Tome of Battle - Are they serious?

[Schmoe]

Looking at the preview for Tome of Battle that's up on the WoTC site, I noticed the following feat:

EVASIVE REFLEXES

When an opponent gives you an opening in combat, you know exactly what to do: slip away.

Prerequisite: Dex 13

Benefit: When an opponent gives you a chance to make an attack of opportunity, you can instead immediately take a 5-foot step.

So my question is this - does a Wizard who takes this feat and wields a dagger suddenly become immune to grappling? Are they serious? I admit that this post is reactionary, but my initial reaction is definitely leaning toward WTF.

Does this look as bad to you as it does to me? If so, does that bode ill for the contents of the full book? I'm wondering how much play-testing went into it, based on the preview.

 

[MerricB]

Looks fine to me. If the Wizard wants to use a feat to become immune* to grappling, go ahead.

(* Immunity not guaranteed against creatures with reach, multiple creatures, creatures with extra movement, etc.)

Cheers!

 

[lebkin]

Looks fine to me. If the Wizard wants to use a feat to become immune* to grappling, go ahead.

(* Immunity not guaranteed against creatures with reach, multiple creatures, creatures with extra movement, etc.)

Not to mention that this feat is also negated by the first feat any grappler will pick up: Improved Grapple.

 

[Schmoe]

Alright, I suppose I've cooled down now. For some reason, which may or may not be related to 6 straight hours of dealing with my cantankerous 2-year old son, that feat offended my sensibilities. Having had some more time to reflect, two facts make it seem much more reasonable:

1. Most grapplers (or trippers, or disarmers, or ...) will take a feat ASAP to negate the associated attack of opportunity.

2. At least for grappling, even if the grappler does not have the appropriate feat, a successful attack of opportunity will ruin the grapple attempt anyway.

So, onto my other comment about the preview.

The feats and abilities from the preview look very cool! The only thing I'm not sure I like is repeated use of the phrase "x/initiator level", which seems to imply that these combat paths are linked to another class. I'd really like to see a way for these options to be accessible to the existing classes, rather than expand into new classes. I'm starting to feel the weight of too many classes (first prestige, now base), and it's becoming less and less likely that I'll expand my campaign to include the new material coming out.

 

[MerricB]

The feats and abilities from the preview look very cool! The only thing I'm not sure I like is repeated use of the phrase "x/initiator level", which seems to imply that these combat paths are linked to another class. I'd really like to see a way for these options to be accessible to the existing classes, rather than expand into new classes. I'm starting to feel the weight of too many classes (first prestige, now base), and it's becoming less and less likely that I'll expand my campaign to include the new material coming out.

AFAIK, new classes have the primary use of these new stances, but feats and prestige classes will allow other characters to gain (limited) access to them.

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

Just how limited remains to be seen. But I think this book is probably more oriented towards those that like taking martialized feats instead of the stuff most arcane spellcasters take.

At least I hope so.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

it's about time warrior type characters got something interesting past the new piece of armor or weapon.

 

[Nightfall]

Ar,

Well for D&D sure. AE had some stuff but until now it's been a limited fare for most martial types in D&D.

 

[Odhanan]

it's about time warrior type characters got something interesting past the new piece of armor or weapon.

Well, the Player's Handbook 2 has some nice feats for warrior and tactical types of characters, but the amount of actually-useful stuff for fighters is (still, compared to older editions) way outnumbered by the number of new spells adding more and more versatility to spellcasters, particularly wizards obviously, as time goes on. And we may fall back into the old paradigm in that the more you have volumes published for the current edition, the more the wizards become clearly the most effective characters at mid, high levels... even as early as level 5.

 

[LightPhoenix]

And we may fall back into the old paradigm in that the more you have volumes published for the current edition, the more the wizards become clearly the most effective characters at mid, high levels... even as early as level 5.

I don't particularly see that happening, because:

1) New spells only break the wizard if the spell is unbalanced and the DM allows it. Everything beyond the core rules is still optional, even if printed by WotC (IMO something people tend to forget/ignore).

2) Cleric is such a strong class, especially in the early levels. It would take a lot for a Wizard to outshine them at level five. Later on, Druid tends to be pretty powerful as well, in my experience.

3) Effectiveness is measured in more ways than who can kill the most baddies or who has the most utility. Even a 20th-level wizard is going to be pretty ineffective if it doesn't have a fighter-type to defend or a cleric to heal. The game is explicitly designed to require cooperation through a party.

Now, as counterpoint, I'll tell you how I can conceivably see the Wizard be overpowered. I don't particularly see spells as being the problem - while there have been some pretty overpowered ones there actually seems to be a pretty good set of check and balances, especially from WotC.

What there isn't a good check on is prestige classes. I've seen numerous prestige classes that have a whole scad of special abilities (feat-equivalents), and retain almost a full spellcasting progression. Part of the problem is the non-linear strength of spells, and part of it is the clunky "+1 spellcaster level" mechanic. Alright, a lot of them don't advance the familiar, but really that's not much of a penalty at all.