Fun with ToB:Bo9S?

[Immak Antunel]

I must admit, that acronym amuses me.

For those of you who have Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords, I was wondering about the balance of Spells vs Maneuvers of equivalent level. Specifically, I would like to know what people think about substituting maneuvers for a monster's spell-like abilities.

It seems like an easy way to customize and vary monsters for a Tome of Battle campaign, but I have yet to playtest the idea fully. So far, the only encounter has been with a posse of tieflings who'd had their darkness 1/day replaced with the Emerald Razor strike, still 1/day. The player characters were surprised, but not particularly inconvenienced, by the maneuvers.

I wonder, though, about the effects changing, say, a stone giant elder's transmute mud to rock for Elder Mountain Hammer. The spell is handy, no doubt, especially for an elder leading a group of lesser giants, but 6d6 extra damage plus ignoring DR and hardness is brutal, even once per day.

Final question: should monsters have a way of recovering expended maneuvers? If so, what would work best? So far, I've been thinking no recovery at all (after all, they aren't PCs), but I'm open to suggestions...

 

[Eloi]

I suppose trying a few swaps for regular maneuvers would be pretty interesting, but I think you might want to leave stances out of the mix. Stances are pretty potent.

Unless, of course, you're getting into monsters with class levels. Then bring on the stances..

To answer that last question: five or ten minutes to rest, unmolested, ought to be enough to allow for an "encounter refresh". I think there's something in the book that says something similar.

 

[Immak Antunel]

I suppose trying a few swaps for regular maneuvers would be pretty interesting, but I think you might want to leave stances out of the mix. Stances are pretty potent.

Unless, of course, you're getting into monsters with class levels. Then bring on the stances..

I kinda figured that. Stances aren't quite as easily compared to spells as maneuvers, so I figured I'd just leave them out. Eventually I'll use them when I add the class levels, but that's more complex than I feel likedealing with at the moment (although, one day, I'll stat up a Marilith Swordsage...)

 

[hong]

Sounds like a pretty cool idea!

 

[DogBackward]

The book says that about one minute between encounters is enough to allow you to recharge. Frankly, I'd give some few monsters specific recharge methods, depending on their niche. The leader of the giant band, for example, could have a "Last Resort" recharge, regaining all maneuvers when his HP reaches 10% or less. That sort of thing.

As for stances... why does everybody seem to think they're so powerful? Some of the higher levels ones are useful, sure, but they're still less powerful than equivalent level spells, most of which have durations long enough that it won't really matter that they're not at will. Not to mention the whole "one at a time" limit.

Power-wise, most maneuvers are less powerful than similar spells of the same level, which fits, given the encounter-based setup. Changing them out for the spell-like abilities is about equivalent, on a case-by-case basis. Transmute Mud to Rock, for example, is not the same as an Elder Mountain Hammer, and so wouldn't really be an equivalent exchange. TMtR, however, is a utility/hinderance spell, so something more fitting in both usefullness and theme might work. Devastating Throw, for example. I can easily see a giant capable of lifting gigantic boulders and chucking them about doing the same thing to a pesky PC. And it's not a highly damaging maneuver, so it's a little more "fair" than Elder Mountain Hammer.

Really, it's a matter of comparing the usefullness and damage, and remembering that your "monsters" are generally around for a one-battle cameo. So, what would be unbalanced to give a PC 1/encounter isn't necessarily so for a monster, unless you give it one of those nifty unique refreshment modes, like I mentioned above.

 

[Nifft]

Suggestion: pick maneuvers with the same utility function as the replaced spell-like ability. For example, an ogre-mage's cone of cold could be replaced with a 5th level attack maneuver, like Dragon's Flame or Bloodletting Strike.

Cheers, -- N