Best/Worst 3.X Book? Vote for it!

[Zeta Kai]

What do you consider to be the single BEST Third Edition book?

What do you consider to be the single WORST Third Edition book?

Guidelines:

Voting begins today, & will continue until this thread fizzles out &/or gets locked.
The core books (PHB, DMG, & MM1) of either edition do not count, as their status is not really debateable.
Books from other editions &/or game systems do not count. If you are in doubt about whether your choice is valid, then look on the cover. Does it say D20 System? Is so, then it counts. If not, then pick something else.
It is encouraged (but not mandatory) that you explain why your choices are the best/worst.
It is encouraged (but not mandatory) that you place your choices in bold, for easy vote tabulation.


My choices:
Best Book: Stormwrack, because no other single book has expanded my campaign world as much as this one; it's a must-have for any respectable DM who ever spoke/heard the word "pirate" in their game. This book could have been twice as long & cost 4 times as much, & I would have still bought it.

Honorable Mentions: Cityscape, Savage Species, Heroes of Battle, all 3 Races books, the Book of Vile Darkness, & PHB II.

Worst Book: Epic Level Handbook, a confusing & non-sensical example of how the rules break down somewhere shortly after 20th level, only the proof costs you $29.95, & doesn't offer half of what it promises. After reading it, I lost a lot of faith in the designers at WotC. I used to believe that they knew what they were doing, but after reading the ELH, I suspect that they've been shooting in the dark for the last eight years.

DIS-Honorable Mentions: the Book of Exalted Deeds, Dieties & Demigods, Magic of Incarnum, Complete Champion, & Tome of Magic.

[Morty]

Now, I haven't read even half of 3.5 rulebooks, but from what I've read:

Best Choice: Player's Handbook 2. Three decent classes, lots of good feats and spells, new class features and guidelines for character creation. Good all around.

Worst Choice: Complete Arcane. I love arcane casters, but this book is full of stuff that maybe isn't bad, but is... bland. PrCs are bizzare and unfit for most characters, there are a lot of spells but only few of them are worthwhile. Warmages are preety cool, but Warlocks and Hexblades are lame. It's not really a bad book, but least good from all 3.5 books I've read.

[Emperor Tippy]

Best Book: Tome of Battle and Expanded Psionics Handbook, because if you dump all other classes you can have a fun, balanced, game. These are the standard for 3.5 balance.

Worst Book: Complete Champion, Tome of Magic, Complete Psionics and Savage Species
CC because nothing in it was balanced, it was either overpowered or outrageously weak.
ToM because it was way to week (Truenamer could give the CW Samurai a run for his money as worst class). Good ideas but the execution sucked.
CP because it ruins psionics if you allow it in play.
SS because it is flat out the most broken book in D&D.

[AKA_Bait]

Best:
For a Player: PBH II
For a DM: MM III

Worst: Complete Champion. The most utterly useless 3.5 book I had the unfortunate poor judgment to purchase.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Best book: Tome of Battle. Definatly.

Worst book: Dungeon Masters Guide 2. Note: I don't have all of the books, and bought this one on a whim when it became really cheap at my local hobby store. I found literally nothing to do with what the book provided, especially since the MIC came out.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Best:ToB. Made melee fun and balanced again
Worst: CC. Completely unbalanced, poor flavor, and no editing. Spontaneous Divinitation. I mean, really, no one spotted that?

Worst Choice: Complete Arcane. I love arcane casters, but this book is full of stuff that maybe isn't bad, but is... bland. PrCs are bizzare and unfit for most characters, there are a lot of spells but only few of them are worthwhile. Warmages are preety cool, but Warlocks and Hexblades are lame. It's not really a bad book, but least good from all 3.5 books I've read.See, I loved that. The Warlock is fun, about half the PrCs are good(the best ratio you ever get in a WotC book), and the spells are decent. Warmages and Hexblades sucked, but even one good base class is better than a lot of publications(Tome of Magic).

[monty]

Best: ToB, easily.

Worst: I'm tempted to go with ELH.

[Morty]

See, I loved that. The Warlock is fun, about half the PrCs are good(the best ratio you ever get in a WotC book), and the spells are decent. Warmages and Hexblades sucked, but even one good base class is better than a lot of publications(Tome of Magic).

A matter of taste, really. I found CA largely unfit for my purposes and I couldn't care less about warlocks.

[Chronicled]

THE BEST: Tome of Battle, because it made melee characters fun to play in combat. I love it for making mobility and cool stunts viable in combat without sacrificing performance, for giving non-casters exponentially scaling progression, and for making hitting things with a sword require more thinking than "I 5-foot step and full attack." The Crusader I'm playing now is actually as fun to play as my favorite Beguiler was--something I'd swear was impossible for any class to achieve, let alone a non-caster.

Not too far behind: Expanded Psionics Handbook, Dungeonscape, and Fiendish Codex 2 (the Hellreaver is the only non-ToB meleer that was really done well).

Lamesauce: Epic Level Handbook Weapons of Legacy, for reasons already described. It's a hard pick between that, Complete Psionic, Savage Species, and Book of Exalted Deeds, though. Aw heck, there's a whole bunch of terrible books I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

[The Demented One]

Best Book: Player's Handbook II for players, Monster Manual V for DM's. Player's Handbook II had a massive amount of options that were viable for almost any character, as well as introducing a quartet of well-balanced and creative character classes. Monster Manual V, on the other hand, is probably the best monster book since the first, with a wide range of monsters with unique and creative abilities, and manages to fit the seeds of two campaigns - Xorvintaal and Thoon - into just a few pages.

