D&D 3.x [Let's Read] The Frank & K Tomes

[Libertad]

Gaming Den Thread Compilation

D&D Wiki Compilation

Web Archive link of 0.51 version, 2008

AwesomeTomes PDF compilation

I will be reviewing the 0.7 version published July 11th, 2010, for being the most up to date document.

What We Do Here is Go Back…

Back, back, back, back, back, back, back to the year 2000. The Y2K Bug's plans for world chaos were averted, the International Space Station became fully operational, and Dungeons & Dragons saw the release of a new edition in the post-TSR era. Beyond just a change in corporate ownership, this new edition also saw a significant change in game design towards a more unified, simulationist take on heroic medieval fantasy via the incorporation of game mechanics into once-narrative elements. PCs, NPCs, and monsters were largely built using the same core set of rules, a universal skill system unlocked features to all characters once the product of specific classes, and intricate rules for item crafting, Professions, and demographic/population generation for settlements sought to emulate the feel of a living, changing world outside of adventures proper.

While 3rd Edition D&D soon proved to be popular, it was hardly a well-designed system. The game was apparently never playtested at high levels, Ivory Tower Game Design intentionally made certain options worse than others while not communicating this to readers in order to "reward mastery of the game," and the large amount of feats, prestige classes, and more turned character creation into a labyrinthine system full of trap options and unexpected synergies originally designed in isolation that could unbalance games. Not only this, but certain rules were sufficiently buried in the text that they went overlooked by most readers, but their discovery can fundamentally change how the game is played. One such rule is that prepared arcane casters are able to leave spell slots open, letting them "fill in" the open slots during the adventuring day via a 15 minute cooldown period.

This gave rise to a thriving Character Optimization culture of min-maxers. Although it was certainly a motivation for some, they didn't necessarily want to break the game or make their PCs the designated protagonists. Many found joy in perusing the many sourcebooks for effective options and combinations to share with the wider online community.

Fast-forward to 2006. James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, blew up in popularity on YouTube, serving as the trend-setter for the Caustic Critic reviewing style in online gaming and nerd media, emphasizing vulgarity and exaggerated emotions for entertainment value. Half a decade into actual play, many gamers were more aware of 3rd Edition's flaws, and Internet forums were rife with homebrew fixes. One particular piece of homebrew was known as the Tome series, written by Frank Trollman and Keith Kaczmarek. The Tomes achieved a cult following in some 3.X min-max circles for its lengthy effort into re-designing major aspects of the system, with the stated goal of improving upon the game's flaws wholesale. Said following coalesced on a forum known as the Gaming Den, with Frank Trollman in particular becoming a fixture of the community. Although the Tomes had on-and-off updates over the next 4 years, it more or less remains in a permanently unfinished state due to creative differences between the two authors.

So what does the prelude about early 2000s Internet culture and YouTube reviewers have to do with D&D homebrew? Well, it's practically impossible to separate the art from the artist (Frank Trollman in particular) due to their big egos and hostile nature to practically everything in tabletop not written by them. It continually seeps into their work and writing style, and not pointing that out as their modus operandi can end up missing important context at times and why they arrived at certain conclusions in their own game design. The Caustic Critic style was adopted in their own analysis of gaming products, with the Gaming Den at large adopting a "Drunken Reviews" series being an obvious tribute to James Rolfe. But unlike Rolf, it didn't end at satirical rage.

The ideal Caustic Critic knows when to "turn off" their persona, and even those skilled at it can cross the line from "good-natured ribbing" to "vindictive meanness." For example, the Spoony One disavowed an earlier Final Fantasy review due to his incessant gay jokes over effeminate features in JRPG protagonists, while Linkara made an apology in a follow-up video when he came off as too dismissive and mean-spirited of a fictional character's attempted suicide.

Frank and Keith never had an "off switch," couldn't take any sort of criticism themselves, and encouraged their fanbase to go on harassment campaigns to other forums by personally attacking posters who didn't uncritically accept their own views on game design. This led to the formation of an insular fanbase and cult of personality that ended up seeing the Gaming Den's regulars banned from virtually every online gaming forum. This effective self-isolation was chiefly due to anti-social behavior, but also unironic elitism in believing that their heavily-houseruled 3.5 games were the only ones worthy of merit in the tabletop fandom. In a way, this very same ego and unwillingness to admit fault had a deleterious effect on Frank and K's own game design, both in the later iterations of the Tomes and other homebrew, to say nothing of sealing their fate in never getting work in the gaming industry.

While the Frank & K Tomes do contain interesting and thoughtful ideas, it is still ultimately a subjective project that ends up leaving in place other equally "broken" aspects of 3rd Edition. Because like all other gamers, Frank, K, and the fanbase that arose around them, have their own subjective desires of what they want out of an ideal game, and what parts they can more easily ignore for suspension of disbelief for the purposes of ultimately telling a good story. And the Tomes are also a cautionary tale, of how even the minds that produced great things can eventually become incapable of replicating future successes.

So, what exactly are the Tome authors' (and by extension the Gaming Den's) design philosophy? There's no singular manifesto, and the Tomes don't explicitly spell this out given that their personal takes on game design are presented as universal, self-evident truths. But I'm familiar enough with their forums that I believe I can summarise much of it as thus:

1. Game mechanics must be followed to the letter, irrespective of the spirit of the rules. Edge cases and implicit outcomes that aren't clearly spelled out are a fault of the system, and in and of themselves are enough to make a system a badly-designed failure.
2. Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition must be balanced against the standards of highly-optimized primary spellcasters making use of particular game-breaking exploits. Case in point, using Planar Binding and Candles of Invocation to entrap noble efreeti and djinnis into getting multiple castings of the Wish spell as early as 9th level, which is the lynchpin of what the Tome authors call the Wish Economy.
3. Favoritism of players in the social contract. The Gaming Den's ideal view of a Dungeon Master is akin to that of a physics engine in a video game: their primary role is to manage the objective mechanics in the game world, de-empasizing their nature as judge and arbiter of the rules. They encourage the removal of as many elements that can be left to DM Fiat as possible, for fear of such power being abused.
4. Avoidance of "Magical Tea Party," a term that refers to any element of an RPG that is improvised or doesn't make use of explicit rules in the system. While it ties into the above, the term is so frequently used on the Den as to be an independent section.
5. Rules as a physics engine, where the underlying mechanics of gameplay can persist independently of player and DM input. Events that occur during downtime and between adventures must abide by game mechanics and not be handwaved. This is done for the ultimate purpose of presenting a world that is greater than the people sitting at the table. In practical terms, players and DMs rolling dice in isolation outside of game night to generate outcomes are viewed as either a legitimate exploit of the rules, or nigh-mandatory in order to assure that the next adventure starts in a way that is believable to the group. For example, let's say that the town's silver dragon guardian is poisoned and can only be cured by an exotic herb. Well, the DM better roll the dragon a Fortitude save to see if the adventure the DM desires can even be run!
6. Selective realism, where certain elements that break suspension of disbelief in the game must be re-designed in such a way as to solve the contradiction. For example, if the stats for a real-world animal in the game don't line up with modern understanding of real-world zoology, then the stats should either be redesigned or the DM comes up with an in-universe explanation of why it's "not like other animals." In practical terms, Frank & K inconsistently apply this based on their own subjective suspension of disbelief, where they can handwave away elements they don't care about but then treat unrealistic rules concerning subjects they care about as a failure of the system.
7. Anti-social behavior on the part of players and Dungeon Masters should be dealt with via in-game retribution rather than via out-of-character discussion. If someone at the gaming table is acting like an anti-social weirdo and cannot be punished "in-game," that is a failure of the system and not a failure of the offender at the table. In practical terms, the Gaming Den has encouraged passive-aggressive gaming for their own benefits, such as giving tips to posters who want to ruin a campaign they're currently in to make a point, usually about pulling off a rules exploit that can break the game.

Thoughts: While I am trying to be diplomatic, there are very good reasons why much of the above ethos has not been adopted by the wider gaming public, nor would they actually survive first contact at the average gaming table. It also reflects a weakness in obfuscated communication, as the Tome authors view their fixes as an objective improvement rather than a subjective taste in gaming style. They often don't bother explaining their design goals in detail or why they view certain default rules as bad, much less what makes the Tomes stand apart from other D&D retroclones besides going "we're the only competent designers in the entire industry" or "our Fighters don't suck." But going forward, this above summary gives us a better look at how Frank and Keith set out to "fix D&D" and by what standards they seek to measure themselves and others.

Chapter 1, Basics​

The Frank & K Tomes originally consisted of 4 separate threads themed strongly around certain related subject matter: the Tome of Necromancy, Tome of Fiends, Dungeonomicon, and Races of War. The most current version of the Tomes combines all 4 threads (plus supplementary material) into 1 PDF with chapters formatted by subject, which is what we're covering in this review. The Tomes as they stand are not a self-contained product: they make heavy use and reference of the core D20 System rules. There are signs that they were intended to eventually be stand-alone, as the Basics chapter repeats quite a bit of material from the corebooks. Several basic mechanics are absent from the Tomes, such as the different types of modifiers (racial, insight, circumstance, etc). The only difference I can spot is that a caster with a 44-45 in their relevant score only gains 4 bonus 1st level spell slots and not 5 as they do in the default 3rd Edition.

Thoughts: This is not the only time the Tomes would repeat information from the core rules while also making changes and additions. This is counter-intuitive, for as the PHB/DMG/MM plus supplements are still needed to run a Tome game, there's no convenient list in one place of what's changed and what is the same. Relatedly, while most Tome content is core-friendly, there's quite a bit of material that references a wide range of non-core sourcebooks in order to get the most use out of it, which makes this ruleset unfriendly to beginner players, those on a budget, and people who don't want to have to juggle a half-dozen sourcebooks to run a session.

Chapter 2, Character Creation​

Another very short chapter, this pretty much repeats what already exists in the Player's Handbook and 3.5 SRD. The biggest change is the discussion of feats: the Tome series recognizes that most feats in 3.5 aren't worth it, so instead they break up feats into four categories: [Combat], [Skill], [Metamagic], and [General]. They're covered in their own chapter, but generally speaking they more closely follow the 5th Edition module of giving you multiple things rather than one, but the amount of goodies they give are contingent on your Base Attack Bonus (Combat), ranks in a particular skill (Skill), or the highest level spell that you can cast (Metamagic). General feats are pretty much the same as in base 3.5. Additionally, while cross-class skill rank limits are still in place, 1 skill point buys you one rank, be it a class or cross-class skill.

Thoughts: Not much to say here, but I do like the "1 point is 1 rank" for cross-class skills, as that was always a nightmare to calculate or reverse-engineer for designing NPCs. What is most surprising is seeing the nine alignments copied wholesale, for the Tome authors have some very strong criticisms of alignment as a concept and even write up various alternatives in a chapter of its own and for the Paladin class in particular.

Chapter 3, Races​

Image from DesignForce

This chapter isn't a wholesale restructuring of race as a mechanic, instead creating versions of popular Unusual Races without Level Adjustments, such as drow and aasimar. The authors explain that there's a "pro-prettiness bias" in the game, where humanoids of the more monstrous and evil varieties get saddled with Level Adjustments and role-play restrictions in spite of not being that unbalanced in comparison to humans, halflings, etc.

