Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FriendlyBiscuit 10-24-06, 12:17 AM	As written, a crusader only has 3 disciplines to choose from. Devoted Spirit, Stone Dragon, and White Raven. Almost all of the White Raven maneuvers are more effective when in a party, and many are just plain useless if you're alone. This puts a damper on anyone who wants to be a lone crusader, fighting for justice, injustice, dragons, or pickles all on his lonesome. Even a few devoted spirit maneuvers are for people who fight together. The way that devoted spirit works, it already encourages crusaders to consider their alignment seriously, because it will affect the way their maneuvers work, who the maneuvers work upon, and which maneuvers they can choose. What about making Devoted Spirit (their signature discipline) and Stone Dragon (the universal discipline) built-in, but having a third discipline option based on alignment? Variant rule: Remove Diplomacy from the crusader class skill list. A crusader's discipline choices are affected by his alignment. He can automatically choose from Devoted Spirit and Stone Dragon maneuvers, and he also gains one bonus discipline based on his alignment. Chaotic crusaders can choose from the Tiger Claw discipline, Evil crusaders can choose from the Shadow Hand discipline, Lawful crusaders can choose from the White Raven discipline, and Good crusaders can choose from the ______ discipline. If a crusader is both Lawful and Good, he must choose which discipline to make into a class discipline; all crusaders only get three class disciplines. The skill associated with the chosen discipline is added to the crusader's skill list. Not yet decided: Should good crusaders get Desert Wind (burning righteous fire!), or Setting Sun (emphasis on defense and nonlethal techniques). Should true-neutral crusaders get anything? If so, should they get Diamond Mind (concentration kinda equals meditation, in D&D, and that's a very neutral thing to do), or Iron Heart? (mastery of pure combat without emphasis on any extreme. also has the benefit of not giving the mamby-pamby true neutral players an extra class skill). Yes, I know NN crusaders are against RAW, but RAW is not an issue here and I imagine someone with a strong character concept would be allowed to play a neutral crusader by most DM's here.
Seerow 10-24-06, 12:25 AM	Setting Sun seems to fit with the defensive theme of the Crusader. It's the one I would pick. If you go with Desert Wind, I'd say give the Good Crusader an ability to make half the Fire Damage from his maneuvers holy damage, similar to the Silver Flame abilities. And an Evil Crusader with Shadowhand maneuvers... I'm just imagining the immense power this grants to the Shadowpounce Builds, what, with the Crusader's awesome recovery. Even without that, Shadow Hand is serioulsy awesome. I'd be tempted to play an Evil Crusader just to get it, and I prefer the Lawful Good Types. As for True Neutral, I'd say Diamond Mind is perfect.
bruiserdeck 10-24-06, 12:55 AM	never forgget your playing a game of immagination. one can play one class but role play as a differnt perfession... for example you can play a paladin and say, "I am justinius CRUSADER of the righteous fist!" or play a cleric and say, "i am bulgor SHAMAN of the barbarian north." in other words. dont let the ideas and suggestions of the book totaly hinder your imagination and role play.
Seerow 10-24-06, 01:27 AM	Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion at hand.
FriendlyBiscuit 10-24-06, 03:11 AM	And an Evil Crusader with Shadowhand maneuvers... I'm just imagining the immense power this grants to the Shadowpounce Builds, what, with the Crusader's awesome recovery. Even without that, Shadow Hand is serioulsy awesome. I'd be tempted to play an Evil Crusader just to get it, and I prefer the Lawful Good Types.The thing is that most of the best shadow hand maneuvers, or at least the ones with the most significant combat application in-and-of themselves, allow a Fort save, which usually negates the entire point of the maneuver if successful. To top it off, that save is Wis-based, which makes me a little MAD, requiring str, con, cha, and wis to all be at least decent... and Dex/Int are difficult stats to dump.
bruiserdeck 10-24-06, 05:53 AM	lol your right... that was a completely useless post. was thinking about one thing and answered that without fully comprehending the essence of what was going on.
Thelon Fairblade 10-24-06, 10:40 AM	Um, please note that the Shadow Hand and Desert Wind styles are highly supernatural in their nature -- they are restricted to the swordsage for a reason. I would be very wary of granting access to those disciplines to the crusader (or warblade), with their much better maneuver-reset rate.