Worst Book: Complete Psionic: Not only does it manage to mess up the crunch of existing psionic powers and the flavor of it - see what they do to astral construct, and the travesty that is the Divine Mind - but it fails to introduce anything of much great use. We'd've been much better off if they just published the Lurk as a website article, and scrapped the rest.

[Eldariel]

Best Book: Tome of Battle. It made martial characters fun to play again, and added a whole new dimension to combat. Also greatly alleviated many of the balance issues inherent to the system. I would rate Settings-books higher than ToB if it weren't for the fact that I never really had issues running games in such terrains without the books. ToB fixed something that would've taken me weeks of work to fix myself. Close seconds: Unearthed Arcana, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Dungeonscape, Heroes of Horror, Ghostwalk

Worst Book: Weapons of Legacy. Oh my god. So it's a book about Legacy Weapons. Then it provides rules for making them and all that. And then the weapons themselves...they all suck! They're expensive to use, tough to find, require feats, give you penalties, etc. etc. and they aren't even comparable to normal Magic Weapons! Sure, you can build some usable custom weapons, but eww... It's a book that only contains a single mechanic and does that horribly. Close seconds: Monster Manual II-V, Tome of Magic (two of the three systems are unfunctional...), Savage Species (I love monster races, but this book just failed at bringing them out), Complete Psionic (Oh My God), etc.


Unfortunately, WoTC has printed way more bad books than good ones. I guess they just make up for the quality with quantity though; there're gems in the midst, ones I didn't mention too (not quite up there, but I enjoy Magic of Incarnum, PHBII, Races and most Completes (Champion, Scoundrel, Warrior and Mage primarily - Warrior has little good stuff, but that little good stuff is put into good use all over; Tactical Feats were a sweet addition)).

[hamishspence]

Weapons of Legacy came pretty low on my list: seemed like a lot of effort to go, weakening your character for weapons that lack versatility.

[Meat Shield]

Best: ToB (for all the reasons above - "Never play a fighter again!") Honorable mention: PHBII and Sandstorm

Worst: Cityscape. Absolutely nothing in that book is worth using in any campaign I have been a part of since I bought it. The web enhancements were actually better than the actual material in the book I paid for.

[Killersquid]

Best book: Tome of Battle. Made melee classes fun.

Worst Book: Savage species...Anthro bat Druid...why?!

[CASTLEMIKE]

My first vote would be for Unearthed Arcana since it brings so many options to the basic 3 core books followed by the Expanded Psionics Handbook however both books had quite a bit of material adopted into the SRD.

Barring UA or EPH my vote goes for the Magic Item Compendium for campaigns using suggested wealth by level since almost every PC except for a VoP PC uses some kind of wealth standard tied to magic. Followed closely by Savage Species for using monster races as PCs and the design breakdown for monster ability to LA.

There are so many for Worst I didn't care for like most of the Race books but DMG II gets my vote for Worst closely followed by Weapons of Legacy.

[Saph]

Best Book - Player's Handbook II - Several excellent classes that players have a reason to take all the way to level 20, and lots of great feats and ACFs.

Worst Book - Dungeon Master's Guide II - I can't even remember what was in this book. That's how forgettable it is.

- Saph

[Ecalsneerg]

Best: Tomb of Battle

Worst: Book of Vile Darkness. Then again, I haven't read Exalted Deeds, so if it's anything like BoVD...

[Innis Cabal]

Best: Gotta go with ToB or CA

Worst: ELh, for every reason you can give me and 20 if you made an epic spell for the purpose.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Best 3.X book: Tome of Battle, hands down. Anything that de-blands melee is good, and this book did it expertly.

Worst 3.X book: Probably Book of Exalted Deeds. Most of the feats had FLUFF as a prerequesite (that most DMs I played with handwaved to avoid the hassle), and it seems like the entire party has to be exalted for it to work.

Honourable Mention: Monster Manual 2. This book had all my favorites from 2nd ed. that didn't make into MM1, but almost all entries were the finest examples of broken (in both senses: either massively over or under powered).

[RTGoodman]

Best Book: As a DM, MMIII for its wide selection of mostly-awesome creatures. I can't think of anything I didn't particularly like from it, but most of my favorite 3.x monsters are from it. As a player, PHB2 for all the aforementioned reasons (especially since I loves me some ACFs), and an honorable mention for ToB (since I haven't gotten to use it enough for me to make the decision that it's the best).

Worst Books: Complete Champion had both completely useless crap and totally overpowered cheese, and beyond that didn't even manage to have anything that made me think, "Man, that's cool!" upon first reading it. It was probably the first time I bought a D&D book and was completely disappointed by it. CPsi was also basically useless.

(Bonus category - the "Most Underwhelming But Not Really Bad" Award goes to Races of Destiny. There wasn't anything especially cool in it, but I couldn't really say it was anywhere close to being the "worst" 3.x book.

[Mr Pants]

Best: Tome of Battle: Makes melee combat not monotonous! The PHB2 is a close second because I love variants and options.

Worst: Rules Compendium: It's a book full of rules for the mechanics of things from other books. lolwut?

[Neon Knight]

Best: Tome of Battle. The most fun you'll have beating people up with lethal instruments since Uncle Larry got drunk and left out his fish cleaning knives.

Worst: Weapons of Legacy. I can understand what they were going for, trying to make legendary weapons usable at low levels without wrecking the balance of things, and letting a weapon grow with a character, but the result compares unfavorably to a generic +5 vorpal sword. For weapons to be legendary, they usually have to be good at killing stuff, which brings up the question of how these weapons got any reputation at all.

