Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ogg 05-15-07, 01:20 PM	Hoping to not start a flame thread. We're going with the assumption that you feel ToB is not balanced. Not saying it is or isn't, we're assuming it is. What do you think about this as at least one balancing point. When starting a Martial Adept character you must pick a school as your primary school. You must purchase all the manuevers in a school available to you before you are allowed to cross-purchase manuevers from another school. Once you purchase something from a 2nd school, it becomes your secondary school, you may not in turn purchase manuevers from a 3rd school unless you in turn fill up on all the available manuevers from both your primary & 2ndary schools. Stances must also be purchased in that order. If you cross-class in a 2nd or 3rd martial adept class that class may have a different primary school. The only way you are allowed to break this is if you take a feat that allows you an additonal manuever or stance (this keeps a martial adept on even keel with a non-martial adept who uses feats to get manuevers & stances). Thoughts? It just seems there's a flavor to following a school but I haven't seen anything saying you have to stick to one. It will make Mo9 nearly impossible to qualify for & I haven't thought of a fix for that yet and will greatly reduce adaptibility but I think it might help balance some.
philipk 05-15-07, 01:30 PM	Hoping to not start a flame thread. We're going with the assumption that you feel ToB is not balanced. Not saying it is or isn't, we're assuming it is. What do you think about this as at least one balancing point. When starting a Martial Adept character you must pick a school as your primary school. You must purchase all the manuevers in a school available to you before you are allowed to cross-purchase manuevers from another school. Once you purchase something from a 2nd school, it becomes your secondary school, you may not in turn purchase manuevers from a 3rd school unless you in turn fill up on all the available manuevers from both your primary & 2ndary schools. Stances must also be purchased in that order. If you cross-class in a 2nd or 3rd martial adept class that class may have a different primary school. The only way you are allowed to break this is if you take a feat that allows you an additonal manuever or stance (this keeps a martial adept on even keel with a non-martial adept who uses feats to get manuevers & stances). Thoughts? It just seems there's a flavor to following a school but I haven't seen anything saying you have to stick to one. It will make Mo9 nearly impossible to qualify for & I haven't thought of a fix for that yet and will greatly reduce adaptibility but I think it might help balance some. Strangely enough (even though I think ToB has no balance issues) I like this...
Optimized_Commoner 05-15-07, 01:49 PM	Hoping to not start a flame thread. We're going with the assumption that you feel ToB is not balanced. Not saying it is or isn't, we're assuming it is. Well, I'll just start out by saying that I think it is, but whatever. We're looking at your idea. When starting a Martial Adept character you must pick a school as your primary school. You must purchase all the manuevers in a school available to you before you are allowed to cross-purchase manuevers from another school. This is a huge restriction. Since I don't believe it's unbalanced I wouldn't go for it, but even if you think it's unbalanced I think this is extreme (which might be what you're looking for if you think it's extremely unbalanced). What about something more like the restriction on the ardent, where they always have to have more powers in their primary mantle than in any others? It just seems there's a flavor to following a school but I haven't seen anything saying you have to stick to one. Wait... are you going for flavour or game balance? If you're simply after flavour, then write a new class with this restriction. Give it some unique abilities that differentiate it from the other 3. I don't like this idea. Not because I believe that the TOB is balanced, but because it severely limits characters to following one particular favour if they want a martial character (one of my issues with the monk). Flavour and game balance, are both good things. Seperately. I worry when they've fused together.
philipk 05-15-07, 02:29 PM	If you're simply after flavour, then write a new class with this restriction. Give it some unique abilities that differentiate it from the other 3. QFT. Ironically, this is the idea this thread originally gave me. Like a martial specialist. Give him more maneuvers or some sort of boost or quick recovery method to compensate.
theotherdraxen 05-15-07, 02:48 PM	Before I can help you (being yet another person who doesn't find ToB generally unbalanced, barring CustServ Crusaders), I'll need to know what you find unbalancing and why. A lot of people attempt cleric fixes by giving them a low BAB, a d6 hit dice, and a low fort save. This does nothing to fix the cleric, since his brokenness lies in his spells (divine power+righteous might blows those fixes out of the water, plus he's got other self-only spells to use). So, before we can judge whether your fix works, we need to know how it's broken.
Sphyre 05-15-07, 04:08 PM	When starting a Martial Adept character you must pick a school as your primary school. You must purchase all the manuevers in a school available to you before you are allowed to cross-purchase manuevers from another school. Once you purchase something from a 2nd school, it becomes your secondary school, you may not in turn purchase manuevers from a 3rd school unless you in turn fill up on all the available manuevers from both your primary & 2ndary schools. Well... they kind of already have prerequisites on the maneuvers as a balancing factor...
