Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[Nail]

FWIW, IMC I removed the Weapon Aptitude class ability and reduced the HD to d10 of the WB. Seems to be working so far.

The ease of multiclassing might still be a problem.

 

[Thurbane]

I hav a number of better ones: the Táin Bó Cuailnge, Beowulf, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Song of Roland, The Nibelungenlied, et cetera.


Yeah there's no precedent for this sort of thing outside of the orient.

really:\

Oh yeah, I can clearly remember Beowulf screaming "Haiiidooooken"! at his enemies and creating a huge blast of fire from his body...

 

[Moon-Lancer]

no but he did rip off the arms of monsters.... thats stronger then anything in d&d yet. dident someone get thier arm ripped off in dbz? the green guy that sounds like pickle?

 

[NilesB]

Oh yeah, I can clearly remember Beowulf screaming "Haiiidooooken"! at his enemies and creating a huge blast of fire from his body...

But you seem to have forgotten Beowulf tearing off Grendel's arm; his fingertips blazing like ten bright stars and burning deep holes in the flesh of the beast.

Which is much closer to the kind of things martial adepts do than DBZ is.

 

[Banshee16]

Not only do I think it's balanced, but I don't think it necessarily adds a kung fu/wuxia element to the game. While many of the powers do that, a whole mess of them don't. I can easily see creating a purely "standard" (read: roughly Western) D&D character with this book, and in fact am planning to do so for an upcoming campaign.

I agree. I was worried about the Kung Fu style stuff until I actually read through the whole book, and you could have a swordsage that has all cool manoeuvers, with none of them being supernatural or mystical in nature. It's just how you pick them.

Or, you could have one that throws fire with this sword and is more "kung fu". The choice is there.

Banshee

 

[shilsen]

I agree. I was worried about the Kung Fu style stuff until I actually read through the whole book, and you could have a swordsage that has all cool manoeuvers, with none of them being supernatural or mystical in nature. It's just how you pick them.

Or, you could have one that throws fire with this sword and is more "kung fu". The choice is there.

Banshee

Agreed. I'll also add that for a lot of them you can retain the wuxia mechanics with a completely different flavor. Don't like the flavor of the Shadow Garrote maneuver? Just describe it as the character drawing a dagger incredibly fast and hurling it at the enemy. And so on.

 

[blargney the second]

The authors even said as much in the Introduction chapter. You can describe maneuvers however you want.

I'm actually looking forward to some Slayers-style announcement of moves with my newly rebuilt crusader!
-blarg

 

[Sarellion]

Oh yeah, I can clearly remember Beowulf screaming "Haiiidooooken"! at his enemies and creating a huge blast of fire from his body...

If I am not mistaken Dietrich von Bern could breathe fire. He shows in several german sagas and has his own one.

 

[Thurbane]

Each to their own, I suppose, but Bo9S has no place at my gaming table. I dislike both the flavor and mechanics of the new classes and abilties. To be fair, it's not alone - I'll never use psionics, warlocks or incarnum in my game, either...

If it fits in with your game, more power to you - I guess that is why it is simultaneously the most loved and most hated product that WotC produced last year.

 

[blargney the second]

We just had the one of the best games of my life tonight, with my group facing off against a wererat warblade and his groupies on a garbage scow. It was a nail-biter, but that's as it should be against a BBEG 1 CR over average party level plus support. Refreshing maneuvers as a swift + melee attack is handy, but not a game breaker considering how few of them warblades can ready. Even the very high AC tank was concerned for his life with the baddie using Emerald Razor for 2d4+8 damage.

On the other side of the fight, one of the PCs is a swordsage/swashbuckler who knocked mooks off the boat three times with her maneuvers, including a Charging Minotaur with the Twisted Charge trick to turn 90 degrees (and a jump over 10' of water). The whole table was getting a serious kick out of the stunts she was pulling off.

Useful, cinematic, interesting, fun. Nothing to see here folks, move along.
-blarg