[KIDS]

Best book: Tome of Battle: this is a great and finely balanced resource that, in its mere 150 pages, provides you with more character building options than all 30 other warrior and magic oriented books do. A massive success, reads almost like a novel and is great value for money.
Close seconds: PHB II, Stormwrack, Races of the Wild, Eberron Campaign Setting

Worst book: Complete Mage: fraught with a ton of ludicrously useless choices and a handful of insanely overpowered ones, with horribly written flavor text to supplement it. The chapter on the schools of magic is one of the worst works that WotC has ever printed and the book's supposed innovations fall short of their goals.
Close seconds: Monster Manual IV and V, Manual of the Planes.

[ethyachk]

Best: Libris Mortis, because I love the undead.

Worst: The Book of Exalted Deeds because, damn, that's a broken book. Runner up, Epic Level Handbook.

[AstralFire]

Best: It's an extremely tough call for me, with a lot of contenders for the top spot, but I'm going to have to go with the Expanded Psionics Handbook. It was the first serious nod that the Vancian casting system was not perfect for all playstyles, and had good multiclassing rules. I love Tome of Battle and Player's Handbook II, but they're already getting a lot of props.

Worst: The Epic Level Handbook, for all previous mentioned reasons.

[Crow]

Best: PHBII. Lots of nice options that everyone in my group found useful at some point.

Worst: ToB. Made many classes obsolete. Melee characters felt like spellcasters due to a system which was too similar to spellcasting.

[Eldariel]

I'm a bit disappointed I'm the only one listing Ghostwalk. Am I really the only one who played it and loved it, or did people just forget?

[_Puppetmaster_]

Best Book: Tome of Battle. Because I love playing fighter-y types that arent barbarian. Also, it produced several viable fighter builds.

Worst Book: Complete Psionic. I don't need to say why. Close second: Weapons of Legacy. I wish I had bought some other book instead.

@^: I oved Ghostwalk as well. :smallbiggrin:

[CASTLEMIKE]

Setting books have so much material in them it is hard for them to make the worst list. FRCS or ECS are really nice if you favor one campaign over the other.

[Tormsskull]

Best: PHBII. Lots of nice options that everyone in my group found useful at some point.

Worst: ToB. Made many classes obsolete. Melee characters felt like spellcasters due to a system which was too similar to spellcasting.


Seconded on both accounts. My experience with non-core is limited, but I found the PHBII to be helpful despite the fact of the Knight class, ewww Taunt mechanic.

From what I read of the ToB it seemed to basically say "Yeah, we messed up and made casters too powerful, here's a way of trying to put the melee characters on par with them."

Instead of the much more preferable:

"Yeah, we messed up on some specific spells that have proven to be too powerful, here is the FREE errata to fix those spells".

[Sinfire Titan]

Best: Tome of Battle: Makes melee combat not monotonous! The PHB2 is a close second because I love variants and options.

Worst: Rules Compendium: It's a book full of rules for the mechanics of things from other books. lolwut?

Now, you see, the Rules Compendium has actually helped me out from time to time. When I need to look up a rule, I go for that book first. Its more organized than most of the other WotC books, and allows me to check just how the game is supposed to work without digging through my 30+ book collection.

For me, however, the best book is Magic of Incarnum. There are only three classes in it that irritate me (Incarnum Blade, Witch Hunter, and that abysmal failure of a class that is the Soulborn). Everything else in it makes me happy. The flavor, the sheer amount of effort it takes to abuse the book, and the fact that each character in it is playable from 1-20. Its also the most balanced book for Epic level play. That, and the Totemist kicks so much ass.

But the worst? Complete Psionics. At least the Rules Compendium has corrections to common errors, and is like an FAQ in paper form. CP is just nerf after nerf after nerf, all in one failure of a book. It solves none of the problems that the Psionics system has (Metamind, Metaconcert, Affinity Field, how the hell do you become an Elan if you are all ready an existing character without completely retraining the character? WHy do Thri-Kreen suck for an ECL 4 race? Why are all of the LA 1 races in the book worthless? Why is the Klashtar so much better than the Elan for Psionic characters?) and introduces massive amounts of errors on its own (Divine Psionics, Illithid Heritage, the Divine Mind as a whole, Astral Construct being nerfed when Larval Flayer is actually more powerful).

Truthfully, CP was the worst purchase I made, even trumping the Miniatures Handbook (which has problems in and of itself) and Complete Warrior (the second worst Complete book due to how unbalanced the book is on both sides of the spectrum). And Complete Champion has its uses (Travel Devotion fixing Scout in one go, for example).

[Chronicled]

"Yeah, we messed up on some specific spells that have proven to be too powerful, here is the FREE errata to fix those spells".

That still wouldn't make playing meleers fun. Not to mention you'd need to cut out about half or more of the spells in the PHB (and the rest aren't useful enough for characters to take anyhow)--look at how many spells Pathfinder has had to edit, and they still haven't done enough; it's a pain to relearn all of those.

[Arcane_Secrets]

Best Book: Hordes of the Abyss A well-written and extremely useful compilation of lore and stats that have built up over the years concerning some of D&D's most notable antagonists. I would also give honorable mentions to Draconomicon, Elder Evils, XPH, and Spell Compendium.

Worst Book: Monster Manual IV It had 18 flavors of dragonspawn, three or four variants on the same monster otherwise in other places, and was highly error-ridden. I would also give dishonorable mention for Races of Destiny for having little in the way of concepts I found useful or interesting, and Complete Champion for having too many ideas that were exact parallels of each other, and out of those ideas that were interesting, either constraining them into tiny PrC's, or alternately, attaching so much detritus-flavor that you have to get rid of a lot of assemptions to get the PrC to make sense outside the context they give you, or alternately, rebuild variants the way you want (why are there no evil Sanctified Ones, even though a LE church would certainly be organized)?