SilvercatMoonpaw 10-24-06, 03:48 PM	I do not have Tome of Battle, so I can't suggest any disciplines to replace White Raven. But is it really that bad to have a discipline that works best in parties? I know you want a lone figure here, but if you're playing D&D with a group don't you at least have to have your character be part of the group? Or is this for an NPC who is a loner? It's not that I'm saying you shouldn't do it, I'm just curious as to why you want to be a longer in a party?
Seerow 10-24-06, 06:54 PM	The thing is that most of the best shadow hand maneuvers, or at least the ones with the most significant combat application in-and-of themselves, allow a Fort save, which usually negates the entire point of the maneuver if successful. To top it off, that save is Wis-based, which makes me a little MAD, requiring str, con, cha, and wis to all be at least decent... and Dex/Int are difficult stats to dump. The best IMO are the Shadowblink line of feats. With the Crusader's recovery rate, blinking as a swift action every round is very awesome. Especially when you consider he can now move 100ft per round and still attack (and have another maneuver that's granted to him every round), or move 50ft and full attack. Very handy. Honestly, I don't care much about anything else from Shadow Hand. The maneuverability alone is so much worth it for a Tank, I wish it was always available to the martial adepts. (And really, it should be. I'm in no way saying allowing it is broken, just that I really love teleportation effects)
Seerow 10-24-06, 06:55 PM	Um, please note that the Shadow Hand and Desert Wind styles are highly supernatural in their nature -- they are restricted to the swordsage for a reason. I would be very wary of granting access to those disciplines to the crusader (or warblade), with their much better maneuver-reset rate. Casting Heal with every attack you make isn't supernatural in nature? This is really a flavor issue more than anything else, and somebody making such a change clearly accepts that.
dizfactor 10-25-06, 04:23 AM	I love the martial adept maneuvers and stances from ToB, but I hate the way they're allocated by class (and I kind of dislike the three classes altogether). It seems to me that they should be more widely available to regular fighting classes (and more generously than 1 Feat/maneuver), and the availability of styles should be available by race and culture. If you're a ranger from a tribe of desert nomads, you should be able to learn Desert Wind. If you're a marshal trained and experienced at leading men into battle, you should be able to learn White Raven. If you're a paladin, you should be able to learn Devoted Spirit. I had also developed a rough correspondence of the nine schools with different base classes at some point, but I dropped it: Desert Wind: Nomad (stolen from Conan D20 RPG) or Ranger Devoted Spirit: Paladin Diamond Mind: Monk or Psychic Warrior Iron Heart: Fighter Setting Sun: Monk Shadow Hand: Ninja Stone Dragon: Knight Tiger Claw: Barbarian or Ranger White Raven: Marshal Some of these could be switched around, obviously, or maybe some classes would have different styles depending on culture and race, as noted above. A fighter from one culture might have Desert Wind, another might have Stone Dragon, another might have Iron Heart. Everyone's always complaining that the non-spellcasting classes are underpowered. Maybe we should just consider giving them all martial adept abilities (and come up with non-spellcasting varieties of the ranger and paladin), and dropping the martial adept classes entirely. You'd have to figure out maneuver reset rates and numbers of maneuvers available and the like, but it would be worth it, I think, for the right campaign.
X-Codes 10-25-06, 07:45 AM	lol your right... that was a completely useless post. was thinking about one thing and answered that without fully comprehending the essence of what was going on. It was actually a rather good post IMO. Honestly, alignment-based manuvers is a bad idea. What happens when they change alignment? Do they lose the manuvers? Besides, none of the manuvers outside of the Devoted Spirit discipline are inherantly good, evil, chaotic, or lawful. Just because it has a spooky name and deals with the shadows does not make it evil, or haven't you heard of Vigilantes? (As in real Vigilantes, not the CAdv PrC.) Crusaders are practically incapable of dying, so they barely have to hit their enemies in order to win a fight. Add to that their non-action recovery system and use of self-recovery in the Devoted Spirit discipline, and you've got a really strong solo warrior. Crusaders learn 14 manuvers and 4 stances. Thats more than enough to master all 3 disciplines they have. If they're going it alone, then they just don't ready a bunch of White Raven manuvers. P.S.: Crusaders can't be true neutral.
