Tome of Battle - spells for fighters? How does that work?

Nebulous said:
Having never played Bo9S, that does sound like an intriguing concept, if they can, indeed, shy away from fighters casting fire bolts from the sword.

Only the swordsage gets the more "esoteric" disciplines (the most obvious being Desert Wind - one of its foci is fire attacks, the other being movement - and Shadow Hand - sneaking, backstabbing, shadow things), so it's more "armed monks casting fire bolts from the sword.".

And you don't have to choose those disciplines. You can go all hack-people-into-pieces and the like. I think that's the fun part. You can go mystical, you don't have to.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


blargney the second said:
Heck, if you're bothered by the names of maneuvers (not the case for me), they spell it right out in the book: you can call them whatever you want, and describe them however you like. The flavor's the easy part to modify at that point because the mechanics already rock and are fun to use.
-blarg

Exactly. My swordsage didn't call himself swordsage. He was a Shadow Warrior of the Brotherhood of the Night - a brotherhood of assassins in the service of Vhaeraun. Instead of Shadowhand, he used Shadow of the Night Below, and instead of Desert Wind, he used Fire of the Night Above (Vhaeraunans being unafraid of the surface - and you need light to have shadow, after alll). I didn't really bother naming the manoevures, I just used them. Except Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike, of course. I had to shout out that name whenever I used it. Usually something like "FIVE! SHADOW! CREEPING! ICE! ENERVATION! STRIKE! BIRCH!!!" (yes, lots of trees killed there). But that was just me being silly.
 

blargney the second said:
Kae'yoss, that was a great summary of Bo9S. Just one quick clarification - warblades don't get heavy armor proficiency, nor do they get projectile weapons. This is important because it means they're in melee with medium armor, and a number of their abilities sacrifice AC for damage.

Ah. I haven't looked too closely at that. I started with Lamellar Armour, but recently changed it to Mithral Full Plate (still medium, so I'm in the clear.) And I never had to use a ranged weapon because I have my awesome mental powers for that.

Still, it's good to point it out. (Though I could have sworn that only swordsages get the ranged weapons taken from them).
 

Desert Wind- magical, has fire attacks. Middle eastern theme.
Devoted Spirit- magical, has alignment abilities. Paladinesque theme, though for multiple alignments.
Diamond Mind- nonmagical. Has some abilities that would be properly classified as extraordinary abilities if they were in another class' features, like blindsense.
Iron Heart- nonmagical. Has one ability that lets you regain hitpoints, which is sort of like magic, and one that lets you shake off magical effects. The rest is very mundane.
Setting Sun- nonmagical. Has one throw that lets you toss your opponent an improbable distance (60 feet).
Shadow Hand- magical. Shadow powers, ninja theme.
Stone Dragon- right on the line. Can be themed to either get your strength from a mystical connection to the earth, or to involve just being really stable.
Tiger Claw- nonmagical. Closest it comes to being magic is a +10 to your jump checks.
White Raven- nonmagical.

I think the big problem here is that some people think that extraordinary abilities are automatically pseudo magical. Those persons will probably have a tough time with 4th edition, given what we've heard so far.
 

New Design Entry about Martial Maneuvers and what they are.

The Article said:
A martial character is much like a world class athlete. An Olympic sprinter doesn’t have any special muscles or super abilities. Through a mix of inborn talent and supreme dedication, she pushes herself to achieve speeds that no other human can match. In the same manner, a fighter achieves skill with weapons and armor that soar beyond a typical person’s abilities. Like a skilled athlete, a fighter draws on his intense dedication, relentless training, and supreme focus. Potential isn’t enough, as the sports world is filled with talented people who fail to apply themselves, as well as physically limited individuals who use a combination of dedication and smarts to outplay their opponents. A martial character draws his strength from within.
 

To be precise, some of the maneuvers are supernatural abilities, which means they don't function in an anti-magic field. The rest of them are temporary extraordinary abilities. None are spell-like abilities or spells. Those are some useful words built right in to discuss the game, so why not use meaningfully them rather than making syntax errors? :)

Some of the Devoted Spirit (Ex) maneuvers let you whack an enemy and heal an ally for a small amount. There's flavour text provided that gives sufficient explanation for why the healing is not a spell, SLA, or (Su).
-blarg
 


Korgoth said:
Looks pretty good. If a high level character is Bruce Lee, good. If he's Li Mu Bai, not so good. Non-magical but pushing the limits of human potential seems perfectly acceptable for an epic scale martial character.

I'm good with surpassing Bruce Lee by level 10 and Li Mu Bai by 15.

edit: and I mean 'movie reality' Bruce Lee. Enter the Dragon or Game of Death Bruce Lee.

The actor himself I'd probably top out at 5.
 
Last edited:

If you can suspend your disbelief that a high-level Barbarian with a normal greatsword, in the core rules, can cut a 2-inch-thick iron or steel door in half with one stroke, then you should be able to accept a guy throwing someone 60 feet through raw physical prowess and extreme training. Not to mention shrugging off/mostly-evading a dragon's acid-breath that's strong enough to liquify that same door, and keep on fighting at full strength. And jump over a 56-foot chasm without difficulty.


Half-orc barbarian 20 with greatsword, full Power Attack, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, 24 Strength (base 18, +2 racial, +4 from levels), and Mighty Rage (+8 Str) can do 2x(2d6+56) damage in 3.5E. A standard iron or steel door has hardness 10 and 60 hp. (thinking about it, there's no core way to break down that door with one stroke without using Spirited Charge; I come up 1 damage short if going half-orc brb16/fighter4 with greater rage and weapon specialization; without Spirited Charge they need a non-core feat, like Powerful Lunge or Melee Weapon Mastery; at least to do the trick completely nonmagically and without a non-core prestige class)

Aforementioned Barbarian can get a Jump bonus of +23 from ranks, +7 from Str, +4 from Mighty Rage, +4 from fast movement, +4 from the Run feat, +2 from the Athletic feat, and +2 synergy from 5 Tumble ranks (not hard to get by that point, only an exceedingly stupid barbarian wouldn't have the 10 skill points to spare over the course of their career). A total bonus of +46, for an average running Jump result of 56.
 

Remove ads

Top