Tome of Battle: Bo9S classes in actual play?

[Rystil Arden]

Or racial paragon levels or some spells.

Yeah, he took it as a point of honour not to allow anyone to buff him or assist him in the fight. If he would have accepted a Greater Magic Weapon or any number of other buffs (to which in a realistic party fight he would certainly have access), he would have slaughtered the Tulani wholesale.

 

[Soel]

More manuevers with more varying options are needed. The book is loaded with "add x amount of damage to attack" types of manuevers. More counters.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Fire Resistance stance gave him immunity to the Meteor Swarm (except the bludgeoning damage).

Isn't that a Desert Wind stance? If so, shouldn't that have been converted to Cold resistance, like the rest of his maneuvers? After all, you don't use cold spells on a cold using creature, you use fire. After all, the Tualani would probably have used something other than meteor swarm on a fire-wielding Desert Wind expert.

 

[FireLance]

Okay, I've gone home, checked the books and re-looked at the tulani vs 15th-level Desert Wind swordsage and there are a few things that I'm still curious about.

1. Did the tulani realize the swordsage was evil?
According to the FC II web excerpt, Mark of Stygia requires Brand of the Nine Hells, which has the prerequisite of Lawful Evil and devil (whatever that means). Since tulani have always on blessed sight, it should have noticed the swordsage's evil aura immediately.

2. Did the tulani's protective aura come into play?
This acts as a double-strength magic circle against evil, which would have given it another +4 deflection bonus to AC.

3. Did the tulani use bardic music?
Tulani can activate bardic music once per round as a free action. In particular, Inspire Greatness could have given it a +4 morale bonus to saving throws and a +4 dodge bonus to AC.

4. Did the tulani use righteous smite?
It can be used at will, and against evil opponents, it deals 18d6 damage (DC 30 Will save half) and blinds the opponent on a failed save.

5. Did the tulani use power word kill?
This would be the logical last-ditch effort to be used after a long, drawn-out fight in which it has wekened its opponent but is still about to be defeated.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The Swordsage was actually Lawful Neutral--there's a "Special" clause on Brand of the Nine Hells that says that devils may give the brand to favoured followers who are not Lawful Evil devils at the GM's discretion (Levistus likes having this guy around because he basically just has him duel enemies, including many devils and demons, and by being Lawful Neutral, he can wield Holy weapons without issues). This prevented a whole bunch of things from working, unfortunately, including its Holy sword. It could have used Power Word Kill and barely killed the Swordsage on the round it cast Heal (he was just under the threshold), but it couldn't have reasonably been sure of his HP in a metagame way, and it would have died for certain if the PWK didn't work for it, so it needed to cast Heal to be sure. After the Swordsage also healed, PWK was never going to work, so the Tulani tried to run at the end. It did use Bardic Music, usually to buff its attack and damage because it hits for a very minor amount (1d8+9 I believe).

The Swordsage won handily, but it wasn't a slaughter either--he had to use up his recovery to get back his manoeuvres as a Swift action and also a healing potion. He would have probably won by more if he had taken Improved Critical instead of Keen and made his weapons the evil version of Blessed, since most of his hits were also critical threats, and he did some nasty Icy Bursts on those crits.

 

[Kunimatyu]

The sad thing is for GMs who are excited by the ideas in the book but don't have the time or inclination to tinker with the rules as much as I do--they're going to be stuck either shelving the book completely or enduring the balance issues (though hopefully they'll figure out that certain manoeuvres, like White Raven Tactics, must be banned)

I'm about to use Bo9S classes for my Savage Tide game. Nonspellcasting classes other than Bo9S are being discouraged due to power level issues, but I'm curious what manuevers I should watch out for.

I'm not too worried, since my Bo9S players are your stereotypical 'dumb powergames' -- they'll spend hours obsessing over a build, talk about it endlessly, then exhibit amazingly bad tactics during actual gameplay -- but I want to know what to look out for.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'm about to use Bo9S classes for my Savage Tide game. Nonspellcasting classes other than Bo9S are being discouraged due to power level issues, but I'm curious what manuevers I should watch out for.

I'm not too worried, since my Bo9S players are your stereotypical 'dumb powergames' -- they'll spend hours obsessing over a build, talk about it endlessly, then exhibit amazingly bad tactics during actual gameplay -- but I want to know what to look out for.

White Raven Tactics and Warmaster's Charge are both insane--tactics is worse only because it is a very low level manoeuvre and can ruin your day quickly. The one that lets you use your Concentration check (and later double your Concentration check) as your damage roll is also easily abusable at certain levels. Some of the Ability Damage with no save powers I've found can let the initiators turn otherwise powerful enemies into mincemeat. There are also a lot of synergistic combos using several otherwise-innocuous abilities that you keep on reserve to create an intimidating suite of protective measures and attacks, though the ability to do so is one thing I thought was quite cool about the system (if only it weren't quite so powerful).