[Tormsskull]

That still wouldn't make playing meleers fun. Not to mention you'd need to cut out about half or more of the spells in the PHB (and the rest aren't useful enough for characters to take anyhow)--look at how many spells Pathfinder has had to edit, and they still haven't done enough; it's a pain to relearn all of those.

I have fun playing melee characters even without such a change. I was under the impression that the reason many people did not like playing non-casters was because they constantly felt overshadowed by the casters and their awesome powers. Is that not the case?

As far as spell fixes, I think many people have wrote spell fix lists, which basically just added expensive material components to the more abusable spells. Most spells in and of themself are not too powerful, but when you start to assume that casters have constant buffs up, it gets insane. But if those buffs had some kind of a material component (not even expensive for the regular buffs), casters would think twice before using them non-stop.

[Emperor Tippy]

No, the reason melee was considered so borked was "I full attack, I move 30 feet and standard action attack, I charge." over and over again.

[Neon Knight]

I have fun playing melee characters even without such a change. I was under the impression that the reason many people did not like playing non-casters was because they constantly felt overshadowed by the casters and their awesome powers. Is that not the case?


Nah, even if you remove casters, Core melee is ugh. And I mean UGGGGGGHH. You can easily find yourself struggling in the late game against some of the nasties, especially things that can fly, and you spend most of your time full attacking. Most of the other options require specialization to yield results or just flat out don't work. Unless you've figured out how to sunder/disarm bite attacks.

Economy of action/movement being what it is, taking full actions to deal your full potential is a recipe for failure.

It isn't even just the overpowered stuff. Unless by overpowered you mean "anything above the fighter's (subpar) power level."

[Eldariel]

Both contribute to the problem. Some people don't like being overshadowed by other similarly leveled characters on the same level of optimization, and others don't like being stuck doing maybe 3 things for the whole game (out of which, 2 tend to be bad ideas most of the time; even Tripping, Bull Rushing, Grappling, Disarming, Sundering and company need feats to do proficiently and those feats tend to be subpar and mean that you start sucking more if you spend feats not improving your actual combat abilities) - very few people in the world are ok with both.

[FMArthur]

Best: Tome of Battle. It's a popular choice for a reason; The Tome of Battle presents alternatives to a playstyle that gets too boring or too limited, and all of the things in it are good. The worst things in the book are things I look at and say, "well it's not quite as useful as this other option here, but still pretty good".

Worst: Epic Level Handbook. This book seems to be made to encourage homebrew.

[Chronicled]

I have fun playing melee characters even without such a change. I was under the impression that the reason many people did not like playing non-casters was because they constantly felt overshadowed by the casters and their awesome powers. Is that not the case?

Not really, no. Only at higher levels is the caster's raw power a problem. Even early on, though, traditional melee gets boring. You are limited to either hitting an enemy, or using your one specific trick (trip, for instance) against it. Again, and again, and again. At higher levels, you can't even move if you're going to not suck. There's not a lot of thinking needed--whether or not you beat an enemy relies more on how the dice fall than on what tactics you use. Fighters get 2 skill points/level, too--so good luck doing anything useful outside of combat.

Conversely, with the Crusader I'm playing, I need to decide each turn which stance is most helpful, which maneuver (of the ones I have access to this turn) will be most effective, and if there's a combination of the two that will have an even greater effect (frequently the case). More than 5' of movement isn't a problem anymore. And if I want to use a normally less-than-optimal fighting style (Sword & Board or TWF), Tome of Battle has some maneuvers that let me not completely suck at it.

Yes, the casters are still more powerful; that's not an issue. Because at least with Tome of Battle I've got options... just like a caster has options. As a caster, you don't have to spam 1 spell round after round after round. Why shouldn't melee get a bit of variety in their actions?

[Woot Spitum]

Best Book: Expanded Psionics Handbook. I like the system of the book, especially the way it forces casters to make difficult choices as far as what abilities they could get (no more: everything on the list, you get).

Worst Book: Complete Divine. Cleric is my favorite class, yet nothing in this book seriously interested me.

[Drascin]

I'm not getting into the debate - I'll just say I subscribe to everything Chronicled has said.

Anyway, my nominations:

Best Book: Expanded Psionics Handbook. Because it's a great magic system with great mechanics, great flavor, and great balance. I still balance all my classes against using the Psywar as baseline

Worst Book: Weapons of Legacy. Because when you make a legendary artifact weapon that takes feats to use, the least you could do is give it mechanics to not suck.

[Jerthanis]

Best Book: Tome of Battle, it's at least my very favorite book, even though my normal DM hates it and bans it in most of our games (his excuse is that it 'doesn't fit the setting' but he'll allow freaking Incarna users, Psionics, literally every single other supplement book without pause) It is the only reason I'd choose to go play 3.5 again without coercion, as I'm a huge fan of kung fu movies. Whenever I walk out of one I always say, "I want to play a character like that!", and ToB lets me do that in D&D.

Of course, since discovering Exalted, that's usually my go-to system for the impractically awesome. Honorable mentions: Expanded Psionics Handbook and the PHB2.

Worst book: Weapons of Legacy... while I may dislike Incarna, I could see using it. While I'd never use Tome of Magic, the ideas inside it can inspire characters and adventures even if you never use its mechanics. All Weapons of Legacy does is make your character suck and uninteresting while making adventures about unlocking the true power of your +1 sword, and the true power you get out of it is barely more significant than any other magic sword you could find. Dry inspiration + Unusable Mechanics make for a pretty poor sourcebook. I also dislike the ELH for being completely unusably unbalanced, but I can imagine that's kind of the point, and I play levels in the 2-8 range mostly anyway, so it doesn't deserve worst book evar in my... book, even if it's pretty bad.

