D&D 3E/3.5 ToB: Bo9S - Nifft's Compendium

[Nifft]

I understand. Oh well.

If there were some physical manifestation -- like a string that the PCs could use to track the puppetmaster back to his base -- then I'd be cool with the range being longer. I'm just worried about the dude killing, like, 100 people, and using them one after another, while the PCs get more and more frustrated.

As it is, I think it's a decent base for puppetmastery in general. In the 'toons I've seen, the master has to be fairly close to the puppet. Avoiding melee is its own reward.

Thanks, -- N

 

[Freymold]

All this stuff is so going into my campaign right now!! Great Job.
BTW, is just me or the long description for the Swashbuckler's Swagger stance (Dancing Fox school) is missing??

 

[Nifft]

All this stuff is so going into my campaign right now!! Great Job.
BTW, is just me or the long description for the Swashbuckler's Swagger stance (Dancing Fox school) is missing??

You're totally right, it's missing. Or perhaps it's just hiding... let me check my notes.

Thanks, -- N

 

[javcs]

Hey, Nifft, do you have epic progressions for Bo9S classes and/or your classes?

 

[Nifft]

Hey, Nifft, do you have epic progressions for Bo9S classes and/or your classes?

Nope, haven't seen any progressions, but I'll try my hand at Epic feats & progressions... in my copious free time.

-- N

 

[javcs]

Nope, haven't seen any progressions, but I'll try my hand at Epic feats & progressions... in my copious free time.

-- N

Cool.

I've been looking for epic progressions. As I found there were none, I was afraid I was going to be forced into a PRC.

<grumble>In all teh other recentish books, WotC has had an example epic progression ... why couldn't they have continued the trend.</grumble>

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I think wizards has given up on epic altogether.

On the flip side, I think I have a rather simple epic ToB idea. Its a bit complicated to explain, but "simple" in practice - For every epic Initiator level, you subtract 20, and look at what you get for having that level in the original class. If you get a maneuver known, Pick a maneuver you know that you could have taken at that level - All the "reasonable" (damage, area, duration - anything that doesn't 'break' the maneuver) functions of that maneuver double. Do the same with stances. You don't get extra maneuvers readied, however. (Epic feat maybe?) So at 37th level, a Warblade could have a Mountain Tombstone Strike dealing 4d6 con damage. (Painful, but everything has at least that much con at that level) For levels 41-60, do the same, but the whole two doublings = tripling rule applies. Hopefully that leads to a linear power progression. 61-80, quadruple, etc.

Its pretty sad that ToB screams epic, but is very hard to fit into epic level.

 

[Nifft]

Pick a maneuver you know that you could have taken at that level - All the "reasonable" (damage, area, duration - anything that doesn't 'break' the maneuver)

I could totally see that as an [Epic] feat -- it would take any one maneuver you know and double the damage, be it dice or a flat bonus -- but not all martial adepts are based on damage. (Doubling the benefit of Flame's Blessing would be useless, for example.) It shouldn't be the only Epic benefit, but it's a great idea where applicable.

Also, I don't expect many Warblades to have any 1st level maneuvers left -- I expect they will have swapped those out. So they wouldn't benefit from this for a while.

- - -

In unrelated news, Swashbuckler's Swagger is up. Please, critique the whole school!

I'm working on a new school called Protean Fang, which will replace a Druid's Wildshape ability (and generally allow a shape-shifting dude archtype).

Cheers, -- N

 

[paradox42]

I, too, have been thinking about how to do Epic ToB stuff. I love the flavor of the book and system as-is, but my game's setting was always designed from the ground up with Epic in mind (I extended all base class progressions to 40th level, among other things). This means that to incorporate ToB into my game, I must include Epic progressions for everything. The major difficulty, as I see it, is how to do "10th level maneuvers" (really, anything maneuver-related beyond 9th level- particularly since we only ever get one example of a 9th-level maneuver per school).

I've had two ideas for how to do this: first, using the existing (admittedly broken, but perhaps tweaking can fix this) Epic spellcasting system, one can use the existing mechanic of a "favored skill" for each of the Sublime Way schools to create a system for doing Epic maneuvers. For example, if one were trying to create an Epic Diamond Mind maneuver, the skill check to initiate said maneuver would be Concentration (instead of Spellcraft, as it is for existing Epic spells). The official maneuver system doesn't really use this aspect of the schools; the skills are mostly irrelevant to use of the maneuvers except for Tiger Claw. Using this mechanic for Epic maneuvers would change this aspect of the system, and really force martial adepts to keep their favored skills maxed out.

The other idea is based on another mechanic I've long used for beyond-9th-level effects in my own game: individual spells are picked up as feats. These feats have other specific spells as prerequisites, among other things (typically they also require certain ability score thresholds, and a caster level minimum, for instance), and every one of these super-spells deals ability damage to the caster and carries an XP cost to cast. Since the existing ToB maneuvers look rather feat-like, with so many of them having prerequisites (and, in fact, being "buyable" for a feat if you use Martial Study and Martial Stance), this idea would probably fit rather well with the existing system in a mechanical sense.

 

[Nifft]

So here's what I've got for Epic feats so far:

Extra Maneuver Known [Epic]
...

Extra Maneuver Readied [Epic]
...

Maneuver Focus [Epic]
Prerequisite: Six maneuvers in chosen school, 24+ ranks in school's key skill
Benefit: Choose one maneuver you know from the chosen school. From now on, the damage this maneuver inflicts is doubled.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times, each time choosing a different maneuver.

Epic Combo [Epic]
Prerequisite: 24+ ranks in school's key skill
Benefit: Choose two compatible maneuvers you know. The two maneuvers may be from the same or different schools, so long as you have at least 24 ranks in the key skill for each maneuver's school. The sum of the two maneuvers' levels must be equal to or less than one-half of your Initiator Level.

You create a new maneuver, which grants you the benefit of both maneuvers when initiated. You know this new combo maneuver; name it something cool. The new combo maneuver's level is the sum of its constituent maneuvers, which will affect its DC. Use good sense in picking the ability score to modify the DC, if any -- it should be the same as at least one of the constituent maneuvers' save DC modifiers.

Some maneuvers are incompatible in their execution -- for example, a strike that includes one attack and a strike that grants you a full attack action are incompatible. Likewise, a strike that includes a melee attack would be incompatible with a strike which created a ranged attack.

Special: You may take this feat multiple times, each time creating a new combo. You may use combo maneuvers as constituent maneuvers when taking this feat more than once.


Opportunity Strikes [Epic]
Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, ... something big
Benefit: Once per round, you may initiate a Strike in place of an Attack of Opportunity. Yes, any Strike. Even that one.

Cleaving Strike [Epic]
Prerequisite: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, ... something big
Benefit: When you drop a foe with a Strike that includes making a single melee attack, you gain the full benefit of the Strike on the next foe you Cleave into.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time, the Strike's effect persists into one additional Cleave-generated attack.

Cheers, -- N