The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[Wormwood]

No, not yet.

Yeah, but it's only been eleven pages.

I bet we get some really compelling evidence around page 15 or so.

 

[Mallus]

I bet we get some really compelling evidence around page 15 or so.

I'll take that bet. Does this site support online gambling?

 

[Mistwell]

I'll take that bet. Does this site support online gambling?

Send your money to me and I will hold it for you

 

[Scribble]

But the imbalance's solution, in my opinion, is not just "turn the non-magical guy loose with magic powers that you don't call magic." To me, it looks darned silly and throws the sense of believability out the window.

What you call bending reality with his mind, I call bending reality with the D&D equivalent of Physics. What you call bending with his heart, I call phoning in to have someone more powerful do it for you. Just like in real life a person can't move a ten-ton block by hand, but requires physical principles or technology, in D&D a person can't high-jump a hut without turning to magic or magical beings. Until now, at least.

We've all heard the stories of people under amazing stress doing incredible things due to adrenalin.

To me, most of the powers in the Bo9S are sort of like taking this idea and "D&Ding" it up a notch. The warrior that has trained himself to tap into his inner strength and accomplish acts that most would consider super human. (Like those guys that pull buses with their teeth...)

Some of the supernatural stuff, as other have said seem more like the eastern ideas of Qi and such. The warrior that taps into spiritual power, and creates mystic like powers.

But in 3.5 we didn't really have the concept of "power source." Thought it might have been there hiding under the "inferred text" it wasn't/isn't yet part of the game.

I'm guessing in 4e, the powers that could be explained by a highly trained warrior amped up on adrenalin D&D style will fall into the martial power source. The ones that exhibit supernatural trappings will fall into another power source like Qi

 

[Cadfan]

I don't think anyone has a problem with a PC designed to jump like this taking a lot of skills and feats to do so, and accomplishing this by level 15.

The problem we are discussing is to gain one non-magical Talent or Feat that allows a PC to jump straight up Wuxia style 10 feet. A single Talent or Feat that gives a DC 80 skill check. Seeing some of the abilities in Bo9S and PHBII, it makes one wonder. For example, Burning Blade. What exactly is martial and non-magical about setting your sword on fire? It's not a martial power, it's the DND equivalent of a superpower. Ditto for many of the powers. Crusader's Strike has nothing to do with a martial power. Probably more than a third of the abilities in Bo9S sound like superpowers as opposed to super martial powers.

Bo9S is pure fantasy Wuxia stuff, not DND martial stuff.

1: "What exactly is martial and non-magical about setting your sword on fire" is a ridiculous thing to say when the maneuver that sets your sword on fire is a supernatural ability. It says so right in the maneuver's description. You will find similar notes in almost every entry under the Desert Wind discipline.

2: The Devoted Spirit discipline might help you make a better case. The maneuvers in this discipline are not called out as supernatural. However, they're described as supernatural in the flavor text (constant references to channeling divine energy, auras of light surrounding you, etc), and the discipline is designed to mimic a paladin. I'm inclined to think that these were intended as supernatural, but that this note was left out by oversight.

3: We can test your theory, which as I read it, is that the crazy wuxia nature of Bo9S gives us information on what we're likely to see for martial powers in 4e. We can test it by referencing the martial, non supernatural, non supernatural flavored options in Tome of Battle. Since jumping has come up, lets look at Bo9S options that improve your ability to jump.

4: The option that improves your ability to jump is a Tiger Claw stance that grants +10 on jump checks, and lets you count as if you're running. Its called "Leaping Dragon Stance," and while it has a name that makes a lot of ENWorlders cry, its not supernatural. The +10 is typed as an enhancement bonus, too, so you can't stack it with most magical gear.

So, that's it. +10, and count as running. Counting as running dramatically increases your standing high jump, so this stance does give you a very large boost to your jump height. But, EVEN WITH that very large boost, you aren't likely to be doing anime jumps any time soon.

A decent character that uses the Tiger Claw discipline might have a pretty good jump check. While I gave an example character (plausibly a tiger claw user, since my example character had the Leaping Dragon Stance) that accomplished a 10' standing vertical by level 9, that character was unrealistic because it devoted every feat option it had to improving its high jump- an unlikely choice. So lets consider what a reasonable Tiger Claw using Warblade might have for jump checks.

He needs to be able to achieve a +39 (he can roll a 1 and jump 10').

19 Ranks
+10 Leaping Dragon Stance
+2 Blade Meditation: Tiger Claw (a reasonable choice for this character)
+2 synergy from Tumble
+6 strength bonus (starts with 18 strength, lucky guy)

That's a more plausible build for a nonmagical guy who doesn't use magic items that enhance his jumping skills. He'd need to be level 16 to accomplish this.

For comparison, a level 16 fighter without armor on can and with similar stats, but no feats invested, is going to have a jump check of +25 (19 ranks, +6 strength), letting him jump six and a half feet straight upwards, if he has a running start.

All of this angst over three and a half feet, and no running start?

I've practically forgotten the point of this by now, but basically, if you want to use Bo9S to make the case that D&D is turning into a superhero game, you're going to need to come up with better arguments. Using jumping as your example is a nonstarter.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I don't think anyone has a problem with a PC designed to jump like this taking a lot of skills and feats to do so, and accomplishing this by level 15.

Here's the absurdity of this discussion in a nutshell. You're suggesting that being 15th level and making a huge skill and feat investment should be necessary for a D&D character to... jump long distances. Never mind that a 5th-level character can fly with essentially *no* investment of resources, or that a 15th-level character who invests pretty much no sunk costs can turn invisible and undetectable, teleport himself to a location, and then fly around while raining army-killing destruction without being detectable or assailable in any way.

Sounds like a fun game for the fighter.