D&D 3E/3.5 Do you miss the martial adepts from "Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords"?

Cap'n Kobold · Jun 23, 2019

LuisCarlos17f said:
The crusader had got a random system to recover spent maneuvers, and this was too complicated to be used like nPCs by the DM, but maybe like a solo boss.

5th ed tends to use a "Recharges on a roll of x+ on a d6" for NPC mechanics that aren't just a set number of times per encounter.

My opinion is the first step to reintroduce the martial maneuvers could be new subclasses, and later something like the pathfinder archetypes when some class features are replaced by others..(gladiator class from Dark Sun would be an example of D&D version of Pthf archetypes).

We need to differentiate between maneuvers with ki power source, or magic. Ki should be a power source like arcana, divina, primal magic, or psionic.

In 5e, Ki is explicitly a kind of magic.
Splitting magic into arcane, divine, primal, psionic etc is very much a 4th ed thing, not 5th ed. If you're going to do that, why not put ki back in psionic?

Martial adept classes can't be only fighters with martial maneuvers, but they also need their own mark of identity. That is the reason when I try to create a martial adept as character my mind thinks about samurai, monks, ninjas, sohei and other oriental classes.

You already have Samurai (Paladins of the Crown, Champion Fighters), Ninja (Shadow Monks, Rogues of almost any persuasion), Monks etc.
Tying a system into a distinction based on real-life race and culture doesn't strike me as something 5th ed goes for. Even the original Bo9S didn't, outside of Desert Wind tending to be from cultures with deserts.

* The key is the martial maneuvers are neither at-will nor once-encounter powers, but a middle step between. PCs need a special action to reload maneuvers, like the psion who spends his focus and he want to regain it with a concentration check. The reload of martial maneuvers has to be a fast and easy system to can use martial adepts as nPC enemies (or fights will be slower).

For classes, both superiority dice and Ki points refresh on a short rest. That would seem close.
For NPCs, the recharge mechanic would seem to fit well if you want something between once-per-encounter (considering the NPC is only likely to exist for one encounter) and at-will.

billd91 · Jun 23, 2019

Do I miss it? No. Didn't particularly like it.

Dragonblade · Jun 24, 2019

Tome of Battle was a seminal work in D&D publishing. The singularly greatest supplement published for the entirety of WotC's run on 3e D&D and Paizo's run on Pathfinder. It spectacularly resolved the LFQW issue that rendered 3e irrevocably broken and flawed, and did so in a way that revolutionized martial characters for the better. It holds on honored place on my shelf and its absence in 5e is a glaring hole in an otherwise stellar edition. The battle master falls well short.

In case, you can't tell, I'm a big fan.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 25, 2019

Splitting magic into arcane, divine, primal, psionic etc is very much a 4th ed thing, not 5th ed.

“Pre-5th” would be more accurate. All the other prior editions had such subdivisions.

LFQW

What’s that?

The Crimson Binome · Jun 25, 2019

Some of the ideas were neat, but at the time it came out, the game was already bloated with many different types of magic, and adding another one felt unnecessary.

The idea would work better if sword magic was the only type of magic in the setting. Failing that, the warblade and crusader could have replaced the fighter and paladin, but having all of those classes in the same setting was redundant.

LuisCarlos17f · Jun 25, 2019

"LFQW" means, I guess, "Linear fighter, quadratic wizard". In the beginning the fighter is stronger than wizard, but later in the highest levels the spellcaster is very much more powerful.

* You can't say "we have got enough classes". You can't show your opinion about the design of a new class (balance of power, fun and enoughly simple gameplay and a cool mark of identity) but you can't say "Barbie has got enough clothes, or Transformers, G.I.Joe, Avengers or X-Men have got enough characters. Always one new can be created.

* Maybe some "magic" martial maneuvers could be introduce as spells or single-use magic scrolls. Spending a ki point, or reading a magic scroll the PC could use for an encounter sometimes, only with the prerequisites to reload it.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 26, 2019

LuisCarlos17f said:
"LFQW" means, I guess, "Linear fighter, quadratic wizard". In the beginning the fighter is stronger than wizard, but later in the highest levels the spellcaster is very much more powerful.

Thanks for clarifying that!

Never bugged me for a moment, though.

Garthanos · Jun 26, 2019

Dragonblade said:
Tome of Battle was a seminal work in D&D publishing. The singularly greatest supplement published for the entirety of WotC's run on 3e D&D and Paizo's run on Pathfinder. It spectacularly resolved the LFQW issue that rendered 3e irrevocably broken and flawed, and did so in a way that revolutionized martial characters for the better. It holds on honored place on my shelf and its absence in 5e is a glaring hole in an otherwise stellar edition. The battle master falls well short.

In case, you can't tell, I'm a big fan.

Wow tell us how you really feel

To be honest on topic I didnt get to play the Tome of Battle characters. I have read it and was impressed both by the presented flavor and willingness to actually try and fix issues for martial style classes and the terminology well rocked. The battlemaster falls short sure and eldritch knight does even worse.

togashi_joe · Jun 26, 2019

Have you checked out this product? It does a pretty good job in my opinion of updating those rules/classes to 5e: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/198305/Tome-of-Battle-Book-of-Nine-Swords?term=tome+of+battle

Garthanos · Jun 26, 2019

togashi_joe said:
Have you checked out this product? It does a pretty good job in my opinion of updating those rules/classes to 5e: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/198305/Tome-of-Battle-Book-of-Nine-Swords?term=tome+of+battle

The one i found treats them as single class but I think that the idea of having three classes might be in some ways better. Not sure I am ready to purchase it though. I both like and do not like, how the Battlemaster maneuvers are available beyond the boundaries of its class. But I think if other classes were designed around mixing and matching too that might make all the difference. It is something the martial adept classes make me think of.

Martial Schools = groups of maneuvers -