For those unfamiliar, Level Adjustment was a penalty imposed on Player Characters belonging to more powerful races, treating them as X levels higher than they actually are for the purposes of encounter design and experience point progression. It was an unpopular rule and also treated as more of an art than a science by the designers, causing some rather wonky results.

The LA +0 variants are highly similar to the ones in the 3.5 rules, but with more unbalanced and powerful stuff stripped out, and the weaker races given some goodies to compensate. For example, the aasimar loses energy resistances, the drow does not have Spell Resistance, the goblin gets Mounted Combat as a bonus feat, and orcs are outright immune to ingested poisons. Another notable aspect is that all but one of the Unusual Races get two favored classes instead of 1; the Feytouched only gets Bard.

There is one set of flavor text that leaves my head scratching:

But there's more to being a Hobgoblin than being able to ably fill any party role without overpowering the world. You get to have orange or gray skin, sharp teeth, and depending upon which version of D&D Hobgoblin you're using either radically more or radically less body hair than a human. So what does that mean? It means that an influential Hobgoblin character in your campaign is going to be played by Robin Williams. But while that means that Hobgoblins can be portrayed in a humorous light, chances are that the humor is going to be more like that in The Big White or Death to Smoochy. These guys have an incredibly baroque system of laws and an interlocking system of fealties that are actually a parody of Feudal Japan.

I've seen Death to Smoochy, but I don't understand the Robin Williams reference. I feel like I'm missing some kind of pop-culture in-joke or it's just the authors being quirky.

If you don't want someone to play an ogre or goblin in your game, just don't let them play one. It's seriously not even a deal.

While reasonable advice, this is something that the Tome authors do contradict themselves on, due to their overall aversion to "DM Empowerment" being used to arbitrarily ban things.

Powerful Races covers playable rules for creatures that are leagues above your standard human/elf/etc, such as giants to illithids. While playable monsters have existed in the fandom dating back to OD&D, 3rd Edition opened the floodgates to all manner of options with their 2003 Savage Species sourcebook. But much like Monte Cook's Ivory Tower Game Design, monstrous PC rules were deliberately underpowered in order to discourage players from selecting them over the standard races. Again without actually communicating this design goal to people buying the book. I've personally seen the discrepancy in actual play, and suffice to say many people who wanted to do the Monster Mash were clamoring for actually balanced rules.

So how do the Tomes handle this? Well, the rules are actually unfinished, with an in-depth method being teased for a Tome of Tiamat that never saw the light of day. The first method is to treat a monster as a character of its Challenge Rating +1, and acknowledges that this method is "fast and easy" but cannot account for edge cases and monsters with unconventional powers. The second method looks at the monster's Hit Die (HD) and Base Attack Bonus (BAB) which is compared with its Challenge Rating (CR), and then converted to values in line with the CR and their closest approximate character class. The section rounds out with several sample conversions of low to middle-level humanoids and giants.

Thoughts: While an improvement over Savage Species, the Tome authors' acknowledgement of its unfinished nature means that a DM will still need to do a lot of work themselves in eyeballing appropriate abilities. Another factor working against the adoption of this rule is that the Challenge Rating system is an art, not a science, and the game designers even admitted that they were just "winging it" in assigning such Ratings to NPCs and monsters. The sample conversions are all non-magical melee brutes that are pretty much interchangeable in roles, so we don't have outlines on how Frank and Keith would use these rules for more exotic options such as illithids and nagas.

Chapter 4, Alignment​

Ah, the most-argued element of Dungeons & Dragons by far. It's inevitable that people as strongly opinionated as the Tome authors would have their own take on it, and devote an entire chapter nonetheless!

This chapter is split into four major parts: covering undead and necromancy and their interactions with alignment, what qualifies someone as evil in one's campaign, the same but for good alignment, and the unclear contradictory nature of Law/Chaos. Each section presents its own "Moral/Ethics Option" for presentation, and the implications it has for the rules and the campaign. For necromancy, it posits the question of whether the practice in and of itself is merely extremely dangerous, or actually warps the personality and values of its users. In one example, unintelligent undead are basically rotting computers awaiting inputs from its necroprogrammer, while in the other example they have an instinctual drive to maximize suffering with their every action. The authors do make exceptions, such as encouraging vampires to still have free will while struggling against the negative energy suffusing their souls, while the Deathwatch spell shouldn't have the [Evil] tag because it's not using Negative Energy and merely tells the caster the living state (or lack thereof) of other creatures.

How Black Is the Night? and To Triumph Over Evil take a look at the Evil and Good alignments from a broad perspective. The Moral Options present Implications and Pit Falls to the various takes, and how they can alter the themes and feel of a campaign. Notably in regards to Evil, it mostly focuses on "how evil is Evil?" with the Moral Options rating them from comic relief Saturday Morning Cartoons all the way up to "sadist who only lives to make the world a worse place."

The focus on Good, by contrast, instead focuses on what "isn't Good." For example, it talks about how being overtly religious and "holy" isn't good in and of itself due to the myriad amount of deities in a setting, so Ur-Priests (who steal divine magic from the gods) shouldn't be Evil in the authors' view in and of itself. It also talks about how the Christian concept of redemption is a riskier gambit in D&D settings, as alignment has the backdrop of extraplanar forces waging war and people will be skeptical of potential opportunistic turncoats. Finally, the authors talk about Paladins, and how they aren't so much "exemplars of Good and Law" so much as good-aligned people who have an additional set of restrictions that are more akin to personal moral codes. Thus, failure to live up to them by non-paladins doesn't necessarily make them "less good." The authors do bring up the Baby Orc Dilemma and its contentious nature, but dismiss it as "not important" yet fail to explain why, which is a cop-out and thus begs the question of why bring it up at all?

Finally, we cover Law and Chaos. The authors talk about how the definitions are not really mutually exclusive, asserting that the PHB definitions can let the same characters be logically argued to be both "ultimate Law" and "ultimate Chaos" via the use of broad adjectives. Therefore, the Tomes posit 4 different Ethics Options: one where Law/Chaos primarily reflects one's ability to coordinate levels of personal organization, differing levels of sanity, being the cosmic manifestation of a social construct where your alignment is based on the values of the society's traditions in which you live, and varying levels of willingness to adhere to a consistent set of ethics. The authors do have their personal biases, notably in taking a dim view of the sanity/insanity and societal construct examples, with particular bile being reserved for the sanity/insanity one later on in the text.

If Chaos is insanity, than the Chaos Hunters in your game are essentially going door to door to beat up the retarded kids.

While phrased as a supposedly progressive stance against ableism, I can vouch that the Tome authors (Frank Trollman in particular) don't practice what they preach. The "retard" slur is used as an insult 3 other times in this book, and the Gaming Den did much of the same during their verbal-abuse-disguised-as-criticism posts online. I don't believe that the slur is in vogue on the forums anymore due to general social progression, but it is a bit jarring to see the authors waiver later on with this in the same book.

Furthermore, the Tomes make the suggestion of freeing up alignment restrictions on the Law/Chaos axis for several classes, noting that they don't have sufficient in-universe explanations. Particularly for the Barbarian, Bard, and Monk. Regarding Paladins, the Tomes suggest keeping them Lawful Good if you go for the "my word is my bond" approach, but otherwise let them be any Good alignment as they prioritize being good/not doing evil first and foremost.

Thoughts: The authors do a good job of highlighting the fundamental flaws of the alignment system, and while they do highlight suggested alternate definitions so that the gaming table's on the same page, they don't make any suggestions to de-emphasize or rid the system of it entirely besides lifting Law/Chaos restrictions for certain classes. The authors note that there's no real easy question to answer when it comes to portrayal of morality, particularly in regards to actions vs intent or why certain forms of theft and murder by adventurers are "non-evil" but evil when bandits and monsters do the same. And when talking about the default Paladin's code of conduct and how impractical it can be, they don't really talk about ways to make it a more playable character for broader campaign types or when a code-breaking ruling by the DM is sensible vs. nonsensible. As Paladin Code of Conduct is the most commonly-debated and misused set of alignment-based rules, I think that this is the biggest missing aspect of the chapter.

Thoughts So Far: I do like the LA 0 version of humanoid monster races and the discussion of how alignment is less objective than it appears. I do feel that the repetition of basic rules from the Core Books is a detraction, particularly when mixed with subtle changes that aren't overtly called out in the text. We do start seeing the seeds of unclear design decisions in the text, where the authors expect the reader to intuitively understand certain design decisions, most notably in dismissing the Baby Orc Dilemma as an "unimportant" conversation point for morality. I would've liked to see fuller systems for playable monsters or an alternative consistent moral system, but I imagine that such tasks would effectively be projects of their own.

Join us next time as we cover Character Base Classes, both new and redesigned!

 

[Libertad]

Chapter 5: Character Base Classes Part 1​

Image From the Sundering Novel Series

At 103 pages with 38 classes total, this is easily the longest section of the book, so we'll be covering this chapter in segments. The classes are divided into Core PC Classes, Additional PC Classes, Monster Base Classes, and NPC Classes. The Core Classes are meant to replace the ones in the Player's Handbook. Barring the Assassin, Knight, and Samurai, they have the same names and themes as the ones they're replicating. There's no Bard, Ranger, or Sorcerer listed, meaning that fans of spontaneous arcane casters and Aragorn/Drizz't fans will need to look elsewhere to get their fix.

One house rule not yet discussed in the Tomes is the reworking of Full Attacks. In 3.5, a character whose Base Attack Bonus hits +6 gets to make a second attack at a -5 penalty. At +11 they can make up to 2 extra attacks at -5 and -10 respectively, and so on. While there are many ways to create "flurry of death" style builds, the -10 and greater penalties often resulted in attacks that rarely hit, and as a character could only stand in place when Full Attacking this was an unideal tactic unless you locked down your target or are using a ranged weapon. Thus, the Tomes made it so that Full Attack penalties top out at -5. This is actually based on an existing rule in 3.5 concerning monsters using natural weapons as secondary attacks, which top out at a -5 penalty. Naturally, it does up the Damage Per Round of every middle and higher level martial class, but it's still not as unbalancing to the game as Save or Suck effects and it's something that Druid PCs were already aware of and using.

The Assassin is our first class, basically a more overtly offensively-minded Rogue with magical tricks up their sleeves. They are a partial caster in the same vein as a Bard, choosing from Sorcerer/Wizard spells of Divination, Illusion, and Necromancy schools. They get quite a few Rogue and Rogue-like features such as Uncanny Dodge, Hide in Plain Sight, and Skill Mastery. But more notably they get some very powerful tools even at lower levels: the aforementioned Hide in Plain Sight comes into play as early as level 3, they get constant benefits of Nondetection at that same level as well, personal weapons cannot be detected via divination magic at 6th level, can craft minor non-magical traps in 10 minutes at 5th level, can make any poison from the DMG using a healer's kit in 1 hour at 11th level, and at 13th level and above they get per-day castings from a choosable list of various utility and save-or-suck spells. But their most notable signature feature is Death Attack, which is a more powerful kind of Sneak Attack that deals more damage, requires less circumstances to trigger, and can trigger multiple times when Full Attacking at 7th level. The only real downside over Sneak Attack is that it requires studying a foe as a full-round action in order to use.