[PnP Fan]

Best Book: ToB, makes mellee fun again, provides lots of shiny new options for melleers and is generally well assembled and designed (for balance and ease of use).

Worst Book: Weapons of Legacy: C'mon, an entire book just about weapons? And only a handful of them at that! I bought it, but it was more for the sake of completeness and a bad decision at the time.

[Covered In Bees]

Seconded on both accounts. My experience with non-core is limited, but I found the PHBII to be helpful despite the fact of the Knight class, ewww Taunt mechanic.

From what I read of the ToB it seemed to basically say "Yeah, we messed up and made casters too powerful, here's a way of trying to put the melee characters on par with them."

Instead of the much more preferable:

"Yeah, we messed up on some specific spells that have proven to be too powerful, here is the FREE errata to fix those spells".

"Fromwhat I read of"? Nothing like sounding off without having actually read the book, right?

ToB did not put melee characters on par with casters. It did make them more mobile, with better defenses.
Also, look at why people are saying it was good: because it made melee characters FUN. Maybe you're entertained by full attacking, charging, full attacking, charging, rinse and repeat, but I haven't played a normal 3.5 melee character in a long time because it's so damn dull.

Tome of Battle characters are more well-rounded abd better-balanced than core melee classes, and they're more fun.

3.5 Errata doesn't exist for balance's sake. Also, errataing every overpowered spell would be a very large project.


Edit: oh, yeah:
Best book: Tome of Battle. This has been covered.
Worst book: Elder Evils. Who's actually going to use this, again? Oh, wait, there's a feat that lets wizards cast spontaneously INT/day. Complete Psionic is up there, too.

[Tormsskull]

Not really, no. Only at higher levels is the caster's raw power a problem. Even early on, though, traditional melee gets boring. You are limited to either hitting an enemy, or using your one specific trick (trip, for instance) against it. Again, and again, and again.


I can honestly say I have never found playing melee classes boring, but obviously there is a difference of opinion. In addition, I don't think I have ever built a character towards a "trick". I would never describe my character as a trip monkey, or uber charger, or some of these other labels that get tossed around. It really reminds me of people that played Diabo 2 (and probably games before that, but my first exposure IIRC was Diablo 2) describing their character as a "Hammerdin" or "Javazon". Sure, in a computer game it might be apt, but in a roleplaying game? Yuck.

I just think of an interesting character background, and then select skills and feats that allow me to bring that background to life in the game.



At higher levels, you can't even move if you're going to not suck. There's not a lot of thinking needed--whether or not you beat an enemy relies more on how the dice fall than on what tactics you use. Fighters get 2 skill points/level, too--so good luck doing anything useful outside of combat.


But D&D is a team game, so naturally the whole team coordinates tactics, right? Fighters limited skill points is definitely a bummer as I am a big fan of skills, but being a human and assuming no intelligence bonus (I usually strive for a 13 int or so because I like the option of having Combat Expertise) nets you 3 skills. You can have at least a few things for non-combat, or potentilly RP-enhancing skills.



Conversely, with the Crusader I'm playing, I need to decide each turn which stance is most helpful, which maneuver (of the ones I have access to this turn) will be most effective, and if there's a combination of the two that will have an even greater effect (frequently the case). More than 5' of movement isn't a problem anymore. And if I want to use a normally less-than-optimal fighting style (Sword & Board or TWF), Tome of Battle has some maneuvers that let me not completely suck at it.


I can see how that might be enjoyable, but maybe you just expect to have more options than a core 3x Fighter gives you? If you are used to CRPGs or console RPGs where you have special abilities, perhaps spells or what have you, I would definitely see how the core 3x Fighter would appear boring. Personally I'm used to the Basic Fighter, which was fun to play, so the 3x Fighter has quite a few options from my POV.



Yes, the casters are still more powerful; that's not an issue. Because at least with Tome of Battle I've got options... just like a caster has options. As a caster, you don't have to spam 1 spell round after round after round. Why shouldn't melee get a bit of variety in their actions?

There's definite no correct way, options versus lack of options, but with options can come a lot of problems as well. Some people like tons of options, which sort of provides a game within the game (if I select this option I can be better than that option, this option is obviously horrible, etc, etc.), I personally don't enjoy that aspect of the game too much. I'd rather just focus on advancing the storyline/plot of the campaign.

Casters can be a lot of fun to play, but I always viewed the relationship between casters and non-casters as one of flexibility versus stability. Casters are very flexible in that they can be very strong when they have most of their spells available to them, and they have selected spells that fit a particular situation.

Non-casters, Fighters in particular, are stable, they can always Attack at a decent value, they have a high number of hit points, they tend to have a high armor class, etc.

So while a caster with all of his resources available is more powerful than a Fighter with all of his resources, as the day drags on and the caster is losing spells (and possibly hp), the fighter is only losing easily-replenished HP via potions or divine spell slots.

Again, both are fun to play, I don't think that Fighter is any kind of "you're an idiot if you choose this class" option. Whichever is better for bringing to life the character you are trying to portray IMO.



Maybe you're entertained by full attacking, charging, full attacking, charging, rinse and repeat, but I haven't played a normal 3.5 melee character in a long time because it's so damn dull.


See above about expecting things. Probably because of your background you're expecting special abilities, limit breakers, etc, and because of my background I'm not.

[Covered In Bees]

Let me get this straight.

You're arguing that... Fighters are only boring to people who "are used to video games", and aren't boring to you because you roleplay them (thereby implying that the rest of us don't) and/or because you're used to even more boring Fighters?

You're seriously saying that I find fighters boring because I have a "background" in video games?

