Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords: Proto-Review

[JoeGKushner]

Funny, I think grouping the maneuvers by discipline is a great idea. Most characters will only be using a couple of disciplines, and this means you don't have to hunt through the entire section to find the Diamond Mind maneuvers. They're all right there, easy to follow.

Unless you're a sword sage with access to six schools. My character generation suffered heavily because of that. On the other hand, for warblades and crusaders, probably not such a big issue.

Here's a question for you. There's a lot of uncertainty about readied maneuvers. Are they like spell slots, where you can ready one maneuver multiple times. Or are they like soulmelds, where it's a count of how many of your known maneuvers can be readied at once.

You know, I never even thought about that aspect of it. I'll double check but off the top of my head, I think they're like spell slots. You know so many and can 'ready' so many. I'll double check that though.

 

[Mercule]

Don't get me wrong, I like Wuxia and anime/videogame style stuff, but not in D&D.

I don't like Wuxia and hate anime. If that's all this book does, it's a no-go for me. If it allows me to add various, generally mundane, "fencing" styles into my game, then I'm all over it.

My decision points (subject to revision) are:
*Power level of new base classes: On par or below Fighter, +10 points. Above Fighter, -5 points.
*Power level of feats/maneuvers/stances: On par with other combat feats, +15 points. Fighters should always take a few ToB feats, -20 points.
*Flavor of styles: Can have a Western spin, +10 points. Primarily Wuxia/wirework/supernatural in feel, -75 points.

So, how many points am I looking at for the book?

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of the things the book talks about in terms of flavor is that each style can had different names and origins.

I think the katana (bastard sword) is the only OA style weapon discussed in the book.

In terms of power level, the crusader and sword sage seem okay, but the warblade seems a little over powered.

 

[Nightfall]

Joe,

I think a lot of people felt that way and kind of do when they read the preview/excerpt for the warblade.

In any case, in a different vein but similiar, have you gotten a hold of Dragons of Faerun yet?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Joe,

I think a lot of people felt that way and kind of do when they read the preview/excerpt for the warblade.

In any case, in a different vein but similiar, have you gotten a hold of Dragons of Faerun yet?

Up front, I'm a FR junkie. Even thought I'm running SC in Greyhawk (nominally, the 'greater' campaign setting has been very minor), the Dragons of Faerun is solid. My only complaint is that it gives the story of the Dragon Rage away.

And if people think Elminster is too powerful... there's like a CR 40 dragon here. Yeah, stay away from FR you demon lords and devil princes. You'll get your bottoms tanned and sent to bed with no cookie!

 

[Nightfall]

Joe,

While I'm no junkie my love of dragons and especially Dragons of the North has been long standing. So I'm glad to see them get a good treatment. (As for the give-away, hey it's not like there's been others that haven't given it away. I site Power of Faerun as a recent example.)

Good CR 40 dragons always good. Btw is it true there's an appendix table in Dragons of Faerun that lists ALL Faerunian dragons?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yup. Provides list of name, where they're at, and status (alive, dead, undead).

there's even a bit where it mentions the Wyrms of the North article (and the web site) with some minor notes on what's going on with those dragons.

Funny to see some of 'em when I ran a game where 'Old White Death' was killed many a moons ago in my FR game. I must be 'breaking' canon!

 

[Nightfall]

Joe,

You are without a doubt the Breaker of all cannon in any setting. But that's cool they made some updates about the Dragons in the North along with the status stuff. I'm very glad to see this book got a lot of love. So by minor mention you mean like two sentences or more like a short paragraph?

 

[TerraDave]

Think of them as Exalted type maneuvers for fighter types. Note that even the 'weakest' of these three core classes, the swordsage, had d8 hit die and medium bab.

Maybe they should have called it Complete Monk Thanks again

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah but they might have to pay royalties to Tony Shalub(sp). Or else people might get confused and think it has something to do with monk styles.

Seriously Tome of Battle is...odd.