Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords - Things to watch out for?

[Plane Sailing]

re: Inferno Blast
If a 100 pt FIRE burst can actually take out your opponents, wouldn't they be WAY below the EL of the swordsage, thus not netting any experience points?

Seriously, this is 17th level where your wizard friend is GATEing in some high powered Celestial,

Ho Ho Ho. Since Gate costs 1000xp to cast for that purpose, perhaps a different 9th level arcane spell should be considered?

Compare it to the 17th level wizards damage causing spell, eh? Meteor Swarm.

Meteor swarm is a very powerful and spectacular spell that is similar to fireball in many aspects. When you cast it, four 2-foot-diameter spheres spring from your outstretched hand and streak in straight lines to the spots you select. The meteor spheres leave a fiery trail of sparks.

If you aim a sphere at a specific creature, you may make a ranged touch attack to strike the target with the meteor. Any creature struck by one of these spheres takes 2d6 points of bludgeoning damage (no save) and receives no saving throw against the sphere’s fire damage (see below). If a targeted sphere misses its target, it simply explodes at the nearest corner of the target’s space. You may aim more than one meteor at the same target.

Once a sphere reaches its destination, it explodes in a 40-foot-radius spread, dealing 6d6 points of fire damage to each creature in the area. If a creature is within the area of more than one sphere, it must save separately against each. (Fire resistance applies to each sphere’s damage individually.)

So AT BEST, the blaster wizard can do 4 x 6d6 fire damage in a 40ft radius, with the primary target taking 8d6 bludgeoning plus 4 x 6d6 fire.

so each fireball does a pitiful 21 damage each on average (a 7th level wizard with the 2nd level Resist Fire spell could survive that. an 11th level wizard with that same resist fire spell would laugh at it). If you targeted a foe which had no fire resistance and you managed to hit with all the spheres, then the primary target would still only take 112 on average (but even a paltry fire resist 10 would reduce that by 40).

Yet that was considered a worthwhile 9th level wizard spell, and hasn't been erratted yet to my knowledge.

I wonder how many wizards would rather take instead a spell that did 100 fire damage in a 60ft radius? Most I'd expect.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Bottom line: If you are willing to rework which classes you include and/or make changes to some of the other base classes in your game to compensate, Bo9S will be a fine addition to your game that won't cause any other problems aside from a handful of manoeuvres that will wreck your game if you don't fix them.

To add a more positive aspect to the discussion - something that I could contemplate doing (because I think it would be interesting) would be to include Bo9S manouvres, but not include the Bo9S classes - in other words, the whole manouvre thing could be taken by any classes using feats as appropriate (although it is likely that fighters would be able to make the most use out of it with their surfeit of feats).

- I had originally anticipated that was how the book was going to be presented, and was a little disappointed that they wrapped up the things around new classes, as I felt that was a relatively lazy way of doing it compared to the work required to integrate more interesting/wuxia themed combat manouvres with the base classes.

Has anyone had experience with plain Fighters using the option to learn B09S stuff?

Having said that, my next campaign is likely to be RQ2 based, so it is largely a thought-experiment just at the moment

Cheers

 

[green slime]

My fighter fix: Fighters gain a feat every level, instead of every second level.
There is no mysterious abandoning of the class after a maximum of 4 levels. PrC's are suddenly an opportunity cost. All of a sudden, people IMC are choosing fighters.

 

[AllisterH]

Yet that was considered a worthwhile 9th level wizard spell, and hasn't been erratted yet to my knowledge.

I wonder how many wizards would rather take instead a spell that did 100 fire damage in a 60ft radius? Most I'd expect.

1. A fire spell that is centred on YOU.
2. A fire spell that is a full-round action.
3. A fire spell that in most campaigns will have a DC much easier to beat (compared to the DC of a wizard using his 9th level spell)

I'll take Meteor Swarm over this every day. Hell, I'll take Chain Lightning all the way back at 6th level before Inferno Blast.