Thoughts: The Assassin is a glass cannon par excellence, optimized for taking out enemies fast but aren't very sturdy in a straight-up fight. Their spellcasting schools are incredibly broad, and their class features make them good Roguish types in general. There's no practical reason why you'd play a 3.5 Rogue or other low-Tier stealth class when the Assassin is available. But as I see that the Tomes have a Rogue entry later on in this section, so I have hope that Frank and K have some goodies ready for players who want to be vanilla criminals and not contract killers!

The Barbarian is thematically the same as the PHB one, but knocked up a notch for the Tome system's expected tier of power. Most notably, the Rage class feature changes from providing static Strength and Constitution increases to instead being static bonuses to melee attack and damage rolls. Their Fast Movement continues to increase as they level in a similar manner as a Monk, and they have Rage Dice which are akin to Sneak Attack dice in that they add +1d6 damage to each melee attack while in a Rage. The original Barbarian's meager bonuses to Will saves and Reflex saves vs traps are likewise empowered, such as replacing Reflex with Fortitude entirely when raging at 5th level and gaining the benefits of defensive magics such as Protection From Evil and Anti-Magic Field while raging at 3rd and 15th levels respectively. Additionally, they have the constant benefit of Fast Healing, and not just during Rages, which really cuts down on the party expending healing resources on the Barb outside of combat.

Thoughts: Much like how the Tome Assassin gains supernatural features to compensate for the many magical and unconventional mobility enemies get at higher levels, the Barbarian gains increased mobility and defensive features in line with this too. Tome Barbarians are actually more in line with 5e's tankier Barbarian in having decent defenses and immunities to keep them going strong. But much like non-magical characters in base 3.5, the Tome Barbarian is very limited in what they can do in regards to non-combat utility, so they still need the help of most other classes for the times when a Hulk Smash isn't enough. They do get Command as a bonus feat which is basically base 3.5's Leadership. But as all their followers must be Barbarians he can't be a Conan type, who as King once had a court jester that was secretly the representative of a god.

The Cleric is virtually the same, with the only major changes spotted being some silly flavor text. Same for the Druid.

Thoughts: As the Tome's baseline power seeks to elevate PCs to be slightly below or on par with Tier 1 classes, it makes sense that they wouldn't make much if any changes. Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum, so the rest of the Tome material can still interact with and even empower these otherwise untouched classes, but we'll get to that later.

Picture is Valeros from Pathfinder

The Tome's take on the Fighter is perhaps the most well-known aspect of these rules. It's common knowledge that the 3.5 Fighter is one of the weakest classes, both in and out of combat, and the authors go into more detail on their design decisions while also making it a more mechanically involved class akin to being "the non-magical equivalent to the Wizard." The Tome Fighter is the MacGuyver of non-magical powers: they get an incredibly diverse list of skills, good progression in all saving throws, can enter into a "combat focus" to reroll a single die result, gains a bonus to their Command Rating (part of the Tome's Leadership rework) as they level up, and can craft magic items by treating their Craft skill as their caster level.

And the class features they get that apply directly to combat are also versatile and useful, such as gaining temporary use of a [Combat] feat they don't possess but meet the prerequisites for once per hour, being able to 5 foot step as an immediate action, adding 5 feet of reach to any of their weapons, and most notably Foil Action which lets them effectively stunlock an enemy by making a ranged touch attack against them to make them lose the ability to perform their intended action. Their 13th level and higher class features empower their existing abilities rather than granting anything truly new.

Thoughts: This rates more highly than the other Tome classes for a variety of reasons. First, the authors go into detail explaining their rationale for design decisions, why they gave them certain abilities at certain levels, and compare and contrast their role in the party alongside other martial classes. Additionally, it manages to have a good amount of options in play at the table and makes effective use of immediate actions to counterattack.

My main criticism is that the Tome Fighter still gets a bonus feat every other level, and unlike the 3.5 Fighter it doesn't specify whether these are specifically combat-only or can be anything. While the base 3.5 Fighter also gets a lot of feats, Tome feats are notable in that they give you a bunch of distinct abilities rather than one neat ability, so this is an awful lot for anyone to juggle. Compounding this is that a lot of feat abilities are persistent boons rather than spells which must be activated in order to see use, so in a way Tome Fighters can be harder to keep track of in play than some primary spellcasters.

My other lesser criticism is that Foil Action is very spammy: the vast majority of NPCs and monsters have extremely low touch AC at all levels of player, and the Fighter will easily be able to hit most enemies this way. Barring facing off multiple equally strong opponents, there's no reason a Fighter shouldn't use Foil Action every round, and when PCs end up with superior numbers it becomes trivial to stunlock enemies combined with the system's multitude of other save-or-suck effects. But this last part is less of a problem with the Tome Fighter in particular and more a problem with the game. If you want to play D&D with workable boss battles and solo enemies, play 4th or 5th Edition instead.

The Paladin is another rework of a popular archetype. What's peculiar about this Tomeified version is that it adheres to an actual real-world moral system: the philosophical teachings of Immanuel Kant. Their Code of Conduct ultimately prioritizes intentions over consequence and that the laws and ethos they uphold are based on "do I want everyone else to act this way?"

This Paladin is very similar conceptwise to the 3.5 version, but is a spontaneous caster whose spell list goes up to 6th level and they use Charisma instead of Wisdom to determine save DC and capability of casting. The most notable changes are that their Smite Evil has a d6-based damage progression at every even-numbered level, their Aura grants personal immunity and allies +4 on saves vs a wider array of effects as they level up, they gain Mettle at 9th level which is basically Evasion but for Fortitude and Will saves, and at middle to higher levels can Quicken paladin spells to be cast as a swift action. Additionally, their paladin mount can be any cohort who is 2 levels lower, but they only restriction is that they have to be a creature they can ride and shares their moral code.

Thoughts: The widening of spell levels and addition of more utility-based magic gives the Tome Paladin a wider variety of tricks, although they are still first and foremost a holy combatant in role. The d6-based damage progression is in line with the Tome Barbarian's, although much like the original Paladin it can only work on evil targets and thus their combat contribution varies quite a bit based on the campaign's array of foes. Additionally, their mount can now include a wide variety of creatures, from metallic dragons to possibly even giants carrying the paladin on their shoulders! The Fast Casting lets them apply low-level buffs and similar magic in combat by making use of their swift action, and their Aura's immunities more or less map up to effects that become increasingly common penalties at those levels of play.

My main criticism of the class is that much like the playable monsters rules, the open-ended nature of the mount stats needs some eyeballing to ensure that the creature/NPC chosen is a suitable option. Furthermore, while I am not a philosopher nor familiar with Immanuel Kant's works, the insertion of a real-world belief system to be representative of what is Good at the cosmic level opens up all sorts of cans of worms. Maybe Kant's philosophy does work with the fantasy archetype of the Paladin, but the rest of the Tome series doesn't really engage with the broader cosmic implications of this, nor provides examples of what a D&D setting running by the principles of Kantian philosophy looks like.

Picture of Sturm Brightblade from Dragons of Autumn Twilight

The Knight is a specialized martial class, serving first and foremost as a tank that imposes penalties on enemies that ignore them in combat. Unlike most other classes, they top out at 10th level rather than 20th, meaning that campaigns going into the double-digits necessitate multi-classing. Their most notable feature is Designate Opponent, where they automatically "mark" a foe who can hear them and is within medium range. If the mark damages the Knight before the Knight's next turn, all is well, but should they ignore the Knight and/or be unable to damage them then the class adds an extra d6 damage die per Knight level per attack they have on the marked target. The majority of their other class features are defensive in nature, such as granting +2 to Armor Class and Reflex saves to adjacent allies, gaining personal Spell Resistance, aggroing mindless enemies who must attack the Knight if they fail a Will save, can auto-recover from ability score damage as a move action, and so on. At 10th level they can join or found a particular Knightly Order which grants them a unique set of abilities, such as Fey Knight granting immortality and Damage Reduction 10/Iron. Like Paladins, they do have a Code of Conduct, but one that is much more lenient and based less on morality and more on "ensuring a fair fight."

Thoughts: I'm kind of iffy on the Knight. There's no explanation given as to why it tops out at 10th level, and unlike the Paladin it is rather lacking in out of combat utility options. The Designate Opponent is a good means of drawing enemy fire, but it doesn't truly "lock down" a target that has AoE or multiple ranged attacks as they can still damage the Knight from a distance before returning their attention to the rest of the party. Furthermore, while they do gain a good amount of defensive features, their Spell Resistance is rather paltry and they don't gain outright immunity to effects like the Paladin does, so they are still vulnerable to particular debuffs and status effects. The Knightly Orders also vary in general usability: the fey knight's Damage Reduction is easily overcome by a common material, and immunity to aging isn't going to come up in most campaigns. Then there's the Imperial Knight's Zone of Truth and Protection Against Chaos, which are much more situational and don't play into the class' strengths. Compare this to the Chaos Knight and Dragon Knight gaining decent defensive boosts to their Armor Class, or the Angelic Knight who gets permanent fly and protection from evil.

The Monk is our other significant martial class upgrade. The original 3.5 Monk was widely considered one of the weakest classes in the core rules, the main reason being that it favored sheer quantity over quality in terms of class features, many of which didn't scale well in most campaigns or synergize with each other. The Tome Monk instead bakes down the multitude of class features to a mix-and-match "choose your own themed abilities" via Fighting Styles which are gained by level. They can only have one Fighting Style activated at a time and only for a certain number of rounds. The lower-level Fighting Styles include impressive Badass Normal and slightly supernatural abilities such as a trip/disarm counterattack or their slam attacks ignoring Damage Reduction and Hardness, with the middle and higher level features become more significant such as short-range teleportation, an AoE sound blast attack, and strikes empowered by potent magic such as Disentegrate and Feeblemind. Higher-level Fighting Styles have a shorter duration than lower-level ones, meaning that for protracted battles Monks might have a reason to keep their "ultimate techniques" in reserve if they can't get to the BBEG immediately.

The various non-Fighting Style based class features include the typical D&D Monk stuff, such as Spell Resistance, a natural Slam attack that serves as their unarmed strike equivalent, an unarmored AC bonus that is much greater than the 3.5 Monk's but isn't contingent on Wisdom and thus reduces Multi-Attribute Dependency, and being able to jump really far and not die of old age.

