Tome of Battle - Book of 9 Swords

[Nail]

Nail, I know you really don't like the Moment Of X Y counters. Personally, I haven't had any problems with them, mostly because the opportunity costs for employing them are remarkably high.

FWIW, the central problem is that they rely on a skill check, which doesn't scale well with other kinds of checks (like saving throws). It's a poor game-design choice.

My compaint is not just sub-ing Concentration Skill checks for Saving Throws. Check out Swooping Dragon Strike. Yet another skill check sub-ing for something it shouldn't.

 

[blargney the second]

I really don't want to sidetrack this thread, but suffice to say that I don't agree and your argument still doesn't take the opportunity costs and restrictions into account.

 

[Folly]

I do not believe that subbing a skill for another check to be unbalancing given the limitations placed on strikes and counters, and the opportunity cost to use it.

Limitations-
1 use per combat without expending actions

Costs-
1 Maneuver known
Skill points
Uses an action to use

By investing into concentration, a player could achieve a check making it near impossible for them to fail a will save, but this requires 1 skill point per level, magic items, and maybe feats. Even after doing all this it only protects the player from the first will save, after that the player would have to burn an action to recover the ability.

 

[Nail]

@ Folly:

Concentration can sub for many things, so the supposed opportunity cost can be mitigated by clever manuever choices.

This is not a "theoretical" concern. I've had a Warblade with a maxed Con and concentration check in my game pre-nerfing. I know what is possible, what the opportunity costs are, and how other PCs figure into the mix.

Sorry, blargney-2. I'll stop now.