The only thing about this spell that rocks is that you are immune to your own Blast.

 

[brehobit]

As I've stated elsewhere, the Bo9S classes are very very powerful compared to fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins until about 6th level. They get a huge amount of power with the balancing factor that they only get a single attack. Below 6th level pretty much all fighter types only get a single attack (or two-weapon attacks which are generally felt to be no stronger than a two-handed weapon) and so the balancing factor hasn't really hit. The factor of not being proficient in ranged weapons can be a significant problem in some games (mostly outdoor games) but in those games a level of fighter or barbarian fixes the problem with very little pain.

IME (I've run 2 games with Bo9S characters and played in another, all between levels 3 and 7) the Bo9S classes dominate the game and as a DM I had to find ways to balance that out so other fighter types felt useful.

Most powerful things (at lower levels) that no one else has mentioned:

• +2d6 damage and ignore DR at 3rd level (This totally wipes some threats at lower levels.)
• 6d6 fireball at 5th level in every single fight.
• Ability to move through rough terrain and get a +2 bonus to attack those in it (I tend to use rough terrain a lot) starting at 1st level
• Ability to flank from any direction starting at 1st level (those +2s help a lot at lower levels)

Also, notice the warblade can get weapon mastery 1 level after the fighter (level 9), and with some work you can build a nearly "strike-free" warblade who, IMO, is a better full-attack fighter than a fighter, ranger, paladin or barbarian. You keep one "charge" strike around and otherwise use boosts and counters. Makes for a great tank, and weapon specialization and mastery can really help out here. I've not seen that build in play, but it looks workable and fairly scary.

One-level dips can be very powerful, and seem to be optimal around 9th level. IMO, every non-caster sees a serious power-up by doing this (unless it triggers a multi-classing penalty). A rogue going to level 9, for example, would be crazy not to take a level in sword sage just to get the +2d6 sneak attack if nothing else). Heck, a bard should take a level of crusader or warblade. With the feat gained at 9th level you get the ability to use inspire courage as a free action in addition to the other abilities, full BAB, and hit points.

Finally, realize that crusaders just don't go down. Ever. They aren't the best damage dealers (though they do okay) but they can "tank" extremely well. I actually like this (TPK is much harder with a crusader in the party).

Things not to do:
Don't power up these classes past RAW. It gets tempting to let PrCs swap out manouvers at even levels, or reduce the prereqs on the master of nine, or let "on the ground" restrictions be largely ignored. But you can't let that happen or things will get _really_ out of hand.

Thing to do:
Require, and I do mean _require_ that the ability cards on the WotC website be used. Maybe my players suck, but keeping track of what manouvers you've selected, which ones you've used, which ones you've recovered, or even wtf the manouvers _do_ gets tricky. The cards make it much better. For a crusader they are 100% required to make game play even possible. But for the others, I find it speeds things up a huge amount. Highly highly recommended.


Mark

 

[Terraism]

I honestly can't imagine Martial Adepts destroying "traditional fighter-types". Quite the opposite. They make melee matter again.

I think part of the misconception, Nifft, lies in how you view the martial adepts, versus how Rystil (or, I think, myself) view them. While they're certainly effective martial combatants, when people talk about them destroying traditional fighter-types, they're not talking about the mechanical niche, but the roleplaying one. The Bo9S classes just feel different than the core, traditional ones - more wuxia, obviously.

I love the ideas, mechanically, behind the Bo9S classes, and I'm not worried about their role in my campaign from a balance standpoint, but instead a flavour one. Including them seems a lot like... say, taking Lord of the Rings and replacing Aragorn, Gimli, Boromir, and the like with Obi-Wan, whatshisname from Crouching Tiger, and, erm... someone else Wuxia-like. I may be way off-base (sorry if I put words in your mouth, Rystil,) but I know that when I'm talking about them destroying the traditional fighter types, that's what I'm seeing.


