Book of Nine Swords: Fitting it in

[delericho]

When reading the introduction to the "Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords", my first reaction was 'Cool!' My second reaction, though, was that like Psionics, it would fit almost perfectly with an Oriental Adventures game, but less well in a 'normal' game.

Then I read the sidebar 'Blending Genres', which said:

[QUOTE="Book of Nine Swords]Is Tome of Battle martial arts for the Dungeons & Dragons Game? Is it good only for an Oriental Adventures-style game? Does it challenge your conception of a Western European fantasy world? In short: Sort of, no, and we certainly hope so.[/QUOTE]

Since reading that, I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to fit "Tome of Battle" into a 'normal' game world without drastically changing the flavour. Now, I'm in a position where I don't mind the work of creating a whole new world from the ground up that is designed to accomodate it (I've not done that recently, so would quite like the challenge), so I don't need to find a way to shoehorn it into Forgotten Realms or Eberron.

And yet, I'm at a loss for how to proceed.

There are some things I know I don't want to do:

1) I don't want to fall back on the 'stranger from a distant land' cliche. Firstly because it is a cliche, secondly because it works for the first character but not for the second, third or tenth, and thirdly because I feel I can do better.

2) I don't want to place a whole load of hidden monasteries in secluded parts of the world. Largely because I'll probably be having secret monasteries for Monks and Psychic Warriors, hidden Warmage academies, secret Ninja camps, and so forth. The secret places of the world are already getting a bit full.

(Oh, yes, I'm hoping to fit psionics and ninja into the world too. Did I neglect to mention that? )

3) I don't want to have a 'European' part of the world and an 'Oriental' part of the world. That works fine, but doing so frankly feels like a bit of a cheat.

So, any ideas?

 

[ValhallaGH]

Well, the Iron Heart school came from Hobgoblin country. Which means one of the Dhakhanni War Colleges is full of really scary swordsmen (even for Dhakhanni hobgoblins).

Of course, that's Eberron and not your homebrew.

Why do things have to have a foreign flavor? It's just another fighting style. Some countries practice the White Raven style, whether or not anyone in the country has levels in one of the martial initiate classes; just because they focus on highly tactical fighting doesn't mean they aren't stereotypical Spartans (or Romans or Macedonians or Franks or Normans or whatever).

 

[Shazman]

It could be lost secrets of battle only found in the ruins of an ancient hobgoblin civilization (iron heart), or perhaps secret techniques developed by drow battlemasters in the underdark(shadow hand, diamond mind). In short you could have various mysterious origins for the various schools that require a lot of research and exploration to acquire.

 

[Gold Roger]

I was bothered how the system wasn't really integrated with Core D&D. I'm not sure this is what you're looking for, but this is what I'll do with my next campaign:

Remove the new base classes (I use only core base classes).

Make maneuvers up to level 3 available via feats.

Make one PrC per style and one Master of Nine PrC.

Remove readying maneuvers. All maneuvers known can be used once per encounter.

You can't regain a maneuver, unless you get the ability to do so through some PrC.

Introduce martial feats. Martial feats can be taken as fighter bonus feats.

Martial Initiate (Martial)
Prequisites: 2 ranks in the chosen schools key skill.

Benefit:Choose one Martial School. You can use first level maneuvers from that school. Your initiator level is equal to your character level. You can always treat your chosen schools key skill as class skill. You can learn one martial maneuver per martial feat you possess, including this one.

Special: Monks may take this feat as their bonus feat at first level


Martial Stance (Martial)
Prequisites: Martial Initiate, 5 ranks in the key skill of the school the chosen stance is from.

Benefit: You learn one martial stance.

Special: Monks can take this feat as their bonus feat at second level.

Advanced Initiate (Martial)
Prequisits: Martial Initiate, 6 ranks in the key skill of one martial school you have access to.

Benefit: You can learn second level maneuvers.


Extra School (Martial)
Prequisites: Martial Initiate, Advanced Initiate

Benefit:You gain access to one additional martial school. You always treat that schools key skill as class skill.

Special: You may take this feat up to three times, choosing a different school each time.


Extra stance (Martial)
Prequisites: Martial Initiate, Advanced Initiate

Benefit: You gain access to one additional martial school.

Special: You may take this feat up to three times, choosing a different school each time.


Elite Initiate (Martial)
Prequisites: Martial Initiate, Advanced Initiate, 8 ranks in the key skill of your chosen school.

Benefit: You gain access to one third level maneuvers.


More martial feats could be developed. This does power down initates, but might power up fighters and monks a little, which I think is a decend balance. Some of my wording may be of. I'm not sure this way initiator get enough maneuvers known this way.



I think integrating the system flavor wise is actually quite easy, since I don't think they are really very asian and I think the story of Reshar can be tied neatly into most standart D&D settings. You may even set his founding of the temple of nine blades into your current timeline to explain why all these formerly rare fighting schools suddenly appear.

Desert Wind may originate from some desert dervishes or maybe the plane of fire itself.

Devoted Spirit may very well be common among clerics and paladins.

Diamond Mind could be a gith art.

Iron Heard might be common among hobgoblins, but it's hard for non-hobgoblins to convince one to teach them.

Setting Sun is mentioned as comming from a island at the edge of the world. Maybe in FR it could be from that halfling land or maybe Evermeet.

Shadow Hand. If you play FR, maybe it came back with those Shadow People whats-their-name-again. Otherwhise, drow, gypsi halfling or those freaky shadow fey could be good users.

Stone Dragon may be a secret passed along in some dwarfen families.

Tiger Claw could originate almost everywhere. Some joungle is propably a good bet.

White Raven is hardly a school and has the fewest maneuvers. I could see this as something quite common.

 

[VictorC]

What I would do is take the Crusaider and forget most of the rest. Not really what you were looking for but... ehhh.

 

[Tomovasky]

Make a game were the palyers are the fathers of the styles... then use there storys and actions to efect how the world see the styles.

 

[CaptainChaos]

Nine Swords is an odd duck of a book. If WotC wanted to do a cool kung fu book, they should have just done a cool kung fu book.

 

[delericho]

Nine Swords is an odd duck of a book. If WotC wanted to do a cool kung fu book, they should have just done a cool kung fu book.

Don't really have a reply to that. I just wanted to say: welcome to the boards!

 

[blargney the second]

Just include it. Fighters and rogues don't have to be from anywhere in particular, do the same with the B9S classes. KISS

 

[Gold Roger]

Just include it. Fighters and rogues don't have to be from anywhere in particular, do the same with the B9S classes. KISS

I disagree. I did that for my current campaign and it just doesn't feel right. It's badly integrated mechanically and also, if just add it in without some serious forethough, it pretty much has the same effect as saying, yeah, there are no gods or organised religions, just pick domains and do whatever you want.

Rogues and fighters often don't need any forethought, but other classes, even in Core, do. And it's not just that it adds some classes, it adds a whole new system, without justification why other classes can't really use this system well.