Thoughts: I rate the Tome Monk higher than the Knight but below the Barbarian and Fighter. I particularly like the customizable Fighting Styles, and they do have some degree of out-of-combat utility. However, such utility is mostly limited to short-duration and movement-based stuff such as teleportation or air walking, the latter of which feels a bit superfluous when they can jump really far by default. Greater Dispelling and Gate stand out as being the broadest-focused utility based Fighting Style abilities, but in being middle and higher level abilities respectively they won't see play in most campaigns. Additionally, not all Fighting Styles are created equal, even at the same level: the lower-level styles include very useful options such as constant concealment or the iconic Stunning Strike, but also have less impressive options such as "slam attack deals 2 Constitution damage or reduces target's movement rate by 10 feet" which are more situational. Meanwhile, the higher-level results include varying effects such as "your slam forces your target to save or die," a buff that lets you become incorporeal, or can cast Gate, which are alongside less powerful options such as being able to recover nonlethal damage every round equal to your level or using the violent version of Telekinesis.

The Fighter, by contrast, has much more skills and also many more feats, which via a strict legalist reading of the rules as per Frank and K standards can include [Skill] and [General] feats in addition to [Combat]. If I wanted to play something like a Shadowdancer-style monk or Warrior-Philosopher, I'd be better off playing as a Tome Fighter with Monk weapons and take advantage of the superior Hit Die, surfeit of feats, and Foil Action.

And now, we finally get to the Rogue! With all the talk and praise the Tome Fighter got for empowering noncasters, I'm excited to see what they have in store for the other major mundane fantasy archetype! Will they get something cool like multi-target mage hand pickpocketing? How about permanent Glibness for running confidence schemes, or a fence that can immediately ascertain the function and value of any magic item that they touch? Or really play it old-school, with a Loki-style shapeshifting trickster of supernatural origin? We've seen how the prior classes talked about how middle and higher-level characters needing features to make them able to compete with powerful monsters and magic. The possibilities are endless!

Well, the Tome Rogue…is exactly the same as the 3.5 Player's Handbook version. Heck, even its Sneak Attack still doesn't work on a huge portion of the Monster Manual!

Thoughts:

The Samurai is our final unique Core class of the Tomes. As can be expected, they are a martial class first and foremost, beginning play with a masterwork weapon of choice that they treat as their Ancestral Weapon. They can perform rituals and spend gold pieces to personally enhance the weapon's features, and their Code of Conduct equivalent is a Pledge of Loyalty where they serve an authority figure referred to as their "Lord." This grants them immunity to mind-affecting effects that would cause them to act against the interests of their Lord and Lord's family; Samurai who don't serve a Lord are ronin, and have +4 on saves vs mind-affecting effects to compensate. The bulk of the Samurai's class features are offensive in nature: at lower and middle levels much of these take the form of specific bonus [Combat] feats, along with a Kiai shout which lets them turn a successful hit into a confirmed critical hit a limited (but generous) amount of times per day. They gain more supernatural defensive abilities at middle to higher levels, most notably the ability to parry magical attacks targeting them and dispelling ongoing magical effects by attacking the affected area.

Thoughts: I'm just going to say this ahead of time, but I'm not fond of the idea of a Samurai (or Ninja, for that matter) as a unique stand-alone character class. While I am aware that more than a few D&D classes draw from specific European folkloric archetypes such as the Celtic-inspired Druids or the Tolkienish Ranger, by 3rd Edition and later many core classes are workable enough to reflect a broad array of archetypes. For example, the Middle Eastern Sha'ir is a poet who has magical powers, which sounds pretty close to a Bard, while the multitude of unarmed and wrestling fighting styles throughout the world can reflect all kinds of Monks (and maybe Barbarians and Fighters). The Samurai and Ninja archetypes as seen in folklore and pop culture (in both Japan and the West) don't do anything that a Fighter/Paladin or Assassin/Rogue don't already do respectively. So such attempts at making them distinct classes often end up with a stereotypical "they're different because they're Asian" vibe.

But on to practical mechanical analysis! The Samurai is pretty much built to be a Dynasty Warriors-style "wade into a mass of mooks and start chopping" character, and a passable anti-mage warrior at higher levels. There is one notable downside to the class; due to how critical hits work in 3.5, weapons vary widely in not just how often they crit, but the multiplier of the crit as well. The intent by the designers was to encourage frequency-based payouts: do you want to take a rapier which has a mere double damage but can crit a lot more often, or a scythe that rarely crits but can quadruple your damage instead? While the Ancestral Weapon of the class can take all manner of forms, I imagine that most Samurai players are going for the Feudal Japanese Warrior vibe and would want to use a katana. In 3.5, katanas are bastard swords that have a 19-20 threat range for double damage. Overall, not very impressive. Compare this to a scythe or even a shortbow/longbow, which have x4 and x3 critical hit rates respectively. The scythe is one of the only weapons that has a x4 modifier, so most players choosing Tome Samurai were going around with scythes in actual play. Which I suppose is fine for some, but doesn't really fit many people's mental image of a samurai.

As can be expected, the Wizard remains unchanged from the base 3.5 rules.

Thoughts So Far: The Tome classes are objectively pretty powerful, on line with optimized PC builds. But unlike most optimized builds that require dumpster-diving through splatbooks in order to chain together the right feats, Prestige Classes, equipment, etc, the optimization comes pretty much pre-packaged for convenience. But even then, not all of the classes are on a level playing field: the Knight is a one-trick pony that gets gradually outclassed by the Paladin, the Fighter eats the Monk's lunch via sheer versatility and Foil Action, the Samurai pigeonholes players into picking from a narrow list of weapons, and the Rogue is just depressing when the Assassin does everything better. Even the choosable class features, as outlined in the Knight and Monk entries, have superior and inferior choices, which if this wasn't a Tome product would see such imbalance eviscerated by the Gaming Den regulars.

I understand and respect having a default baseline of power in a campaign. I also understand and respect attempts to bring the less-powerful non-magical classes up a peg. However, they still treat symptoms of the problems in 3.5, they still haven't discussed how they'd handle the Bard and Sorcerer, and the Core classes as they stand feel kind of barren in comparison to the wilder landscape of splatbook options out there. I realize that this latter criticism is entirely subjective on my part, but if I wanted to play a D&D style fantasy game with a tightly-defined list of archetypes designed to be on the same playing field of power…I would be playing another game than 3rd Edition.

Join us next time as we carry on and review some Additional PC Classes!

 

[Libertad]

Chapter 5: Character Base Classes Part 2​

D&D Classes Design by Franco

With 21 classes in total, these serve as supplemental material to the "Core" material of the Tomes. Given the volume that we have, I'm going to be a bit more rapid-fire in covering them, focusing more on my opinions and analysis over paraphrasing class features.

One important thing to note before moving onward: quite a few of these base classes are written by other Gaming Den regulars, but the PDF doesn't properly link to or credit them. The Credits in the back of the book attribute non-Frank & K writers mostly to Prestige Classes, skill feats, and so on. It thus wasn't unreasonable for me to think that this entire section was written by Frank and K, and then when I noticed the discrepancy I thought that the Additional Classes were all fan-community material. But neither are the case; the Frank/K and fan material are all mixed together in this chapter without clear acknowledgement. For example, the Warmage is written by Koumei, the Curator is written by Manxome, while the Jester, Marshall, and Soldier are all written by Frank Trollman. I was able to find a proper credit list via a link to Github in the stickied thread on the Gaming Den's homebrew subforum, but I had to jump through hoops the average reader isn't going to be aware of, much less bother with.

Clearly credit your contributors, folks!

The Curator is a divine caster that focuses on empowering their allies. The crux of their powers are in the form of Benedictions, various buffs spent as immediate actions to take effect on other creatures. They also make use of Spheres, a mechanic covered later on in the Tomes which are akin to Cleric Domains in granting progressive spells and powers revolving around specific themes.

Thoughts: The Curator is a very strong battle-healer and party buffer. The main problem with combat-based healing in D&D 3.5 is that it was inefficient to do in terms of action economy. The best defense is a good offense, and spending a precious standard action for a touch or short-range Cure Wounds spell was very rarely worth it. Buff spells were similarly done out of combat, with the ones worth taking in a typical dungeon crawl having durations long enough to last for more than a single encounter. The Curator solves this conundrum via Benedictions which key off a quicker action type that can be done out of turn. Even the low-level Benedictions have some very appreciable modifiers, making it a very dip-friendly class, and the multi-target Heal Injuries is great for campaigns that make use of "hordemaster" and summoner archetypes; which are OP in 3.5 but even more so in the Tomes.

We'll cover Spheres in the post after this one, but to sum them up they grant a character a new themed spell at every odd-numbered level. Spheres are split into 3 levels of Access: Basic Sphere Access lets the character cast all such learned spells once per day, Advanced Sphere Access 3 times per day, and Expert Sphere Access at will. Spheres are gained at certain levels in certain classes, and choosing the same Sphere again grants you the next level of access. The Curator gains a Sphere at 2nd level and every 4 levels thereafter, choosing from "heavenly" sounding Sphere names such as Mystery, Splendor, and Valor. The at-will spells can get pretty unbalanced. For example, Mystery grants Greater Invisibility at 7th level and Mirage Arcana at 9th, and the spells get only more powerful going up. Restraint has several battlefield control options such as Stinking Cloud, Black Tentacles, and Wall of Stone all accessible by 10th, and Revelation does the same but with divination spells such as Clairvoyance and True Seeing. Oh, and Vigor is the quintessential healing Sphere, granting Cure Light and Serious Wounds at 3rd and 5th, so by 10th level you can kiss resource tracking for wounds goodbye! For these reasons, the Spheres make this class potentially overpowered depending on what is picked.

Elementalist is pretty much what it says on the tin, and as the Gaming Den homebrew resource has two classes of the same name, this is the one written by Frank Trollman. They're squishy arcane casters who have their own list of spells going up to 9th level, which derive strong inspiration from the Druid's spell list.

Thoughts: It's a primary caster with a focus on damage and battlefield control with some summoning thrown in, so it's going to perform well. The middle and higher level class features aren't very impressive: setting one target on fire as a standard action at will isn't so impressive when you spent the last 4 levels able to cast Wall of Fire or have access to a small fire elemental familiar.

The Fire Mage is a blaster-centric class that goes up only to 15th level, and instead of having a proper spell list they just get oodles of unique class features. At-will fire blast, Contact Other Plane but only with Plane of Fire creatures, high resistance and then immunity to fire damage, a fiery Entangle spell equivalent, etc.

Thoughts: This is an unnecessary class. There's many fire spells in the game available to many classes, so a player who wants to be all about fire can play those instead. And it's more limited in scope on what it can do in comparison to actual spellcasters.

The Jester is a Bard/Rogue hybrid, getting Sneak Attack up to 8d6 and spells up to 6th level which are geared towards illusion, enchantment, and debuffs.

Thoughts: The class looks decent in terms of balance for a partial caster: it has a good mixture of offensive, defensive, and utility effects, and its class features and spells are strongly thematic. I like this one.

Warlord by Max Hugo

The Marshall is a 12-level support class that is mostly martial but with a twinge of magical abilities but no actual spellcasting. It makes heavy use of the optional Leadership rules and feats in the Tomes, and is predictably focused on making other people perform better than doing awesome things themselves.

