What is it with Sage Advice & Tome of Battle?

[Felon]

Does anyone else notice how month after month Sage Advice seems to be predominantly answering questions about Tome of Battle? What is it about those rules that require such copious amounts of clarification?

Think I'll submit this very question to Sage Advice...

 

[Glyfair]

Does anyone else notice how month after month Sage Advice seems to be predominantly answering questions about Tome of Battle? What is it about those rules that require such copious amounts of clarification?

Think I'll submit this very question to Sage Advice...

Since the column moved online the questions often focus on rules supplements (face it, there are fewer rules questions for fluff oriented books).

Magic of Incarnum had a lot of questions for a while, as I recall.

 

[Particle_Man]

It makes sense to me:

T1: Tome of Battle comes out.

T2: People ask Wotc lots of questions about it.

T3: Sage answers those questions.

T1 comes before T2, which comes before T3. Apparently we are in T3. Other supplements will have their turn, assuming they generate questions, which take time to answer, etc.

 

[Felon]

Just looking back through the archives, it seems we have had a rash of questions about them this month, but not so many prior to that. I'll go with the "T3" theory based on that.

 

[pawsplay]

Does anyone else notice how month after month Sage Advice seems to be predominantly answering questions about Tome of Battle? What is it about those rules that require such copious amounts of clarification?

Think I'll submit this very question to Sage Advice...

That question has already been addressed by Sage Advice.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Hey,

The Sage can only ignore questions in the order in which they were recieved...

 

[Nail]

Does anyone else notice how month after month Sage Advice seems to be predominantly answering questions about Tome of Battle?

Answer?

Two Words: "Power Creep"

 

[Engilbrand]

That must be it. Power Creep. How astute of you. Which is obviously why common consensus is that the Wizard, Cleric and Druid- using only core rules- are still the most powerful things in the game. Also, full caster classes, of which ToB has none, are also the most powerful. I'm pretty sure that ToB = Power Creep is incorrect. This is one of the most ridiculous consistent answers to things on message boards. Something new comes out and adds some power where there was little before and it magically becomes "Power Creep". After looking at some monsters, and the fact that "monsters" can have class levels, the game isn't really all that different now than it was a few years ago, but I think that it's at least more fun now.
Some ToB stuff is a little tricky for people to understand. The Sage stated last week that this would be the week of ToB questions. People still question core things sometimes, so questions aren't that crazy.
The Duskblade, Abjurant Champion, Warblade and Warlock are NOT overpowered. They're fine.

 

[moritheil]

The Duskblade, Abjurant Champion, Warblade and Warlock are NOT overpowered. They're fine.

Have you fought Ab Champ monsters yet?

 

[Technik4]

The Duskblade, Abjurant Champion, Warblade and Warlock are NOT overpowered. They're fine a good example of power creep in D&D.

Fixed.

Power Creep is the increase in power over the course of time. You say that the fighter was weak, and that Tome of Battle makes melee combatants more powerful.

That is power creep.

The fact that many consider casters to be overpowered has nothing at all to do with it. It would be very difficult to create a rules supplement that made casters less powerful (and it would probably be unpopular and cause an uproar).

Whether casters are overpowered or not is entirely dependent on a few things:

1. The Campaign (and what books are allowed)
2. The Player (and how they choose to play their character)
3. Ultimately, the DM (and how he chooses to restrict magic and its use)

Casters have many restrictions which are always overlooked when creating Situations of Smack, but often come up in campaigns (Religious Restrictions for Clerics; Many restrictions on magic and where it can be used, plus generally targeting the Arcane Spellcaster; Druids get away with a lot, but come with many restrictions). By contrast, the rogue and fighter are usually free of such things (but item dependent).