Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[Seeten]

Bitter bitter, the dm doesnt break the rules, the dm MAKES the rules

Just remember, if he's doing it, you can do it too

WOTC makes the rules. I bought "D&D 3.5 Edition", not "D&D I do what I want and play God, and you like it, or else, Edition"

If the DM has sensible house rules, and informs me ahead of time, thats cool. If the DM has nonsensical house rules, and makes them up on the spot, I have my own house rule. Its called, "Later, gator."

 

[Nail]

Well you beat it, and it sounds fun? whats the problem, you should stop knockin your dm for cheating, bring it up to him he's wrong. And if he insists he's not, then he's not. And like i said, just remember what he does, and pull the same on him.

I suspect you've entirely missed the point of KD's post.

 

[Nifft]

On the bright side, the DM and I are now in agreement on how those rules work (as per the actual writeup in Bo9s) and we won't face another combat like that soon.

"Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!"

Go Joe! -- N

 

[The Souljourner]

I bought this book a couple weeks ago, looked at the classes, looked at the feats, and very briefly skimmed the manuevers, said "meh" and put it back on the shelf. Then I read this thread and my interest is piqued... I guess I was missing something. Well, I go back and read the manuevers and holy crap, they're really awesome.

I love the manuevers, I love the way they've been implemented, and I think overall it would be a great addition to any campaign. Yes, even sword & sorcery campaigns. IF you think it's all throwing fireballs from your a la street fighter, you've obviously only read the first discipline - desert wind. From what I saw last night (I only read 4 or 5 of the disciplines, to be fair), it's by far the most supernatural out there. Divine Spirit is, but it's only available to a paladin-like class anyway. Iron Heart, Diamond Mind, and White Raven have barely anything that would be considered over the top at all (at least special effects wise).

As for power... it's really hard to tell. It's a brand new mechanic, and a lot of the really good effects are high level. Maybe it's ok, I don't know. I do know that the ones I was saying "wow" to were no the 100 damage 9th level manuevers. I was saying wow to a lot of the White Raven stuff - letting your whole party charge, get cumulative bonuses, and no attacks of opportunity? Awesome.

If this is a preview of 4th edition, I say, sign me up!

As for whether or not the warblade is overpowred... hard for me to say. I'm with the camp that the fighter is underpowered (though PHBII did help a lot there), so I don't mind if the warblade is a little higher powered (and I think it is). But I don't think it's crazy. Please people, don't call the difference between d10 and d12 major. Don't say he's "far more tough". It's 21 hitpoints at level 20, where that's often within a standard deviation of a single hit. 11 points at level 10.. yay.

I think it'll need to be played to see how it really works out. I think the loss of the bonus feats (Warblades get them, but from a very limited list, and almost none of them are straight "do better hitting" types) will hurt them a lot more than you think. They can't just automatically take weapon focus, weapon spec, etc, if they're taking feats for their maneuvers as well.

So... my guess is (since that's all any of us can do until we play) is that it'll be powerful, but also a hell of a lot of fun. And in my opinion, that's a lot of what the fighter classes needed - a strong injection of fun. How many times have you played with a pure fighter type and his turn consists of "I hit it. Done."? PHBII made melee fighters viable, TOB makes them fun.

-Nate

 

[Henry]

For me, the Book of 9 Swords has a different problem -- not one in terms of it being overwhelmingly powerful (though it is pretty strong compared to, say, Tome of Magic's options), but rather its paradigm; one that is new to D&D, really.

The only problem I've ever had with Book of Nine Swords is the whole core idea of the book -- the "per encounter" balancing. For me, being able to do supernatural over-the-top actions every minute of the day without any resource limitations just changes D&D to a level of the fantastic that I personally don't like. I don't mind the option, but the thing that does concern me is all the people who are raving that "this should be the way the core rules are written." For me, when I want that level of the fantastic, I play Feng Shui. D&D has for me been about heroes with resources who have to struggle a bit from time to time, and who have to measure those resources against the opposition. (I'm not talking tactics or strategy, but the overall story premise of a hero who has to use his advantages wisely.) Encounter-based magics however, never run out, and never put the hero in a disadvantages situation. And if the hero has a maneuver available every single round of a combat (which the crusader, warblade, and swordsage do, because rarely do combats last more than 5 rounds), I don't call it a disadvantage.

So for me, it's the paradigm-shift that I don't like. It's the one thing that would possibly stop me from going from 3E to 4E, if this were the direction all classes went.

 

[Nail]

Encounter-based magics however, never run out, and never put the hero in a disadvantages situation.

Could I discuss this point a bit?

As I play D&D (since forever ago until today), one of the issues that crops up is how the heros we play compare to the heros we read about in books (or see in movies, should I ever have time for such things). Gandalf comes to mind. When did he ever run out of magic?

Done well (that is to say: "done better than ToB:Bo9S."), a system that uses a "per encounter" basis for character abilities might be a great thing, and more closely mirror what we read and see in related fantasy art-forms.

Maybe.

 

[Henry]

Done well (that is to say: "done better than ToB:Bo9S."), a system that uses a "per encounter" basis for character abilities might be a great thing, and more closely mirror what we read and see in related fantasy art-forms.

Then again, I'm personally more interested in modelling D&D, than modelling a related fantasy art-form. Hence my distaste for the idea of spreading the mechanic through the whole of D&D.

 

[pawsplay]

How many times have you played with a pure fighter type and his turn consists of "I hit it. Done."?

Very rarely?

 

[Shazman]

There does seem to be a shift towards more of a resources per encounter as opposed to per day in some of WotC's latest supplements. Warlock, reserve feats from Complete Mage, Tome of Battle, Factotum from Dungeonscape. I personally like it. Nothing kills momentum in a game like having to rest. You have to spend hours healing and picking spells. It's a boring but unfortunately necessary part of the game. You don't see heroes in fantasy literature say "I'm almost out of spells, we better rest before we stop the evil overlord from taking over the world." It streamlines the game, and reduces boring downtime. I'm currently in a Red Hand of Doom campaign with back to back challenging encounters with just enough downtime between battles to heal up from a wand. The psion is out of power points, and the cleric and wizard are almost out of spells. Unless the DM gives us some leeway, this extremely enjoyable campaign is about to end in a TPK thanks to the x per day design of the game.

 

[pawsplay]

You don't see heroes in fantasy literature say "I'm almost out of spells, we better rest before we stop the evil overlord from taking over the world."

You don't? Tolkien's characters, at least, seem to camp a lot.