Thoughts: Straight off the bat, the Marshall isn't proficient with martial weapons, which feels really weird for a fighting-man class. And before several commentators point out that it's a misspelling ("proficient with Marshall weapons"), by the standards of the Gaming Den's own design philosophy and innate distrust of DM Fiat, this merely means that it's proficient with weapons of its class, which definitely does not include "Martial Weapons." This may sound pedantic, but I am merely judging the Tomes by Frank and Keith's design goals. This spelling error hasn't been fixed in the many revisions either, so it's going to remain that way.

But on a more serious note, the Marshall is a very powerful class. For one, they get at-will Dispel Magic at 3rd level, at-will Restoration at 6th, gain access to a 9th level spell (Mass Heal) at 10th level and can cast the equivalent of Raise Dead more times per day than an equivalent-level Cleric. For this last feature, the resurrected can get back on their feet quicker, and the Marshall doesn't require expensive material components to do this.

Furthermore, the at-will Restoration at relatively low level opens up some pretty major setting implications. In line with the Gaming Den's rules-as-physics design and the setting continuing on outside of actual play, what happens when these Marshalls are stationed long-term in border towns, or peace returns to their lands and they move back to their hometowns to turn swords into ploughshares? They're not only skilled veterans, but magical doctors par excellence who can cure even devastating plagues with but 18 seconds and a touch. This would have massive consequences for any society. Much less a feudal one, which the Tomes later on confirm is their adhered-to economic system later on in the product.

The Monster Tamer is a pseudo-magical class that revolves around trapping monsters in magic items known as Soul Prisons and then later summoning them to act on the Tamer's behalf. The definition of monster is very broad and includes 10 different creature types, provided they advance by Hit Dice and not character class. The kind of monsters they can control is determined by the Monster's CR, which must be equal to or less than the Monster Tamer's Caster Level. Dragons double their effective CR due to their power.

Thoughts: Soul Prisons require the expenditure of gold and experience points in order to craft, meaning that in practical terms players are going to either get someone else to craft them or saddle the party Artificer with supplying the Monster Tamer's key feature. As magic items require 1 day worth of work per thousand gold, the campaign needs at least several weeks' worth of downtime. The Tomes note that basic Soul Prisons can be bought if available, but all the more powerful ones don't specify this, implying that they can only be crafted and nobody would part with one for mere gold. This class' power and usability is going to vary widely depending on what monsters they encounter and thus can catch, leaving a lot of it up to DM Fiat.

The Ninja is the iconic Japanese spy/assassin as written by a gooner-brained weeaboo.

Thoughts: First off, this class has way too many features: virtually every level has around 3 new abilities added to the repertoire, so option paralysis is inevitable. Not only that, the design heavily relies upon handing out at-will abilities that fundamentally trivialize stealth/scouting: at-will Invisibility and Knock, short-range teleportation plus illusion via the Ninja Log trick, flight, and uh…some sexual content that you should only use with a gaming group you really trust and know exactly what they're signing up for:

Content Warning: Rape by drugging, implied sexual violence

Spoiler

The ninja can create a magic dust that can induce emotions in targets to make them more agreeable, including lust. If the ninja sleeps with such an affected character, they become Fanatical in attitude. A higher-level feature makes this multi-target and a save-or-die effect

While the class feature names and overall vibe point towards a tongue-in-cheek parody, it is still written with enough depth that it can plausibly see use in actual play. It also runs against the design philosophy of anti-social player behavior being a fault of the rules, for these rules can reinforce such behavior.

The Puppeteer is a 12th-level magical-but-no-spells class in the vein of Doctor Frankenstein, which is weird as it brings to mind a demented Geppetto rather than someone using electricity to reanimate dead tissue. This is a hordemaster-style class that specializes in creating and buffing zombies that have the construct type, and eventually Flesh Golems and more powerful forms of undead at higher levels.

Thoughts: In addition to being very powerful due to action economy, the Puppeteer also gains an at-will healing effect they can apply to their constructs at 3rd level, which basically lets them top off their minions out of combat and can really screw around with resource balance. By 6th level the zombies they make can last for 24 hours instead of 10 minutes, which easily gives them enough time for a dungeon crawl that isn't a labyrinthine megastructure. By 9th level they can animate a total number of zombies equal to their level, and they also have Call Lightning and Lightning Bolt at will by this level. The latter has no damage cap, which is basically a Warlock's Eldritch Blast on steroids. While a flesh golem still costs quite a bit of gold to build (10,500), the Wish Economy's purchasing limit tops out at 15,000 for magic items and materials, meaning that the Planar Binding genie aristocrat slaves can give the Puppeteer an army of golems if they get appreciable downtime.

The Shadow Warrior is pretty self-explanatory, being a martial class that makes use of supernatural darkness.

Thoughts: The class has some decent stealth and scouting abilities as can be expected, and are no longer auto-detected by special senses at 5th level which is very good. They do have less utility than the Assassin, though. The Shadow Warrior does get an effective "infinite heal" trick with undead allies, where their natural weapons deal bonus negative energy damage starting at 4th level. Just have an unarmed strike do subdual damage (which undead are immune to) and you're golden! And since there are a few abilities in the Tomes that let PCs be undead or treated as undead when advantageous, this is an exploit that can work on more than just animated minions. The easy infinite healing tricks are starting to become a pattern here…

The Sohei is a cerebral warrior with divinely-inspired powers.

Thoughts: The author doesn't bother listing any class skills and for the reader to make their own, since they "don't believe in cross-class skills." Which is a pretty strong case of Magical Tea Party if I ever heard one. The format of class features doesn't mention what levels they correspond to, meaning that one will need to cross-reference the class table frequently. The 10th level feature of "create anything worth 15k gp or less at will" is overpowered, and much like Vow of Poverty the "Sohei can't own anything personally" isn't much of a hindrance when they can just give out the stuff to their allies and community at large. Additionally, this pretty much blows any semblance of resource management out of the water, as any spell scroll that doesn't use expensive material components easily fits within the 15k gold piece limit, to say nothing of healing potions and a lot of wands! The text says that it's a "flavor thing, so use common sense," but once again that's Magical Tea Party.

Fantasy Warrior by Alejandro Olmedo

The Soldier is Frank Trollman's take on the Tome of Battle. Like classes from those books they gain access to Stances which are persistent buffs they can activate but only one at a time. Maneuvers are special abilities they use as a Standard Action, and unlike the Tome of Battle they're all pretty much just offensive Strikes and have no cool Boosts or Counters.

Thoughts: The Soldier is a poor man's Tome of Battle. Not only does it have less Stances and Maneuvers to choose from, the Maneuvers are all straightforward offensive stuff. The class features have quite a bit of non-combat utility stuff, but not much in the way of features that directly benefit their core abilities. In several cases Frank commits the cardinal sin of Magic Tea Party, such as a useless class feature at 14th level that lets them use the Survival skill to "manage Logistics on any scale, from the personal to the Imperial," and a CTRL + F search through the rest of the Tomes can't find any particular rules for whatever these capitalized terms might mean. At 20th level Frank throws in the towel and is unable to think of any worthwhile class feature, saying that "the Soldier wins D&D." This joke will be repeated in several other classes in this section.

Not only that, but the Soldier makes for a great 1-level dip for Intelligence-based casters. At 1st level they get a customizable Stance. A Stance is built via the combination of two abilities: one which lets them add their Intelligence modifier to something (AC, Saves, Strength/Dexterity skill checks, or Spell Resistance of 5 + Level + Intelligence Modifier), and a Race name that is implied to derive from that society's martial arts. For the Spell Resistance, it doesn't specify character or class level, so presumably we go with the broadest interpretation. The Gnome race option lets the Soldier become effectively invisible to all creatures they damage until the beginning of the Soldier's next turn. Get a Fireball or AoE effect dealing damage and become invisible to a bunch of enemies at once!

The Soulborn and Totemist classes make use of and reference the rules in Magic of Incarnum, which I never got around to reading and don't plan on anytime soon, so I fear that any analysis of these classes is going to be rudimentary at best. I'll pass that on over to more experienced readers who feel like chiming in with their opinions.

The Storm Lord is similar to the Elementalist, albeit their class features are themed around weather-related stuff. They don't get outright spells, instead getting various spell-like abilities to cast at will.

Thoughts: The Storm Lord commits the same sins as the Ninja in cramming individual levels with many class features, and it gains access to a huge amount of spells at will which other classes of equivalent level would be limited in per-day uses. Some class features, such as Control Winds and Earthquake, don't even specify the number times they can be used, leaving this a poorly-designed and unclear class.

The Spirit Shaman is a divine caster that learns to see and communicate with the unseen souls suffusing reality. They are a primary caster with access up to 9th level spells and have class features that interface with nature and invisible/ethereal stuff.

Thoughts: As usual, a primary caster isn't going to be struggling to keep up. A lot of their class features are rather situational but are the kinds of things that will be greatly appreciated when they do come up. Their Animism feature is a neat and well-scaling flavorful in being able to communicate with a wider variety of creatures and objects..

The Summoner is exactly what it says on the tin. It is a primary caster, as to be expected, and the bulk of its class features revolve around being able to cast stronger summons and conjuration magic in various ways.

Thoughts: I don't have much to say. The class looks pretty straightforward and should be easy enough to understand for a first-time reader. As it empowers summoning in multiple ways, it has the potential to break games for action economy reasons.

The Swashbuckler is a nimble, lightly-armored warrior who has a thing for showmanship.

Thoughts: The class has a bunch of cool abilities, but also has an awful lot of them and there's a lot of independent modifiers and buffs/debuffs to keep track of, which can result in options paralysis and double-checking details in play. The incorporation of jokey flavor text within the entries for class features is an acquired taste, but can make the looking-up process unnecessarily cumbersome for some readers.

The Thief Acrobat was most likely written by someone who realized that the Rogue is now useless when the Tome Assassin exists.

Thoughts: This class can be summed up as a much more mobile Rogue, with the bulk of its class features focusing on stuff like three-dimensional movement via grappling hook pulley systems, "tumbling" through the Plane of Shadow to avoid physical impediments, and even Detect Magic at will and Trapfinding for the ever-useful "check the dungeon for unseen dangers." Unfortunately, the class still uses Sneak Attack as the Rogue but with 1d6 less damage, meaning that it's going to barely contribute against a large portion of monsters in the game.

The Thaumaturge has absolutely no flavor text, and the mechanical text isn't any more illustrative of how and where the class is expected to be implemented into the world. They are squishy primary casters, and they draw from the Cleric, Druid, and Sorcerer/Wizard spell lists. They are spontaneous casters, but the spells that they "know" are learned like that of a wizard: by finding spell scrolls and teachers in the wild or via spell research. Otherwise, their only other significant feature are bonus metamagic feats.

Thoughts: There's already a buffet of casting classes in 3rd Edition D&D, and the Tome adds even more. Even classes that share or heavily borrow from the spell lists of other classes can still have their own distinctive features and themes to make them stand out. So this makes the Thaumaturge feel bland, with their big thing being "they can learn both divine and arcane magic, but need to write it down like a wizard."