Take a moment to consider the fact that my favorite RPGs are Nobilis and Spirit of the Century, that I don't own any gaming consoles, and don't have a single non-DOS game installed on my computer right now. Maybe you'd like to make an actual argument, instead of relying on "well that's because I'm a good roleplayer and you guys like the vidya games"?

[Drammel]

Best Book: Player's Handbook 2, because I hate being saddled with a mount. Tome of Battle does run a close second. Fiendish Codex 2 for the Jack-of-all-Trades award, I don't think I've gotten more use out of a single book as both player and DM.

Worst Book: Cityscape. There is nothing in there a good DM can't do on his own or better. Usually better.

[AstralFire]

Unlike Vesper-Blanketed Batman, I -do- have a background in video games. I'm not sure how that makes any difference, though. People weren't used to being able to electronically search for information and get results within seconds two decades ago. That doesn't mean that the internet somehow cheapened academic research.

[Tormsskull]

Let me get this straight.

You're arguing that... Fighters are only boring to people who "are used to video games", and aren't boring to you because you roleplay them (thereby implying that the rest of us don't) and/or because you're used to even more boring Fighters?


Not exactly. I'm saying that if you are used to playing with lots of options, then playing with few options is probably boring. If you take a player who started playing with 3rd edition and pushed them back to 1e AD&D or Basic, they'd probably be bored.

But, couldn't I make the same ascertation? To paraphrase you: "Let me get this straight, Basic fighters are more(side note: italics are fun!) boring because they had less options.



You're seriously saying that I find fighters boring because I have a "background" in video games?


Actually I was suggesting that as a possibility, yes. Maybe that's not the case, I don't know you personally just taking a guess based on my perceptions.



Maybe you'd like to make an actual argument, instead of relying on "well that's because I'm a good roleplayer and you guys like the vidya games"?

Maybe you're too eager to defend using that argument?

My actual argument was that if you are used to a lot of options, then less options will probably be boring. Is that controversial?

I then suggested that since I was not used to a lot of options, less options is not boring for me. Is that controversial?

My focus is on roleplaying, so I build characters in that way, If your focus is not on roleplaying, maybe you build your characters in a different way. I made no value statement at all in regards to the merit of roleplaying versus not roleplaying. It seems that you are trying to argue against arguments that I am not making. I suppose you win?


People weren't used to being able to electronically search for information and get results within seconds two decades ago. That doesn't mean that the internet somehow cheapened academic research.

I'm not sure "cheapened" is the correct word, but it sure cut down on the number of people that physically visited the library. Since I am used to using the internet for research papers and such, I would feel it was a waste of my time to physically visit the library if the same exact information was available online.

[Eldariel]

Not exactly. I'm saying that if you are used to playing with lots of options, then playing with few options is probably boring. If you take a player who started playing with 3rd edition and pushed them back to 1e AD&D or Basic, they'd probably be bored.

1e AD&D allows you to do basically anything. All you need to do is describe your actual course of action to your DM, he determines the difficulty and you can perform effectively any action; you aren't limited by the rules. 3.0 pushes much more strongly towards a limited bunch of options, less need for DM to rule things on the fly and more fluent combat, in exchange for options. The change cost melee characters basically all their options save for 5-6. Tome of Battle puts those options back in there, albeit in a different manner. Still, it gives melee back what it lost.


EDIT: Let's make a separate thread for this discussion. This isn't on-topic anymore.

[Neon Knight]

Maybe you're too eager to defend using that argument?

My actual argument was that if you are used to a lot of options, then less options will probably be boring. Is that controversial?

I then suggested that since I was not used to a lot of options, less options is not boring for me. Is that controversial?

My focus is on roleplaying, so I build characters in that way, If your focus is not on roleplaying, maybe you build your characters in a different way. I made no value statement at all in regards to the merit of roleplaying versus not roleplaying. It seems that you are trying to argue against arguments that I am not making. I suppose you win?




I think the problem might have been the medium of communication. Several of your statements could be interpreted as condescending or otherwise inflected with a smug tone. With only the text available, we (as readers) insert whatever tone or infliction occurs to us, which may not be the correct one.

[Kurald Galain]

Best book: PHB2 because it makes quite good fixes on several of the problems that plague the PHB1, and also contains a number of fun to play classes (and spells, feats, etc).

I think Tome of Battle is a good second place, but most people here don't play with it for whatever reason. I find the XPH a bad choice because D&D has too many magic systems already and doesn't need one more.

Worst book: Tome of magic because D&D already has too many magic systems (prep, spont, psion, invoc) and doesn't need to increase that amount even more. It doesn't help that the book suffers from design problems as well, but it's fundamentally unneeded to begin with.

I agree that the ELH is also very bad, and several of the "complete anything" books are just too one-sided. Also, let me add the BOED/BOVD because they contain sooo much cliches and cheese. And, reading back on the thread, I realize I completely forgot about the existence of the DMG2, which only underlines its utter worthlessness.

[AstralFire]

I'm not sure "cheapened" is the correct word, but it sure cut down on the number of people that physically visited the library. Since I am used to using the internet for research papers and such, I would feel it was a waste of my time to physically visit the library if the same exact information was available online.

Oh, I agree.

So, assuming you agree with my analogy, why is ToB your choice for Worst 3.x Book again? You might deem it to be unnecessary, but that is not the same thing.

[Plactus]

Best: Draconomicon.

Worst: About half the books that came out in 2006/2007 were varying degrees of terrible (in retrospect, the feeling of disgust I got reading the 4th Edition PHB/MM is not a surprise), but if I had to call out one as the worst, it would be Elder Evils. Complete Champion is a close second.