Ogg 05-15-07, 04:52 PM	Fair enough. Sorry I'm a role playing power gamer so I play both sides of the gaming fence. Balance: IMHO you can cherry pick way to easily. Make a level 1 sword sage & look at the sheer volume available to you & some of the rather extreme builds you can do. True you need prereqs for the higher level powers but they seems a bit too easy. We're talking 1 manuever for level 3. Maybe a bit harsher on a Warblade then a Swordsage but still seems pretty light. Flavor: The book seems to have a motiff geared toward practicing a specific school. "Oh your a disciple of the setting sun" not "Oh so you took setting sun to deflect a charge, stone dragon for the damage resistance, didn't touch shadow until 2nd level so you could pick up the invisibility & teleport..." You get the idea. I have just seen a lot of people complaining about how this book is too powerful. I'm just trying to see if you lessened the cherry picking if it seemed to bring a warblade back on even level to a barbarian for instance. You'd still get to choose which school you took so there would still be customization.
DarkRhystar 05-15-07, 05:00 PM	Thoughts? The number 1 best part of Tome of Battle is that you can make warrior-types versatile. Congratulations, you just gave it a swift kick to the groin.
glacialcat 05-15-07, 05:02 PM	What about the Master of Nine prestige class? This house rule would totally destroy that prestige class. The PrC is strong, but its tough prerequisites balance it out. And as for balance issues, most people who believe it to be too strong are well... wrong. It has been shown that a properly made Barbarian equals or exceeds the damage of a Warblade (the class that most of these complaints of being too strong come against). All Warblade really has over the barbarian is mobility, since he doesn't need to make a full attack, and versatility.
Optimized_Commoner 05-15-07, 05:28 PM	Fair enough. Sorry I'm a role playing power gamer so I play both sides of the gaming fence. No need to apologize, that's wonderful. Like I said, they're both great, but I think trying to both at once is going to corrupt your idea. Balance: IMHO you can cherry pick way to easily. Make a level 1 sword sage & look at the sheer volume available to you & some of the rather extreme builds you can do. True you need prereqs for the higher level powers but they seems a bit too easy. We're talking 1 manuever for level 3. Maybe a bit harsher on a Warblade then a Swordsage but still seems pretty light. You can do the same with a sorcerer or wizard. How limited would a sorcerer be if they could only cast spells from a single school (see also my many rants on why I hate the warmage). You're kidding yourself if you think this is a minor adjustment to reduce their power a little. This is mugging them in a dark alleyway with a nerf bat and stealing all their best abilities. If you think TOB is the least balanced thing since 2nd edition psionics and that you have to take a hacksaw to them to make them work, then this is a reasonable change. If you just think "Wow, that book's a little too powerful", then this change is too extreme. Flavor: The book seems to have a motiff geared toward practicing a specific school. "Oh your a disciple of the setting sun" not "Oh so you took setting sun to deflect a charge, stone dragon for the damage resistance, didn't touch shadow until 2nd level so you could pick up the invisibility & teleport..." You get the idea. In the real world I know a bunch of martial artists, I used to be a sporting "martial artist" myself competing in Judo tournaments. (Judo is quite arguably not a martial art, hence my scare quotes. Though I also learned Jiu-jutsu which is). Most of them, know more than one martial art and combine them. For example even though I've only ever learned Judo and Jiu-jutsu, I also know several Aikido moves because our teacher had learned them and thought they were useful to pass on. I think that the TOB was built to capture a "martial arts" flavour, and to me that would ring hollow if they didn't adapt and learn other moves. Martial artists aren't as purist as people think, for thousands of years the one reason to learn a martial art was to win and that requires adaptation. The idea of "I'm a master of Dragon Style Kung Fu" is a product of the teaching environment, where different teachers would compete their students to see whose style was better. On the battlefield it was a simple matter of doing what worked.
Donovan Morningfire 05-15-07, 05:33 PM	I'd say these proposed fixes unnecessarily neuter the martial adepts on the alter of the mythical "balanced game." A core part of the martial adept class is the versatility of being able to select different maneuvers from the assorted schools, making it more likely that two martial adepts of the same class and same level are going to know several different maneuvers, even if they have a similar focus or group role, they may have very different methods of getting there. Another question to the OP is have you actually played a martial adept or even seen on in actual play? Or are you just going by the forum cries of "OMG! ToB classes r borken!!11!!!!"?* I'm playing a Warblade in a D&D campaign, and so far none of the players have complained about my character being 'broken,' least of the Paladin and the dwarf Cleric, both of whom are fairly melee-centric characters. But then again my playstyle doesn't involve unnecessary showboating either. The DM obviously doesn't have an issue with the way the class and maneuvers work, since he allowed the class and even suggested I play a Warblade when I pitched the idea of playing a regular fighter in the vein of Roy from OotS. *I think I just suffered Intelligence damage from typing that bit of gibberish
Optimized_Commoner 05-15-07, 05:44 PM	Another question to the OP is have you actually played a martial adept or even seen on in actual play? Or are you just going by the forum cries of "OMG! ToB classes r borken!!11!!!!"?* Actually the OP seems to have said that he thinks this is a change of flavour which he likes that may inadvertently satisfy the forum-posters who think that it's too busted. I don't want to put those words in his mouth though, so hopefully he can confirm/deny that. *I think I just suffered Intelligence damage from typing that bit of gibberish No, that's intelligence drain worthy.