Fix and Vita Warlock dnd by Nerva1/Nerval/Natalia

The Warlock is the Tomeified version of perhaps the most popular WotC-era D&D character class. Since this was written back during 3rd Edition, the Tome Warlock is specifically fiendish in nature, deriving their powers from making bargains with evil outsiders. The class goes up to only 15th level, but their more notable features include an Eldritch Blast that scales faster at 1d6 damage per class level, can summon evil outsiders whose number and CR depend on class level, and can have said Eldritch Blast deal alternative damage types at a decreased cost in damage. They have no Invocations, but gain access to Fiendish Spheres which more or less do the same thing in granting them access to various thematic spells.

Thoughts: For the at-will Expert Sphere Access, a Warlock can get this as early as 6th level, for they gain a Sphere at 1st level, 3rd level, and every 3 levels thereafter. As mentioned with the Curator above, there's quite a bit of Spheres with abusable at-will features by this time. Bone has Summon Undead V, so you can potentially get infinite waves of minions with successive castings, with the spell's 1 round/level the major limiting factor. Seduction sphere grants Suggestion, Glibness, and Charm Monster at 3rd, 5th, and 7th level respectively, causing the party Bard to cry as they're effortlessly upstaged, while Violation has similar powers such as Modify Memory, Dominate Person, and Lesser Planar Binding. And this is to say nothing of higher levels which give even more powerful spells this way, also potentially at-will.

Warmage is our final Additional Base Class, and is pretty much what it sounds like. They are proficient with martial weapons, although their real claim to fame is being a primary caster with a spell list chock-full of offensive and battlefield control stuff. They also have a list of alterations to basic spells that are enhanced when cast by a Warmage. The bulk of their class features revolve around further empowering their spells, such as adding on rider debuffs or making a single-target effect "chain" to other secondary targets.

Thoughts: Once again, a primary caster is going to be eating good tonight in 3.5, and the buffs and rider effects make purely damaging spells more worth it to both learn and cast. Unlike the Elementalist, Fire Mage, or Warlock, their spell lists and class features are less tightly themed and more broad, with some "team player" stuff like Heroes' Feast and being able to summon an Instant Fortress. One particular thing I must point out is that a Warmage can effectively create a localized post-scarcity economy by 2nd level, where they can cast not only Create Water at will, but Create Food at will, and then Purify Food and Drink at will by 3rd level. Much like the 6th-level Marshall being a better doctor than most low-level Clerics, the Warmage's class features have huge world-building implications for the setting at large, which the Tomes don't really discuss.

Thoughts So Far: While I found the prior Core Classes to be a mixed bag, the Additional Classes leave me a lot less impressed. The balance is even wonkier between them, and the writers violate the standards of their own design philosophy and the Gaming Den's at large in several places. The classes are also too liberal in the handing out of at-will spell-like abilities. While some spells are perfectly fine to do this with, they're usually not very powerful or situational. Tome classes, by contrast, have at-will spells that are not only of questionable balance, but can fundamentally change core aspects of gameplay and trivialize resource management. What's even worse is that the Tomes don't provide any DMing advice for how to build encounters and adventures around these differing standards and expectations, much less how they can affect the wider campaign at large.

Join us next time as we finish up this chapter with Monster Base Classes and NPC Classes!

 

[Libertad]

Anatomy of Failed Design: the Baneguard​

D&D Wiki Link

Hello everybody, and welcome to a very special Intermission Post! Normally we’d continue on reviewing classes for the Frank & K Tomes, but while we’re on the subject of classes I wanted to briefly pivot over to one of the author’s most well-known creations in the wider Internet.

Anatomy of Failed Design is a review style on the Gaming Den popularized by Frank Trollman. As explained by Maxus, one of the forum regulars, the series “dissects the failings of a particular subject and tries to put a finger on Where It Went Wrong, as a lesson in ‘How Not to Do It.’” While the Bane Guard isn’t part of the Tomes nor even the same system, it remains an important piece of Gaming Den history.

To give some background context, most of the Gaming Den was particularly irate at the changes to D&D made in 4th Edition. Not content to just criticize the system, Frank Trollman sought to make a class for it in an attempt to prove that he has a better grasp of it than the designers at Wizards of the Coast.

Here we can see Frank (since renamed Username17) going into detail on his design philosophy for creating the class in response to someone questioning his decisions. Frank more or less says that he “jovially [has] no respect whatsoever for the arbitrary restrictions that the 4e designers put on themselves.”

However, while 3rd Edition D&D is a system in which Frank has much experience in reading and playing, 4th Edition was an entirely new battlefield to the man. In order to create original material that builds upon the system, one must immerse themselves in it on its own terms and have a lot of experience in how other people engage with it. This is why playtesting is so important, and also bringing in the participation of other tables and players with the work. The last part helps bring in previously-unseen insights and exploits that the creator and their home group can miss.

Failed Design Sin #1: Frank did not playtest the Bane Guard.

I am not experienced with the rules of 4th Edition, so I brought in a “design committee” of sorts who do have experience in weighing in on where the Bane Guard went wrong. First off, I’ll start with one of my gamer buddy friends who wishes to have their name retracted but who still gave permission to quote. I bolded particularly parts I feel are significant to highlight:

The Bane Guard's mark feels kinda weak at a first glance. It seems like the Paladins mark from 4e which was a very weak marking feature by itself but could get pretty good if you burned feats on it.

I know, but its like... idk. It's hard to describe the effects of seeing Baneposting for over a decade.

The at wills are nothing fancy to write home about. Basically seem like diet versions of Fighter at wills. This is kind of an unfair comparison as Fighter was sincerely one of the best classes in 4e so its like... If you wanna be a defender and have budget versions of fighter stuff... Fighter's right there bro

The level 1 encounters are all pretty lackluster. Sec as I look at a fighter power for comparison
OK so let's look at Eh... I guess shadow cut is the best attack power the class has at level 1. minor action attack for basic damage (In 4e, everyone gets a move, standard, and minor action, and you can trade out a move or standard for a minor action. Think bonus actions in 5e except you can get 3 of them). Does a basic die of damage, targets reflex - it would be OK against brutes and enemies that have a crappy reflex defense.

It has no riders. So basically it’s a minor action for damage.

Here is Steel Serpent Strike, a fighter encounter power. Standard action. Targets AC, does 2 weapon dice worth of damage, and has the rider of slowing your target (They can only move 2 squares a move action), and cannot shift (5 foot step) for a turn.

Steel serpent strike
Fighter attack 1
Encounter ✦ martial, weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage, and the target is slowed and cannot shift until the end of your next turn.

Slowing a target is good, because it makes it harder for them to get away from you. No shifting is even better, they have to eat an OA to get away from you at that point, and fighter OAs get a bonus to attack rolls equal to wis modifier, and they immediately stop moving if you hit them.

Shadowy assault for bane guard. Does 4 dice of damage, so that's a big ticket attack. Con vs fortitude though, and some enemies get very high fort saves. You become invisible for a turn hit or miss is what I'm reading from the power, and that's not really.. ideal for a defender who wants to be hit, you know?

So Steel Serpent Strike gives your fighter some solid damage, and gives them innate stickiness.
Lets look at a bane guard level 1 daily power compared to a fighter daily next.

Here's Villains menace, a fighter daily power:

Villain's menace
fighter attack 1
Daily ✦ martial, weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: one creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you gain a +2 power bonus to attack rolls and a +4 power bonus to damage rolls against the target until the end of the encounter.[PH:78]
Miss: Gain a +1 power bonus to attack rolls and a +2 power bonus to damage rolls against the target until the end of the encounter.

2 dice of damage, standard action vs AC, so its not as big a ticket attack buuuuuuuuuuut
On a hit it gives you +2 to hit and +4 to damage against the target for the rest of the fight. 4e is like PF2 where every little bonus helps, you know? +2 is basically 4 levels worth of +hit in 4e if I recall. If you're fighting a big gribbly monster, villain's menace is the move you pull out round 1 or the likes to make the rest of your attacks have a ton of oomph.

That's as far as I'll go reading the bane guard I think, but the portrait at level 1 is extremely lame compared to base fighter.

Unrelated but on a general concept I think Bane Guard is too specific for a class regardless. It implies a very specific focus where as a fighter is John D&D and a paladin can worship any god in 4e and still receive power. Bane Guard feels like it would be a paragon path to a defender more than a unique class.

While my friend didn’t do a holistic overview of the entire class, already it sounds like there’s several problems with it off the bat. And speaking of roles, it has no real role protection in that it sounds like the Fighter can already do what it can do but better.

Failed Design Sin #2: The class’ flavor and intended role isn’t reinforced by the mechanics.

I then reached out on Something Awful’s Traditional Games subforum, which has a large 4e fan community, in order to get some deeper dives. Critiques are reposted with permission:

I don't have time to write up a long-form critique of the class, but even from glancing at it I can see a few problems:

1. No base classes in 4e have the same link to a specific deity or ethos this one does. Base classes are designed to be somewhat generic fluff-wise so they can slot into most campaigns, even ones that don't use Bane or goblins. Something this tied to a specific origin is better as a paragon path or epic destiny, 4e's rough equivalent to prestige classes.
2. One of the problems with 3.x is that even once you get past the caster supremacy, there a clear hierarchy for melee as well. A big monster with a lot of reach or a PC wielding a two-handed reach weapon (and preferably a way to be Large or larger in size) were king. 4e's reach rules were written to nerf that playstyle and make the ability to make opportunity attacks against non-adjacent targets much more difficult; this ability is called "threatening reach" and very few monsters even have it. I can count the ways for a PC to get threatening reach on my fingers, the vast majority only last one round, and the only way for it to be "permanent" is to be wielding one specific artifact weapon. This class gives it as a permanent class feature at level 1. That's nuts, and actually conflicts with 4e's design ethos.
3. One of the class's first-level at-will attacks immobilizes the target for one full round, until the user's next turn. This is ridiculously powerful for an attack you can spam, and the only at-will attacks I can find that immobilize an enemy either have a catch, deal very little damage, or aren't available to a level 1 character. "Immobilized until the end of your next turn" is something you'll more commonly see on encounter attack powers.
4. The class's mark mechanic is weird. Most classes either attack (or deal a small amount of direct unavoidable damage to) someone who violates their mark, or mitigates some of the attack's damage. The Baneguard does both, it's sort of a combination of the Paladin's and Swordmage's mark mechanics.
   [/list=1]

Here we see some similar concerns raised, but what really stands out is the discussion of Threatening Reach, where the Baneguard effectively gives the class something that is restricted to precious people options on both the PC and NPC/monster side. This demonstrates a lack of understanding and experience with why certain mechanics are at appropriate tiers of power.

Failed Design Sin #3: Handing out level/tier-inappropriate powers.

Dexterity as an attack stat for anyone who isn't a striker is also very weird. No defender classes have Dex as a primary like that, and I can't even think of any leaders or controllers who attack with Dex either. It's not overpowered afaict, but it's very weird.

Like even the Seeker (a controller) and the archer Warlord (a leader), both classes that make attacks through bows or other ranged weapons, attack off of Wisdom or Strength, respectively.

(Keene responding to another poster) Yeah, a light armor defender with Dex as an attack stat wouldn't be any weirder than the Swordmage, which is a light armor defender with Intelligence as an attacking stat, but it's on a heavy armor class that thus has no desire to run Dex builds.