FriendlyBiscuit 10-26-06, 12:53 AM	Honestly, alignment-based manuvers is a bad idea. What happens when they change alignment? Do they lose the manuvers? Besides, none of the manuvers outside of the Devoted Spirit discipline are inherantly good, evil, chaotic, or lawful. Just because it has a spooky name and deals with the shadows does not make it evil, or haven't you heard of Vigilantes? (As in real Vigilantes, not the CAdv PrC.)If they change alignment, which isn't all too common in most games unless someone wants to play up the Pally-to-Blackguard conversion, yes, they lose those maneuvers and must choose maneuvers from the new discipline that are the same level as the ones that were lost. It's not too hard, really. This is a alignment-based class, just like paladins. Paladins who change their alignment lose everything. Crusaders don't have it so bad, even with my system. They have to change up any Devoted Spirit maneuvers that have an [alignment] descriptor anyway. And yes, because it has a spooky name and deals with the shadows makes it evil, in D&D. See the Assassin prestige class in your DMG, the Shadow Weave in Magic of Faerun, . The Death in the Dark maneuver, when used successfully, is almost the same thing as a death attack. Tome of magic says that shadowcasters deal with dark powers, magic often associated with evil. Dread necromancers can cast darkness, but not daylight. Crusaders learn 14 manuvers and 4 stances. Thats more than enough to master all 3 disciplines they have. If they're going it alone, then they just don't ready a bunch of White Raven manuvers.But what if they don't want to master White Raven, because they won't use it? Clerics often had no use for Turn Undead back in the day, if undead opponents weren't common... so WotC gave them options. Divine feats, racial substitution levels, UA variations, etc. Crusaders have the fewest options out of the ToB classes... why not give em one? P.S.: Crusaders can't be true neutral. Um, I discussed this in the OP.
FriendlyBiscuit 10-26-06, 01:19 AM	It's not that I'm saying you shouldn't do it, I'm just curious as to why you want to be a longer in a party?I originally started thinking of it because I have an BBEG NPC crusader (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=10442813) who has little or no use for White Raven maneuvers. Then I started thinking about why my players dig swordsages and warblades but don't wanna play crusaders. Aside from the fact that they're not crazed optimizers, it's also due to the class rigidity and lack of interesting differences between one crusader and the next. This way, my guy isn't screwed out of a whole lame discipline, and my players have some fun options.
X-Codes 10-26-06, 03:14 AM	And yes, because it has a spooky name and deals with the shadows makes it evil, in D&D. See the Assassin prestige class in your DMG, the Shadow Weave in Magic of Faerun, . The Death in the Dark maneuver, when used successfully, is almost the same thing as a death attack. Tome of magic says that shadowcasters deal with dark powers, magic often associated with evil. Dread necromancers can cast darkness, but not daylight. Just because evil often lurks in darness doesn't mean darkness itself is evil. Evil people hide in the darkness to conceal their crimes and/or evade percecution by the forces of good. The assassin is evil because he's a trained killer that basically lives to kill. Shadow Weave Magic is evil because it's controlled by a psychotic deity. The Feral Death Blow manuver also kills people, and often other manuvers like Diamond Nightmare Blade and Strike of Perfect Clarity kill people, too. Shadowcasters deal with powers often associated with evil, not just plain evil. Dread Necromancers don't cast light spells because most intelligent undead abhor light, even if they aren't crippled by it. Now all the classes associated with Darkness and NOT inherantly evil: Ninja, Rogue, Nightsong Infiltrator, Nightsong Enforcer, Shadowcraft Mage, Shadow Sentinel, Daggerspell Mage, Daggerspell Shaper, Spymaster, Vigilante, Umbral Disciple... But what if they don't want to master White Raven, because they won't use it? Clerics often had no use for Turn Undead back in the day, if undead opponents weren't common... so WotC gave them options. Divine feats, racial substitution levels, UA variations, etc. Crusaders have the fewest options out of the ToB classes... why not give em one? If they don't want to master White Raven then they don't have to. They can get Stone Dragon and Devoted Spirit manuvers and then go into Ruby Knight Vindicator for some Shadow Hand or Jade Phoenix Mage for some Desert Wind or some Diamond Mind going Eternal Blade. Or, they can master all three and simply not ready their White Raven manuvers when they go solo, which they DO have the option of doing. You aren't going to be alone 24/7 unless you're a hermit, so who knows, that Tactics of the Wolf stance just might come in handy sometime. Also, you don't address the fact that some of the best Devoted Spirit manuvers can't be used by TN characters. EDIT: I originally started thinking of it because I have an BBEG NPC crusader who has little or no use for White Raven maneuvers. Then I started thinking about why my players dig swordsages and warblades but don't wanna play crusaders. Aside from the fact that they're not crazed optimizers, it's also due to the class rigidity and lack of interesting differences between one crusader and the next. This way, my guy isn't screwed out of a whole lame discipline, and my players have some fun options. White Raven is arguably the best discipline in the book. If your BBEG Crusader (who should have decent Charisma for his Will Save, Smite Attack bonus, Intimidate skill, and a few others) is really a BBEG and not joe NPC #174, he'll have cronies, possibly Blackguards and Clerics if he's the crusader of an evil deity or, at the very least, evil arcanists and summoned fiends if he's just following a generally evil path. Your BBEG follows some ideal, as described in the Crusader class. Other people who follow the same ideals as the Crusader should be inclined to follow him if he's stronger, or he should be inclined to follow the other if they're stronger. Evil people that work alone all have one thing in common: they die.