Zurai 05-15-07, 06:51 PM	What do you think about this as at least one balancing point. When starting a Martial Adept character you must pick a school as your primary school. You must purchase all the manuevers in a school available to you before you are allowed to cross-purchase manuevers from another school. Once you purchase something from a 2nd school, it becomes your secondary school, you may not in turn purchase manuevers from a 3rd school unless you in turn fill up on all the available manuevers from both your primary & 2ndary schools. Stances must also be purchased in that order. If you cross-class in a 2nd or 3rd martial adept class that class may have a different primary school. Short version: You may only take maneuvers and stances from one single style. Let's use a Warblade focused on Iron Heart (the Warblade-only style) as an example. 1st level: 3 maneuvers known, 1 stance known. 2 available 1st level IH maneuvers, 1 available 1st level IH stance. He gets 1 maneuver of a secondary school, we'll say Diamond Mind (2 available maneuvers, 1 available stance). 2nd level: 4 maneuvers known, 1 stance known. He's forced to take the 2nd DM maneuver. 3rd level: 5 maneuvers known, 1 stance known. 2 more IH and 2 more DM maneuvers available. He's forced to take one of the IH maneuvers. 4th level: 1 maneuver retrain, which he is forced to either ignore or take from DM and put into the 2nd IH maneuver. 1 stance known, which he is forced to put into the DM level 1 stance. 5th level: 6 maneuvers known, 2 IH maneuvers + 1 IH stance available. He's forced to take one of those maneuvers. 6th level: 1 maneuver retrain, which he is forced to either ignore or use to move the other DM maneuver into the remaining IH maneuver. If he hasn't ignored either, at this point he has exactly zero DM maneuvers and every available IH maneuver. From here on out, he gets less maneuvers known than maneuvers available, forcing him to take IH exclusively. It's similar for the other two classes, they just "bottom out" a little differently.
Ogg 05-16-07, 09:43 AM	Yeah, you were correct in your summary OC. I was just thinking of a way to present it. No, Donovan I have not played a character out of it yet but I actually love the idea of playing a character out of it. O love the book but I just have a DM or 2 who potentially might try & shoot down the book as overpowering. Often when I choose certain classes I immediately hear them say "Oh that's a broken class." So I was expecting them to say that with this. I'm just trying for possible ways of presenting it to them. I think the major flaw is as Zurai is pointing out how much it would cripple warblades. From other threads I've been reading & researching it myself it seems there's flaws, particularly in stances; when they become accessible based on levels that would make that a double hit with the having to stick to one school. Thanks all for the helpful input.
Neutronium_Dragon 05-16-07, 10:25 AM	To be honest, if you present it to them along with this proposed "fix", you're more or less proclaiming to them that you agree that it's unbalanced as written - not a good position to open with.
Donovan Morningfire 05-16-07, 07:42 PM	To be honest, if you present it to them along with this proposed "fix", you're more or less proclaiming to them that you agree that it's unbalanced as written - not a good position to open with. Agreed. Play it as is first, then decided after a couple of sessions if any tweaking is needed.
Pathanus 05-16-07, 09:56 PM	Limiting ToB classes to 1 school (or even 2 schools) seems to be similar to Psions have to pick a discipline except that psions also have access to many Psion/Wilder powers on top of specialized powers available to only that discipline. With the limited amount of new maneuvers and stances known per level how does any class get every ability available as to choose one from a different school? (Swordsage only maybe) Each class is already restricted on which schools of maneuvers it can choose from. If there is some specific combo or maneuver that is breaking the game either change it or ban it; would be easier to do that than change mechanics of multiple classes and prc's.
fatal error 05-17-07, 12:18 AM	I don't think this would significantly power down Tome of Battle abilities. It would restrict some character concepts, and might restrict some characters to having access to only a few of the "best" maneuvers. However, in the end, if I thought Tome of Battle as a whole was overpowered, this would not make me think otherwise. The parts I would consider overpowered would still be just as powerful, you'd just have fewer options. But a Warblade using a strike I considered overpowered 2 out of 3 rounds instead of 4 out of 5 rounds, really would not make me change my mind about the power level of the system. Furthermore, to elaborate on my earlier note of restricting character concepts, I feel this is a bad thing. While certainly the "mainstream" flavor of Tome of Battle is bent towards characters exemplified by one style or two styles, the system is also versatile enough to allow much wider concepts to be illustrated. This restriction would destroy the latter aspect. I think this change could work, but I don't think it would improve anything.
Illithid_Tentacles 05-17-07, 12:17 PM	The number 1 best part of Tome of Battle is that you can make warrior-types versatile. Congratulations, you just gave it a swift kick to the groin. Quoted for truth.
TarlSS 05-17-07, 01:06 PM	Propagating even the idea that TOB is unbalanced is just a terrible idea. You might as well just ban everything except clerics then.
Toloran 05-17-07, 01:11 PM	Your changes have the added disadvantage of making a Master of the Nine far more difficult to become.