In general, you shouldn't be putting a Save Ends effect on an encounter power anyways. That's generally reserved for dailies. Encounter powers generally shouldn't have effects that last more than one round, unless it's something relatively minor like creating a zone of difficult terrain. Though the fact that the attack doesn't deal damage as written would mitigate that somewhat. If it wasn't a minor action.

That's still more controller-flavored than defender-flavored though IMO.

This too was something I caught: the class needing Dexterity but having proficiency with heavy armor is the kind of thing that would be sub-optimal/unnecessary in 3rd and 5th Edition, so it sounds like this is also the case with 4e. Also a similar discussion in how the class doesn’t work as advertised, being a “Controller dressing as a Defender,” which is similar to what Buddy said about it not feeling like a Defender.

Failed Design Sin #4: Giving the class unnecessary abilities (heavy armor) that clash with its ideal build (Dexterity).

All in all, if we're assuming good faith and not a grog from 3.x trying to "fix" a game they've never played, it reads like a person with very limited experience playing 4e trying to design a defender that's "different" from the established defenders. It does a lot of things differently with the apparent intent of just "being different", without much thought into how those things are balanced: threatening reach, both damage and mitigation at lesser power on the mark mechanic, minor action attacks on a defender (most of those are on strikers, to maximize their damage), Dex primary on a defender, a metric fuckton of at-wills, etc.

Nothing much else for me to add right now.

So putting aside the fluff, which I do not care for, I will go down the line and make my objections:

Shadow Warrior: what the naughty word? +Cha on marked targets is insane.
Cruel Overlord: orb wizards are considered monstrously powerful before they got the errata nerfbat and this is just that.
Dominating Presence is obscenely powerful. At most you get Threatening Reach for like singular rounds at a time. Also, an at-will on an OA is... while not off-tier like the first part of Dominating Presence, the other methods of getting an at-will as an OA are either sharply limited to specific ones, at half-stat to damage, or in Paragon tier and limited to heavy blades.
Adaptive Combat: getting more and more at-wills while not unprecedented, is a bit weird.
Tide of Battle: a mark that can be ended by a saving throw sucks and means the defender cannot actually enforce their naughty word on solos. At the same time, doing both Paladin retaliation damage and a lesser version of Shielding Swordmage is... weird maybe? But cutting down Shielding Swordmage's damage mitigation down this much makes it pretty toothless. And it being a free IR is also a bit much.
Wolf Pack: lol mounted combat
Mole's Grasp: lordy this is too powerful.
Simple Trick is too strong. Save ends blind on a minor action? Really? And also, having all of your encounter attack powers as minor actions is pretty powerful.
Stifling Grasp is way too strong. Save ends stun as a level 1 daily?
Shadow Jump: needs some kind of clause referencing your Speed.
Shadow of my Shadow: way too powerful.
Dance Dance Revolution: close burst 4 immobilize is obscene, especially because it's friendly fire.
Torrent of Ill Will: actually I don't mind this. I think it's neat.
Surprising Development: what on earth are you talking about
Tricky Maneuvers: what on EARTH are you talking about?
Finishing Blow: call me this daily because I am finished with reading this thing
Silent Wall: Actually I'm finishing out the dailies. 7[w]?
Soul Crusher: you have got to be shitting me

While the at-wills are less problematic than I thought they would be, the balance is way all over the place and just looks like it wasn't considered very well. Is it the worst homebrew I've seen? no. But it does suck, and given the person who wrote it, reads like petty beef with 4e not being a direct clone of 3.5e in how it replicates effects from the latter to the former.

Oh wow, I legitimately didn't even notice the three different attack stats. I just assumed it was primary Dex and one of Cha or Con secondary. Because doing it the first way is incredibly stupid.

EDIT: petrified save ends at level 29 as an at-will. are you naughty word shitting out my ass? at-will 11-20 crit? Daily charisma mod multi attack?? Daily close burst 5 ally unfriendly stunned save ends??? An encounter power with a number of attacks equal to the number of squares you can reach that the target occupies?????? nevermind I take everything back I hate this person

EDIT 2: ENCOUNTER FREQUENCY MINOR ACTION HELPLESS AT LEVEL 17 same level as "target takes ongoing 10 fire damage (save ends)"

Some rather harsh language in places, but is pretty timid by the standards of Frank and the Gaming Den themselves, so like they say: "If you can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen!"

So I'm rusty on 4e and this is from memory. Someone who's played it more recently than 2018, feel free to jump in.

Off the bat, these two things are turbo naughty word. Any time you get an extra stat mod to a d20 roll, it's naughty word up. The second is especially egregious. Saving throws in 4e are normally coin flips, tilted slightly in your favor (10+ on a d20). This can make them basically impossible.

Shadow Warrior: You are a battle veteran well versed in the front lines of battle. When you make an attack on an enemy that is marked, you may add your Charisma modifier to your attack roll.

Cruel Overlord: You hold territory with the tenacity and overbearing stance of Bane himself. When an enemy makes a Saving Throw within your melee reach, you may elect to give them a penalty equal to your Constitution modifier.

The second looks to have really good interactions with its Mark feature too.

I can see you get an Immobilize EoNT at-will too to make this basically perfect lockdown.

That's just features and off the top of my head. Totally possible I'm missing even more broken things just because I'm rusty

Failed Design Sin #5: Even people who haven’t touched the system in a long time are sounding air sirens when reading your work.

Just from quick review:

• Terrible MAD class (you need to develop two stats to high levels and a third to a decent level)
• Broken mark adjustment (adding +CHA to hit vs. marked targets)
• Allowing to use at-wills instead of MBAs for mark punishment with threatening reach, a feature usually limited to monsters
• 2 of 3 1st level at-wills use weapon attacks vs. NADs, meaning you get proficiency bonus, meaning you hit a lot more often than most others (especially if you have a decent charisma and are using the CHA attack vs. a marked target: you get to count your CHA as a bonus to hit twice plus your weapon proficiency, which should be +2 for most reach weapons unless I'm forgetting one). (Edit: normally, weapon attacks go against AC, not NADs, which tend to trail AC by 2 points on average.)
• By max level, the class has 8 at-will attacks to choose from. I don't have any idea whether the higher level ones do more damage (except see below), but in other classes (psionic power-based ones) where you get new at-wills, you replace your lower-leveled ones with your new ones. This is an analysis paralysis nightmare
• The max level at-wills: one petrifies as an at-will attack while another does, if you hit twice, 2x weapon damage and 5 points of ongoing poison damage, an amount so small it's insulting.
• Edit2: I don't know where I picked up the idea there was damage reduction. There's nothing to help your teammates at all besides the -2 from the mark. It doesn't even say that breaking the mark inflicts an attack of opportunity. The class actually doesn't do much to fill its role as defender mechanically. You break a battlemind's mark, you take as much damage as you inflicted on your target, which is a pretty hefty punishment. But a baneguard? You get to reduce incoming damage by 3-5 points or so, maybe a bit more at higher levels. That's not going to save anyone from getting squished. I can't remember what damage reduction swordmages offer, the closest analogy I can think of, but it's got to be better than this.
• Edit3: it requires spending your minor action to mark a target, only 1 target IIRC, which is just ridiculous action economy, plus if there's more than one enemy on the field.

And that's from a five minute review.

Similar critiques to others: too many at-wills, can’t fill the role of Defender, skewed action economy.

Failed Design Sin #6: Don’t overwhelm players with unnecessary options.

One addendum that I spotted when spinning through shaking my head in disbelief after making & editing my post: a good number of encounter powers have the effect, "This attack critically hits on an 11-20." In 4E, a crit means you do full damage with your attack plus, if you're using a magical weapon, additional critical dice. One of these powers was a level 25 encounter power doing 5[W] damage, which if you're using a longsword is 5d8 damage plus your static bonuses (characteristic, magic, feat, etc.). But if you crit (which you'll do half the time), you just do a straight 40 plus static damage and you roll crit dice. It's not impossible to find a decent magic weapon that will give you d10 critical dice, especially if you know you're critting half the time on a good chunk of your attacks, and at level 25 it's almost certain under standard distribution of magic items to have a +5 longsword, so you'd be doing 40+static+5d10 critical damage, or if you were using a battleaxe instead, add in another 3d8 because of the axe's high crit property. This is just insane for a never-miss (because the player's stacking Charisma on a marked target) encounter power, even at level 25, to be doing half the time.

I was never a huge charop guy and didn't do much in upper paragon/epic, but it was extremely hard, if not impossible, for any regular character to get their crit chance better than 19-20, and that only at epic levels IIRC. That was one of the reasons why the Avenger was such a great DPS class: if you met the right non-trivial but not too difficult conditions, you got to roll 2d20 to hit and take the better one, virtually doubling your chance of critting.

The “crit 50% of the time” is definitely surprising to me, given that in pretty much every Edition of D&D such hits were powerful because of how rare they are.

The criticisms others offer are good, so let me look at the power list to see not numeric but syntactic failures.

Starting with not engaging the system quite on its own terms: call of battle (bane guard utility 2nd) reads, "Target ally Heals hit points equal to what they would get for spending a Healing Surge plus your Charisma modifier. You spend one Healing Surge." The capitalization is all over the place, it doesn't mention surge value, it's not templated like existing offerings (the paladin's lay on hands from the Player's Handbook reads, "You spend a healing surge but regain no hit points. Instead, the target regains hit points as if it had spent a healing surge. You must have at least one healing surge remaining to use this power."). Does call of battle heal both you and your ally for the one healing surge you pay? It's an encounter power, so...

As an inexpert GM, I'd be asking all kinds of questions about things like (also utility 2nd) natural leader, a daily power that lets them pick up two minions. Are the minions mechanically defined in a fashion akin to familiars (or am I expected to pick some mooks out of the Monster Manual)? Is the expectation for the player to make decisions about the minions' actions or for me to?

On to attacks, the encounter attacks early on expect to be used against a marked target, which I think is the major balancing factor and the reason that the mark doesn't have a real consequence. Does it make it a pain to use? Yes. Are they consistent about it? Hell no. Is it good design to move the off-turn action overhead into on-turn analysis in situations where the team cleans up the marked target? Who can say. Other encounter attacks are minor actions, and only most of them are actually in line with the expectations for an attack power (doing hard control or meaningful damage) rather than a utility power (inflicting an automatic debuff, for instance).

Some utility powers (king of the damned, 22nd) feel like they were meant for a paragon path or epic destiny's passive features.

All in all, this is a mess and it would have to be proven in play if the breaks from 4e best practices provide a worthwhile experience at all.

In addition to Admiralty Flag pointing out the options paralysis on the player’s side, Torches Upon Stars points out how several mechanics are also unclear for a potential DM.

Failed Design Sin #7: Unclear mechanics.

I've only read until the 1st level powers and... every single ability is wrong. Like, literally, legit, actually every one of them.


Shadow Warrior
Adding an ability score modifier to an attack roll for (almost) free is absurdly good. Ability score mods can go up to +10 at epic levels, if you put your mind to it. The ability also doesn't specify that you need to have it marked, just that somebody needs to have it marked, which feels like an oversight.

