) If you mean this thread, you're referring to feats where 1 of them is required to be undead and the other is required to be a monster, and the other three don't get cohorts. So basically 1 of those feats is game-breaking, while the other four are vague and awkward. The Races of War feat Command is noted as unquantifiably balanced, as in you can totally and completely break the game to stupid levels with it or have a completely useless cohort that can't help at all.

Yeah, tome POV rarely actually espouses leadership as a good and viable thing.

c) And would you like some slots 2 levels ago? How about true strike, enlarge/reduce, fog cloud, detect thoughts, see invisibility, blur, invisibility, any stat-booster, spider climb, magic circle, nondetection, sleet storm, arcane sight, clairaudiance/clairvoyance, telepathic bond, tongues, heroism, rage, tiny hut, wind wall, displacement, Silent/Minor/Major Image, blink, fly, haste, and GMW. I'll bold the hard buffs for you.

Those are for your soldier, buffs and high utility of a wizard out of core, and this ignores spells from every other book like SpC's wraithstrike (power attack harder than anyone else). Needless to say, cohorts are dumb.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 3:16 am

...You Lost Me wrote:a) There is also an enormous looming cloud of everyone-knows-leadership-is-stupid thought, and it blows my mind that you think it's fine and dandy.

Not really. The more players in the game, the more annoying it is, and it certainly has the potential to be problematic anyway (especially if you let people have multiple cohorts with them at the same time) but it's not that big a deal depending on the set-up. I've yet to see a game where that turned out badly.

Needless to say, cohorts are dumb.

Funnily enough, I was going to say the same about you. The difference is that there's debate about the dumbness of the cohorts.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:40 am

You can totally claim that having a chassis with real class features AND a pet wizard to buff you up before you go ass kicking is obviously way powerful without hearing a word of disagreement from me. I still think you need to get your meds checked though because you're making it sound as if cohort hate is self-evident and that the tomes themselves are anti-cohort or that cohorts are unsupported. That's clearly at odds with the fact that Knights and Soldiers get this at levels 5 and 6 respectively:

Command [Combat] [Leadership]
You lead tiny men.
Benefits: You have a Command Rating equal to your Base Attack Bonus divided by five (round up).
+1: You can muster a group of followers. Your leadership score is your Base Attack Bonus plus your Charisma Modifier.
+6: You are able to delegate command to a loyal cohort. A cohort is an intelligent and loyal creature with a CR at least 2 less than your character level. Cohorts gain levels when you do.
+11: With a Swift Action you may rally troops, allowing all allies within medium range of yourself to reroll their saves vs. Fear and gain a +2 Morale Bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute. This is a language-dependent ability that may be used an unlimited number of times.
+16: Your allies gain a +2 morale bonus to all saving throws if they can see you and you are within medium range.

So, yeah, I'm comfortable assuming the Tomes are OK with you having a sidekick. I assume that because the tomes gives you several options for acquiring them with rules and stuff. Sometimes the narrower classes get that for free. If you have a problem with that go argue with Frank or something. I personally don't give a crap.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:15 am

Koumei, if you're going to say "I used Leadership once and it didn't suck MUST BE OK LOLOL YOU ARE STUPID", you're as bad as npc310 in that damn guns thread. I have dealt with leadership on one person, and it's bogged the game down to a stupid mary sue fight. So even anecdotally, I have won, because I have just proved to your dumb tell-me-a-story standards that the feat can screw up games by itself.

And Whipstich, you just cited a homebrew sourcebook, the writers of which have admitted to there being a bunch of non-functional rules (mass combat) and broken rules (the tome fighter) and hard power creep (samurai). Based on this homebrew sourcebook written where the designers have admitted to fucking up in places and there is mad power creep from their other books, you are taking one of the Unquantifiable (like I said in my last post) balance-point feat that also happens to capitalize on the broken mass combat system, and you are using that as your central balance point hub. And none of that makes you feel like your argument is ringing a little hollow?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:38 am

No you dumbfuck, you're the one saying it never works and always ruins the game. I fucking said it has the potential to ruin things, but won't automatically do so every time: I can count five D&D games I've played (three with Tome stuff) where Leadership (or whatever) was used, and it caused problems in zero of them. So we have evidence that it sometimes ruins games and evidence that it doesn't always do so. I stated it sometimes but not always does, and you said it's badwrong and stupid to include and never should have existed. So you're stupid and wrong.

So there is actually debate about Leadership being stupid. You being stupid, on the other hand, is pretty much agreed upon, whether on this thread or others.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:47 am

One thing I never got. Why does a Cohort need to be a component of a scaling feat? They already scale. Seemed like an unnecessary power boost to me.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 7:55 am

My guess would in part be consistency with the format of other tome feats but yeah, I definitely know how you feel. Leadership was already all but mandatory for any player who wanted to keep up with the Joneses and is in a campaign that allows the feat to begin with.

...You Lost Me wrote:Tome assumes armies are kosher. The cohort from leadership is broken to hell and back, which is why leadership feats appear not to grant cohorts.

Just quoting this to remind people how the goalposts were shifted such that the argument is now somehow supposed to be about defending my "central balance hub" as opposed to being about what the tomes actually hands out and how those things interact/compare with the weeaboo classes.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:38 am

What is the power level of a Warblade compared to Tome Monk and Tome Knight?

Honestly I think the Monk has a more fun mechanic. The way warblade recharges if anything is how magic/ninjutsu should work.

The Gaming Den

Integrating Tome of Battle with the Tome Series

Integrating Tome of Battle with the Tome Series

Re: Integrating Tome of Battle with the Tome Series