(As an aside, I know that the system doesn't *have* to feel that way, and when I've got more time, I fully plan to go through and tweak maneuvers that feel too over-the-top for me so that I can use the classes as mechanical replacements for the more traditional feel. )

 

[Nifft]

The Bo9S classes just feel different than the core, traditional ones - more wuxia, obviously.

There are a number of re-flavoring projects, but those who care deeply about such things should be more than capable of doing it themselves!

Seriously, just change the names of the maneuvers. Mithral Tornado -> Crom's Scythe; Iron Heart Surge -> Crom's Rebuke. Bah-dah-bing, bah-dah-boom.

Steal names from fencing styles for Diamond Mind.

Etc., etc.

Now, I'm enough of a RP'er that I'd rename the maneuvers myself if I felt my character concept called for something different than the names that are in the book; so your work of renaming would likely be wasted on my PC. But don't let that discourage you!

- - -

Some people have similar objections to Psionics, I've found. A simple re-name and "ooo, terrible psionics" becomes "wow, a cool spell-point system".

Cheers, -- N

 

[Counterspin]

Brehobbit : You can't dip for stances the way you describe because the first stance(s) you gain from a class are required to be first level.

As for flavor, you can play Crusaders and Warblades without any wuxia flavor at all, easily. I'm doing so in a game I'm presently in. Swordsages aren't meant to fill the fighter role as much as the monk role, which has always dabbled in a certain amount of supernatural powers, so I don't find them a terrible jump from the dimension dooring monk, though admittedly flashier.

I don't understand why people take something that is so effortlessly changed as flavor and use it to argue against a mechanic.

 

[Terraism]

There are a number of re-flavoring projects, but those who care deeply about such things should be more than capable of doing it themselves!

Well, yeah. That's what I said at the bottom of my post. Still, that is I think part of the issue that springs up. In my current game, I've got one guy who really wants a swordsage, but because I don't have the time to devote to both prep and changing the style a bit, I put my foot down and said no. I'd love to go for it, but I've unilaterally limited things based on their feel, and I don't have time to integrate a new source with the tone of the campaign. I'd love to see a short article or two on the Wizard's website covering it - while I can do it myself, I bet a lot of people would be more likely to consider it for their games if some basic "feel conversion" stuff was out there.

In my case, when I do get around to it, I'll just be replacing the fighter with a slightly-tweaked warblade, and making similar exchanges for the other two... and I'll be gutting them of most of the supernatural maneuvers. Part of what makes that time consuming is that then I think I'll probably need to make sure that, by ripping out the more mystical ones, I haven't completely killed the balance, and if I have, putting in less overtly-magical alternatives to fill the mechanical niche.

 

[Rystil Arden]

To add a more positive aspect to the discussion - something that I could contemplate doing (because I think it would be interesting) would be to include Bo9S manouvres, but not include the Bo9S classes - in other words, the whole manouvre thing could be taken by any classes using feats as appropriate (although it is likely that fighters would be able to make the most use out of it with their surfeit of feats).

- I had originally anticipated that was how the book was going to be presented, and was a little disappointed that they wrapped up the things around new classes, as I felt that was a relatively lazy way of doing it compared to the work required to integrate more interesting/wuxia themed combat manouvres with the base classes.

Has anyone had experience with plain Fighters using the option to learn B09S stuff?

Having said that, my next campaign is likely to be RQ2 based, so it is largely a thought-experiment just at the moment

Cheers

I've done that too, since the classes are the only part of the book that is ever a problem for me in some campaigns. The flavour aspect of grabbing the feats to pick up a manoeuvre or stance is that the character trains with secretive masters to learn a signature (and often nearly unique, since there are no martial adepts in that campaign) technique. In games without martial adepts, you should consider giving initiator level == to the BAB of the character. There really is nothing wrong with a level 18 Fighter who spends tons of her feats to meet prerequisites grabbing 9th-level manoeuvres--the only reason you would never do it when you include the martial adepts is that it makes multi-classing too tasty for them.