FriendlyBiscuit 10-27-06, 01:35 AM	Your BBEG follows some ideal, as described in the Crusader class. Other people who follow the same ideals as the Crusader should be inclined to follow him if he's stronger, or he should be inclined to follow the other if they're stronger. Evil people that work alone all have one thing in common: they die.Unfortunately, yes, he dies. He has died a little over 200 times, and he needs to die 500 times by the sword before he'll be let off the hook. He can't stand Good people (because he's totally evil), but he can't make friends with Evil people because he needs to kill 500 of them. All this killing and dying is going to drive him a little over the edge... so all things considered, companionship of any kind can't last. Every time he dies, anyone he's with would be left behind, too. This is Eberron, so rampant Teleportation isn't as available.
Hyoban 10-28-06, 10:51 AM	I've already implemented something like this into my games as a house rule, but instead of giving them an extra discipline based on alignment, I base it off of their patron Deity, kind of like a Domain. They are a religious class, and for example, if they worship a God of Fire, then it's natural that they get access to Desert Wind; a Drow Crusader of Loth gets Shadow Hand, etc. It may seem really simple, but it works for giving them more options.
FriendlyBiscuit 10-28-06, 01:02 PM	That's an interesting idea. My players still don't want to dump any of their characters for a crusader, but they do rather like the idea of the "domain" discipline. Their response was the same as Seerow's: Setting Sun for the Good Crusader, but more because no one wants to see Crusaders tumbling, than any worry about supernaturalness. Diamond Mind for NN, too. (assuming I allow NN crusaders... luckily no one has asked to play one, so the issue hasn't come up) This week I'll have to see what they think about setting it based on your deity/cause. It's interesting, but I'm not sure there are enough disciplines to do it justice.
FriendlyBiscuit 10-28-06, 01:24 PM	Also, you don't address the fact that some of the best Devoted Spirit manuvers can't be used by TN characters.So far, I can't find the rules text in the book either way, but I thought that to use a, say, [Evil] maneuver, you simply had to not be Good.
Lina_Inverse 10-28-06, 01:44 PM	As written, a crusader only has 3 disciplines to choose from. Devoted Spirit, Stone Dragon, and White Raven. Almost all of the White Raven maneuvers are more effective when in a party, and many are just plain useless if you're alone. This puts a damper on anyone who wants to be a lone crusader, fighting for justice, injustice, dragons, or pickles all on his lonesome. Even a few devoted spirit maneuvers are for people who fight together. Your never not in a party. This is D&D. The way that devoted spirit works, it already encourages crusaders to consider their alignment seriously, because it will affect the way their maneuvers work, who the maneuvers work upon, and which maneuvers they can choose. Are you incapable of properly roleplaying alingments? Staying within the confines of ones alingment shouldnt be a problem.
Seerow 10-28-06, 01:46 PM	What part of this was inspired by an NPC didn't you understand?
graymocker 10-28-06, 01:51 PM	I'm wary of a house rule that suggests some disciplines are somehow more "evil" or "chaotic" or "good." There's no real reason why good crusaders should get desert sun and not shadow hand. It reminds me of how some DMs consider poison or acid to be "evil" ways of fighting. As if branding your enemies with fire damage or giving them frostbite with frost damage is somehow a more just way to fight.
BrazilianRascal 11-20-06, 10:46 AM	I'd rule it that a Crusader can, at character creation, choose between the White Raven and the Diamond Mind disciplines: one for those inspired by their gods to lead the righteous fight, the others meant to used divine insight and mettle to accomplish herculean tasks by themselves. Still, it should be tested first. Diamond Mind is a very strong set of abilities, and combined with Devoted Soul...it could be quite broken.