[Knaight]

Take a moment to consider the fact that my favorite RPGs are Nobilis and Spirit of the Century

Spirit of the century strongly encourages using the room when you fight though. Lighting stuff on fire(come on they left drapes right there. Its one of the rooms aspects) taking advantage of water(This room has a slippery floor, a bucket, and a sink. Heck yes), dropping chandeliers (you said it had the extremely well lit aspect. So I either drop the chandelier or start throwing torches.), and such. That and its based off of the fudge system, and it doesn't get much easier than that when people try something fancy and the DM needs to adjucate (Attach chain to staff, polevault, throw staff from up high through rafters, watch the chain be lifted off of the ground and fly at the enemy you jumped over due a slight tilt. In Fudge this is incredibly easy to do, D&D, not so much.) Nobilis I have been having trouble finding, so I can't comment, although I do know that they both highly emphasize role-playing.

Anyways:
Best book: Expanded Psionics Handbook, it has Thri-keen, Elan, Psions, lots of cool items, cool monsters, etc. That and there is the whole power augmentation thing that is just awesome(although it would have been nicer with almost every power having multiple ways to augment it.)

Worst book: The Book of Vile Darkness. How to make evil stupid, and look at how being obese or really thin is a sign of evilness. Give me a break. Book of Exhalted Deeds cuts a close second.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Best: Hard to say. I'm particularly fond of ToB for the same reasons as everyone else. PHB2 has lots of interesting and usefull feats, spells, and classes. Dungeonscape has factotum and good variants.

Worst: Races of the Dragon. This was perhaps the most boring and totally useless D&D book I've ever read.

[AstralFire]

Yeah, I can never named BoED as the worst book for anything because on all counts C. Champion is worse (mechanically) and BoVD is worse (every other way).

[JMobius]

Just out of curiosity, and I'll break this into a new thread if it proves overly derailing, but why all the dislike for BoED?

[Drascin]

Just out of curiosity, and I'll break this into a new thread if it proves overly derailing, but why all the dislike for BoED?

It varies, but mostly, the fact that an Exalted character has a brutal chance to derail any campaign, and that having anything and everything you do being scrutinized in case you should lose your powers and feats doesn't appeal to a lot of people (think paladin, but a thousand times worse)

That, and ravages. Oh, ye gods, ravages. So, using poisons is evil, except if it's one of these particular poisons we tell you here, because they only affect nongood people, so you're perfectly justified in using them as indiscriminately as you wish and not lose your exalted status, because if anyone is hurt by them they were jerks and deserved to suffer anyway. How exactly could anyone think that was a good idea to print?

[Covered In Bees]

Not exactly. I'm saying that if you are used to playing with lots of options, then playing with few options is probably boring. If you take a player who started playing with 3rd edition and pushed them back to 1e AD&D or Basic, they'd probably be bored.
Yeah, they probably would be.


But, couldn't I make the same ascertation? To paraphrase you: "Let me get this straight, Basic fighters are more(side note: italics are fun!) boring because they had less options.
Why, yes, they are! Playing a D&D Basic fighter sounds like less fun than just watching combat happen and giving everyone advice. This matches up with my experience re: playing an AD&D Fighter.


Actually I was suggesting that as a possibility, yes. Maybe that's not the case, I don't know you personally just taking a guess based on my perceptions.
Maybe next time you shouldn't dismiss


My actual argument was that if you are used to a lot of options, then less options will probably be boring. Is that controversial?

I then suggested that since I was not used to a lot of options, less options is not boring for me. Is that controversial?
No, not really, but then it boils the fact that you have fun with 3E fighters to "ignorance is bliss". Uh, okay. The rest of us don't have fun with normal 3E melee classes, and it's not actually because we're used to video games, it's because for a lot of people, attack attack attack, move and attack, attack attack attack isn't fun.


My focus is on roleplaying, so I build characters in that way, If your focus is not on roleplaying, maybe you build your characters in a different way. I made no value statement at all in regards to the merit of roleplaying versus not roleplaying. It seems that you are trying to argue against arguments that I am not making. I suppose you win?
Then roleplaying has... what to do with how fun a characters is to play, mechanically, again? Is a Fighter somehow more fun to roleplay than a Warblade? (No. Probably less, since he can do less, which means he's going to be, say, sitting out the debate, rather than contributing because he has Diplomacy.)



So... how is ToB the worst 3.5 splatbook, again?

[AstralFire]

I just use BoED the way Complete Champion was meant to be used so I don't mind it as much, but Drascin hit the hammer on the head along with the fact that there are some pretty powerful things in there meant to be balanced solely with that stringent roleplaying. Bad idea.

I like some of the feats, a few PrCs (Exalted Arcanist comes to mind) and some of the equipment. The -idea- of Ravages is cool, too, minus the bit about poisons are always evil and Ravages never are.

[Neon Knight]

Just out of curiosity, and I'll break this into a new thread if it proves overly derailing, but why all the dislike for BoED?

In my case, a general dislike of the implementation of the alignment in DnD, compounded by a dislike of the concept of higher grades of good/evil, and further compounded by the choice of what they decided to make or label as good/evil.

Also, a general dislike of celestials, especially angels, none of which I find interesting or compelling. (Tyrael from Diablo II, with his lack of visible human features and his light tendril/tentacle/pseudopod-esque wings, is closer to what I think an angel should look like. Not just dudes with bird wings.)

In fact, DnD comsology in general doesn't appeal to me.

[AstralFire]

Bird wings are awesome. But I might be sick of glowing energy wings from casual exposure to anime/JRPGs.

[Chronicled]

So... how is ToB the worst 3.5 splatbook, again?

Indeed. Tormsskull, you've described how the 3.x Fighter's incredible simplicity doesn't bother you. Fine. But that's not a good reason for calling ToB the worst 3e book published. Especially (based on your earlier remarks) when you haven't even read the book through, but just formed the opinion based on hearsay.

