Tome of Battle: maneuver prereqs

[starwed]

Many maneuvers have a prerequisite, such as: "Three Shadow Hand maneuvers." Before you can take that particular maneuver, you have to have three other maneuvers of the same path.

Martial adepts can all swap out lower level maneuvers in place of new, higher level ones. But RAW the prerequisite seems to only be for learning a maneuver. In other words, once you use a maneuver as a prereq to learn something more powerful, you can swap it out with no penalty.

Is there something I'm missing here? And if I'm not, would you houserule otherwise or let it be?

 

[Kurotowa]

You must maintain you elagability for all your maneuvers. So if you have have three Shadow Hand maneuvers and one of them has a "three Shadow Hand" prereq, you can not exchange one for a Desert Wind maneuver. However, what you could do is exchance a low level Shadow Hand maneuver for a higher level one. It doesn't matter which Shadow Hand maneuvers they are, as long as there are three of them.

 

[Staffan]

Also, I don't think there's anything preventing you from making circular prereq chains. For example:

Start with Wind Stride (Desert Wind 1).
Then take Flashing Sun (Desert Wind 2, Prereq one Desert Wind).
Swap Wind Stride for Hatchling's Flame (Desert Wind 2, Prereq one Desert Wind). You are now using Hatchling's Flame to qualify for Flashing Sun, and Flashing Sun to qualify for Hatchling's Flame.

 

[starwed]

You must maintain you elagability for all your maneuvers.

Ok, but where does it state this in the rules? The places I looked only set a limit on learning a new maneuver, not on gaining the benefit from it.

Also, I don't think there's anything preventing you from making circular prereq chains.

That was going to be my original question, until I looked at the rules and didn't see any penalty at all for losing a prereq. ^_^

 

[Kurotowa]

Ok, but where does it state this in the rules? The places I looked only set a limit on learning a new maneuver, not on gaining the benefit from it.

I don't have the book yet, so I'm going off what's been said about it. But that's standard D&D rules for things like retraining feats and PrCs. You have to maintain prereqs or it stops working.

 

[kigmatzomat]

It's inherently implied, just like if you lose access to a feat if you fail to meet the pre-req due to stat damage, wearing too much armor, level loss, etc.

 

[starwed]

But it's not implied for feats, it is outright stated:

Some feats have prerequisites. Your character must have the indicated ability score, class feature, feat, skill, base attack bonus, or other quality designated in order to select or use that feat. A character can gain a feat at the same level at which he or she gains the prerequisite.

A character can’t use a feat if he or she has lost a prerequisite.

The language for maneuver lacks this qualifier.

You could look at it this way: The prerequisite isn't some ability that the maneuver is contingent upon, but rather a certain degree of training in the path.

 

[Notmousse]

But it's not implied for feats, it is outright stated:

The language for maneuver lacks this qualifier.

You could look at it this way: The prerequisite isn't some ability that the maneuver is contingent upon, but rather a certain degree of training in the path.

And if you lose that degree of training in the path (which is what swapping out maneuvers represents), you also lose access to the new maneuver and anything else that may be contingent on your old build.

 

[RigaMortus2]

And if you lose that degree of training in the path (which is what swapping out maneuvers represents), you also lose access to the new maneuver and anything else that may be contingent on your old build.

That is good in theory, but this being the rules board, I think we need an actual rule to back this up.

 

[Vysirez]

According to some questions submitted to WOTC Customer service, per RAW the requirements are only for learning the maneuver. If you are willing to accept that or not is up to you. Sourced from this thread on the Optimization forums at WOTC where they have collected a bunch of questions to CS on the ToB. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=683775

Q All of the new base classes from Tome of Battle offer the option of swapping out an old maneuver to gain a new maneuver at certain levels.
What happens if, as a result of swapping out an old maneuver, I can no longer meet the pre-requisites for another stance or maneuver that I currently know? Suppose, for instance, that I currently only have the following 2 maneuvers/stances from the Iron Heart discipline: A) Absolute Steel, and B) Disarming Strike. Absolute Steel is a stance that has one Iron Heart maneuver as a pre-requisite. Disarming Strike currently fulfills that pre-requisite for me. Suppose I reach 4th level and decide to swap out Disarming Strike for another maneuver from a different discipline. I no longer meet the pre-requisites for the Absolute Steel stance. Am I still allowed to use the Absolute Steel stance? What if Absolute Steel were a maneuver instead of a stance; would I be allowed to use it?

A Going with a strict interpretation of the rules, you would only need to have the appropriate number of maneuvers to meet a prerequisite when you needed to learn the maneuver, not if you wanted to use that maneuver later. So the character in question would still be able to use the Absolute Steel stance even though you have given up your only Iron Heart maneuver. So again, you only have to meet the prerequisites when you learn the maneuver or stance, not when you want to use ready or use it. I hope that clears things up.