I would say a 'dumb-powergamer' will get enough power out of the classes to get his jollies, but probably won't make your casters look like jokes (one thing I noted in playtests is that the initiators almost never make the casters look like jokes, but they are often better than having another caster or indeed any other class--this is because the caster gets to buff the initiator (and stop enemies from debuffing) and then the initiator kills all or many of the enemies itself after buffage, so everybody contributes. This is good for fun at the table, so long as everyone else is okay with playing support because nobody is being outshone, but it still means you have to throw harder enemies at them to challenge them, which for me isn't a big issue--it just means the fights will be more climactic (I'd rather see them fighting an Aspect of Mammon than four dire rats and a wereat as the BBEG myself).

I hear Savage Tide is a killer, so that probably won't be a problem for you (although I hear Shackled City is a killer, and my group made weird and ineffective characters for SC and we still managed to beat the first three modules with no casualties, despite our motto of "No rest until the dungeon is cleared". Ask us about how we beat Module 3 without resting--the skeleton dino fight was particularly amusing )

 

[MerricB]

Since most of the White Raven things are designed for groups, it isn't broken alone, honestly (the one-on-one playtests were less enlightening to me than the group ones, but I wanted to see just for fun). However, in an actual game, its going to be in a group, in which case tactics and Warmaster's Charge are both insane. Admittedly, Warmaster's Charge is a 9th-level manoeuvre, but it is substantially more powerful than any 9th-level spell, and even moreso if you take the Leadership feat and bring along random flunkies. Warmaster's Charge with enough people is an automatic hit (and even with eight people, if it doesn't hit, you weren't going to have a dream of hitting that guy on a normal attack) ...

Erm, if you have eight people who can all charge with Warmaster's Charge, you've done exceptionally well manuevering beforehand.

(although normally Swordsages can't pick White Raven without a feat, I know)

Swordsages can *never* get Warmaster's Charge, certainly. A swordsage must spend a feat to learn *one* White Raven Manuever or stance, and they can only ever take the feat (Martial Study) three times. It would take 5 feats to reach Warmaster's Charge.

Cheers!

 

[Rystil Arden]

Erm, if you have eight people who can all charge with Warmaster's Charge, you've done exceptionally well manuevering beforehand.




Swordsages can *never* get Warmaster's Charge, certainly. A swordsage must spend a feat to learn *one* White Raven Manuever or stance, and they can only ever take the feat (Martial Study) three times. It would take 5 feats to reach Warmaster's Charge.

Cheers!

Exactly--I said normally a Swordsage can't take White Raven. Of course, a one-school Warblade with White Raven only is substantially more powerful than a one-school Swordsage anyway--I allowed the one-school Swordsage to choose a Warblade school (but not White Raven unless Tactics and Warmaster's Charge were removed) since I didn't allow Warblades.

Against Large or larger opponents, eight is cake because of the stipulation that you can charge right through the allies' spaces. Eight is admittedly tougher against a medium opponent. I have seen it done without too much trouble, though. However, some people had to sacrifice the full attack to do this (they moved and readied, getting the Immediate action charge and the readied attack, but no more).

 

[MerricB]

The rules to recharge maneuvers were confusing and possibly overpowered - I can't say for sure because of the confusion. I thought I had to give up a move action (equivalent) to recharge maneuvers, but the DM thought I only had to give up a free action. We're both experienced rules-grognards, too. WotC should really errata that.

Recharge methods:

Crusader
The crusader readies a number of manuevers before battle. (From 5 to 7, depending on level, see table 1-1). When battle starts, he or she randomly chooses some of those (from 2 to 4, see table 1-1) to be available.

At the end of each round, the crusader has one more manuever become available to him or her, drawn randomly from those not yet chosen.

If this can't take place because there are no longer any manuevers not available, the crusader loses all available manuevers, and resets everything as start of combat, drawing 2-4 new manuevers from those initially readied.

Swordsage
The Swordsage begins with 4-12 manuevers ready before battle (see table 1-2), all available for use.

As a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you may recover one expended manuever.

Warblade
The warblade begins with 3-7 manuevers readied before battle (see table 1-3), all available for use.

To recover their manuevers, the warblade can do one of two things:
* A swift action to recover, followed by a standard action that does nothing.
* A swift action to recover, followed by a melee attack.
You cannot use a manuever or change stance when recovering your manuevers.

To employ the second method, you may use any method that allows you to make a melee attack; so you could
* charge, take swift action to recover, make melee attack
* take swift action to recover, take full attack action (with several melee attacks)
* move, take swift action to recover, take standard attack action (with one melee attack)

Cheers!