Cruel Overlord
Already discussed before but it bears repeating. And again, ability scores can go very, very high. Giving people a -10 penalty on saving throws is absurd.

Dominating Presence
Threatening Reach by itself would already be a huge deal. Monster abilities are simply not designed with this in mind. There is a level 12 encounter power that lets you get it for one single round. Likewise there is a level 20 magic item that gives it for a single round, once per day. It's that rare.

But on top, you can use any at-will on opportunity attacks. And this class...

Adaptive Combat
... gains loads of at-will powers! This breaks the mold of D&D 4e entirely. Imagine if you will, a homebrew 5e class that gives you an ASI/feat every single level. Nowhere it is written that you shouldn't do that, but still you shouldn't do that.

Tide of Battle
Every defender class needs a way to mark and this one's the Bane Guard's. Usually the simplest of mechanics. Hard to naughty word up, right?

Well...

It's a minor action to use, but it doesn't actually mark anybody. Instead, you also need to use another action: either a shift or an attack that hits. (By the way, restricting basics marks to attacks that hit is a huge no-no because it means the defender can suddenly miss with their marks. There is a reason all marks are just auto-applied.)

"This mark lasts until ended by a saving throw."

Ugh, it's like nails on chalkboard to me. The proper phrasing is, "The target is marked (save ends)."

The rest of the phrasing is likewise terrible. By RAW, if you somehow know a spell like Magic Missile, you can hurl a magic bolt at someone far away and use that to mark someone adjacent to you. After all, the power says that if you damage someone with an attack, you may mark someone in reach. It doesn't say that the marked target needs to be the same person as the one you hit. An oversight? Intentional? The writing is so poor that I just can't tell.

Wolf Pack
The writer seems to be under the impression that the "mount trait" is something special, or allows the creature to be ridden as a mount. This is incorrect. The mount trait is there to signpost that the creature has a special feature or power which you can make use of if you ride them and have the Mounted Combat feat. The mount trait is not a requirement for riding the creature. Giving wolves a mount trait without also giving them any special mount abilities is like saying that all goblins are now fire elementals... but without changing their stats or appearance in any way. It's an empty label, a trait devoid of meaning.

Conquering Lunge
It's an at-will that pushes and lets you follow after them. Ok, that's like the Fighter's Tide of Iron at-will. Except that Tide of Iron has a size restriction and this doesn't, so it's a bit better. But oh well, balance is not so precarious that just this difference is overpowered.

But wait! There's more!

It doesn't target AC but Fortitude instead. The three non-AC defenses are often a point or two lower than AC (though there are exceptions). So in many cases, CL is more accurate than ToI.

But wait! There is still more!

It also says: Special: You may shift one square before delivering this attack.

Ok so now it's entirely and unreasonably superior to the benchmark. This is a badly made power. Also, nitpick: The Special line should be an Effect that is listed above the Target line. Power effects are read in chronological order. (See also the Rogue's Deft Strike at-will for an example of this.)

Holding Pattern
It's an attack that targets Reflex. See above, but Reflex is more commonly lower than Fortitude. Just this effect by itself would be good, if a bit strange for a Defender class. (See also the Rogue's Piercing Strike at-will.)

But then you also have combat advantage on the attack for even more accuracy. And also, you no longer grant combat advantage. (This is the proper phrasing for what the power tries to convey.) Good lord, this is just dumb. I'm sorry but it is.

Mole's Grasp
I could waste a lot of your time by nitpicking about the phrasing, or about being a necrotic damage power that lacks the necrotic keyword. But let's keep it simple.

It's a ranged attack, at-will, that can immobilize people. If you don't understand yet why this power is naughty word in the head, I can't help you.

Undercut
This is the weakest level 1 at-will but also the strangest. It only knocks people prone if they are larger than you. Logically this means that only pixies should play this class. A huge number of opponents are medium size and it's weird that only a handful of PC races could gain the benefit of this power.

Also at level 21 it drops the restriction? I don't think any at-will does that. It should just add on a damage die, not change its utility.

Hostile Diversion
For some reason this power doesn't have a Target line. Which should be, "Target: One creature." I think that technically speaking the power is nonfunctional?

"Mark one opponent within range. All attacks have Combat Advantage against the target until the end of your next turn."

But there is no opponent within "range" because this power doesn't have range. (It has reach instead, which is different.) And the second sentence fails because there is no target.

All of the above is, of course, nitpicking about the formulation of the power. Yes, by RAW it does nothing, but we can all see the RAI. Now let's go a step further and ask ourselves, "What is the point?"

Because we're talking about a defender power. Now ok, it marks a creature, sure. But you already have an at-will marking mechanic, there's no need to spend your encounter power selection on another. It also makes them grant combat advantage but... is that what a shadow defender does? And how is this an attack power, exactly? This is more like a very confused utility power.

Simple Trick
A minor action attack that blinds (save ends)? naughty word off.

In the hands of a class that imposes saving throw penalties, which scale up to -10? Fuuuuuuuck Ooooooooooooffffffff.

Shadow Cut
Very similar to the Ranger's Off-Hand Strike power. Except it's not restricted to a light off-hand weapon and it targets Reflex. So... it's like that, but better. And again, this is supposed to be a defender. While the roles are not strict siloes that can never blend into one another, I fail to see much defending so far.

Life Steal
... kind of ok, actually? If we ignore the usual formatting and phrasing problems? I think we've reached our 'broken clock' moment here. Damage and healing are fairly low but it's only a minor action and it targets Will, which is typically on the lower end. If anything it's weak. Especially in comparison with the other options, nobody in their right mind would ever pick up Life Steal over Simple Trick.



And then I scrolled down and saw End of Everything. Yeah, sure, just one-hit-kill against the epic level boss of the campaign. Why not?

I'm done. I don't have the will to go on. This naughty word is ass.


Edit: Also, the level 13 power Offer Terms is basically a normal type of skill check you can already try. Really. Forcing bloodied people to surrender is part of the basic skill description.

Sage Genesis points out several errors where certain abilities (Adaptive Combat, Hostile Diversion, Mole’s Grasp) are improperly defined or missing key information, indicating that the class didn’t get an editing pass.

Failed Design Sin #8: Get an editor, for the love of God, get an editor!

Forgive me for the wall of text quotes, but I wanted to get a diverse analysis of people.

We’ve all made bad homebrew. Heck, among those gamers who get their work published, we’ve even written works that we’re not so proud of and would’ve done things differently if we could go back in time. It happens to all of us. But what made the Bane Guard blow up and become one of the most enduring memories of Frank’s egotistical method of game design was in how he and his fanbase responded to it. He more or less claimed that he made the class bad on purpose as a means of making fun of the system’s designers, and that people making fun of it are actually the ones being trolled.

The supposed “it’s badly done on purpose” deflection didn’t prevent Frank from making future edits to the class. I don’t have the original version, but apparently the initial marking mechanic for the Bane Guard was so poorly worded that it apparently prevented the class from attacking or using its powers at all. If it was meant to be a no-thought joke class, why not keep this mechanic in? An unintentionally-worded mechanic can upend an entire build; that’s comedy gold right there!

Failed Design Sin #9: Frank responds poorly to criticism, the reaction outliving the work itself.

Thoughts: As someone who chose to play Pathfinder in the 3e/4e Edition Wars, the only real critique I can give on the Bane Guard is that it feels odd to make a base class one that aligns with the Faerûnian God of Fascism. In addition to being a much more specific concept than a generic fantasy archetype, the Bane Guard is pretty firmly aligned on the Evil side of the equation, which isn’t suitable for lots of campaigns.

Thoughts So Far: Say what you will about 3rd Edition Min-Maxers and Character Optimization Guidebook writers, they are a very cerebral bunch that spend vast amounts of free time combing through sourcebooks to mix and match rules made in isolation to discover unexpected consequences and combos. Such a service is invaluable for game design, and given 3rd Edition’s intentionally-obfuscated balance by Monte Cook and others, their work was a necessary one to illuminate to new players what to look out for and whether or not a certain class, feat, spell, etc actually did what they conceived for the mental image they had in their head.

While Frank Trollman has his share of critics, he did have an appreciable fanbase among the CharOps community even outside the Gaming Den. There are mid-Aught posts on various forums where one can find posters saying something to the effect of “I don’t like his personality, but he is an excellent game designer” or “his homebrew and world-building are thought-provoking exercises, even if a tad on the powerful side.”

And Frank does have some good ideas: the Tome Fighter is perhaps my favorite work of his, and while we’ll cover them later I did like his treatise on coming up with lower-level adventures in other planes of existence. This was written at a time when D&D portrayed such planes as “you must be X level to ride this adventure.”

But the Frank Trollman who wrote such material is not the Frank Trollman who wrote the Bane Guard, or even the Frank Trollman of later years. Namely, his big ego made him a worse game designer over time. When you not only insist that you cannot ever be wrong, that you’re the only one of worth in your field and don’t work well with others, and surround yourself with unquestioning fans who take your side almost all the time, this hinders your growth as a creator. Not only that, it eventually turns away even your own fans, as the quality of your work degrades. In fantasy literature we’ve seen this happen with Terry Goodkind, author of the Sword of Truth series. Like Trollman, Goodkind had contempt for all other fantasy writers and novels, didn’t list any other works in his preferred genre as good or inspirational sources, and took all criticism as a personal attack. Even his fans who didn’t mind his plot or author tracts at first eventually petered off over time, realizing that the initial spark in the Sword of Truth series was now gone.

While the Bane Guard is perhaps the most visible example of Trollman’s Designer Decay, it marked the start of a shift in public perception of him and the Gaming Den as “intelligent yet acerbic game theorists.” Out of curiosity I input various related search terms into popular social media platforms for the Tome and its authors. For the following examples, I chose one of the Internet’s favorite hellsite of the current era: Reddit. Trollman is quite predictably the most relevant result, as K is now a digital ghost and has a super-generic username. The most relevant threads remember Trollman for helping leak Catalyst Game Labs’ embezzlement and not paying freelancers for their labor, which was actually a decent thing for him to do. But when it comes to his and K’s actual work, his magnum opus is actually much more distant in terms of views and upvotes.

Rather, Trollman’s remembered as the guy who wrote the Baneguard class to prove that he’s a better designer than WotC staff, and couldn’t take criticism when people made fun of his disasterpiece. People generally don’t speak of him as a Rick Sanchez anti-social genius anymore. On forums such as EN World, they remember him and the Gaming Den at large as the people who believe that 5th Edition is a vaporware product, even at a time when Critical Role is a household name. The Frank and K Tomes are but a more distant legacy, of some innovative-looking homebrew for an Edition that the gaming public has since moved on from.

If we can learn anything from this, it’s that caustic criticism and “vendetta game design” aren’t the only, or even best, tools for improving one’s craft. It also requires self-awareness and humility, that no matter how good or beloved you are, that the creative process is a continual journey of self-improvement, that no creator is an island, and that diverse outside perspectives are invaluable.

Join us next time as we get back to our regular programming!