[ZekeArgo]

Best: Non-WotC published: The Iron Kingdoms Campaign Setting. Sure, the magic items are a pain and a half to figure out, but gorram it has effing steam powered mechs and gunmages! If your a mage with a gun then you > everything.

WotC Published: Tough choice. I like the Eberron Campaign setting tons, but also the environment books all have crazy ideas for one shots and areas within campaign settings. Lords of Madness also deserves mention for fleshing out some of the weirder creatures lurking in the MM.

Worst: Ghostwalk. Who the hell has ever used this book? Mechanics that kill you for leveling up, unless you buy in ghost levels or some crap? Horrible, horrible book.

[Morty]

Worst: Ghostwalk. Who the hell has ever used this book? Mechanics that kill you for leveling up, unless you buy in ghost levels or some crap? Horrible, horrible book.

Care to elaborate? I have to say, killing a character for leveling up sounds... interesting.

[ZekeArgo]

Care to elaborate? I have to say, killing a character for leveling up sounds... interesting.

I really don't get it, have tried making heads and tales of the thing but really, I just get flummoxed and toss it aside.

Its mechanics to play as ghosts... but if you gain levels you get called to the great beyond or something, and only by trading your class levels in for ghostwalk level things so you get to stay in the... someplace next to the prime material that isnt the etheral or astral planes.

It's a weird, weird book that I still don't see the point of.

[Morty]

I really don't get it, have tried making heads and tales of the thing but really, I just get flummoxed and toss it aside.

Its mechanics to play as ghosts... but if you gain levels you get called to the great beyond or something, and only by trading your class levels in for ghostwalk level things so you get to stay in the... someplace next to the prime material that isnt the etheral or astral planes.

It's a weird, weird book that I still don't see the point of.

Sounds... convoluted. Mechanics to play as a ghost is a good idea but it doesn't look like this book does it right.

[ZekeArgo]

Though the most galling thing about it is its co-authored by Monte Cook. I thought he had better design sense than this.

[Kiren]

Best book: Savage species, everyone is entittled to a opinion, i like savage species because I like odd characters, I can now make a flying cube of jello now
as a mount.

Best book 2: Everything from iron kingdoms

Worst book: Maybe epic level handbook.

[Prophaniti]

Best: I'm throwing my vote in for Player's Handbook II, the only II book published by WotC that is worth the money, and the only one I find myself really missing if I don't have it handy.

Worst: Less certain here... I haven't really bought all that many books for 3.5, and I like the ones I have. I usually take a good look through a book before I buy it, so I've managed to dodge all the really bad ones. Of the ones I own, I use Races of the Dragon the least, although it did give me my favorite kobold build in the world that I will continue to use until the day I die... But based on how much I use it, it's definitely the worst one I own. Based on which book I would never buy, or accept as a present, or accept along with a cash settlement to compensate my wasted time and wounded psyche... I'd say it's a toss-up between Book of Exhalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness.

[hotel_papa]

Best: Dungeonscape. No, I'm not just pandering to the Giant, I really did love this book. The factotum quickly became my favorite class and the dungeonbuilding chapters have factored into every campaign I've run since. Besides the feats which were admittedly crap, I've loved everything about this book.

Close second: Complete Scoundrel. Another winner. Luck feats and skill tricks for the win. One of my rogueiphiliacs used to swear on it as his bible.

Worst: Dragons of Eberron. Where's my crunch? It's as if this entire book is flavor text and "example encounters". I can rip my monsters off from the internet like everyone else, thank you. Also, the theme of Eberron was that the PCs are supposed to be the first among a new class of high-level PCs. It says (paraphrased) "when the party reaches levels 8-10 they quickly become their own best friends". Now they tell me that there's a whole communist city of dragon-friendly NPCs who could form 4-man fireteams and kill Vol, Kaius, the Lord of Blades and all 6 remaining Daelkyr within a week? Hell, where are Mordankainan and Rolibar hanging out? Sharn? It shoves a little bit of what I hate about Greyhawk into my beloved Eberron. Curse my need to complete book sets. It will remain dormant.

Worst (non-campaign specific): Complete Warrior. None of the three core classes are worth playing except as a 3-level dip or so. The prestige classes range from rediculously over powered (kensai) to rediculously underpowered (just about everything else), the artwork is uninspired and lifeless. Boo. It gets points for starting the trend, I like the rest of the complete series.

Close second: Planar Handbook. Sometimes it felt like the whole thing was one big list of reasons to by Manual of the Planes. Races, prestige classes, magic items, feats... whole thing was made of crudely woven yawn.

HP

[Eldariel]

Though the most galling thing about it is its co-authored by Monte Cook. I thought he had better design sense than this.

Really? My experience is the polar opposite - I feel it's an excellent play environment and I've played many enjoyable Ghostwalk campaigns. It's definitely different too; only system that I feel really properly captures being a ghost (like ME being a ghost). Yes, the mechanics are a bit odd, but you're playing a friggin' ghost. They're gonna be odd. And they grow onto you in a while. Actually, we just started straight as ghosts in Manifest since that felt like the whole point of the setting.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Best- I'd agree with everyone that PHB2, XPH, and ToB are great additions, but my vote would have to go with the Tome of Magic- Truenamers are blah, Shadowcasters are Mediocre, but I adore Binders.

If Warlocks are the poor man's sorceror, Binders are the poor man's wizard.

As for worst book, I'd say PHB1 for introducing broken classes and feats ranging from the horrendously weak (Monk) to the Boring (Fighter) to the Unbalanced (Druids) to outright brokenly overpowered (Wizards)...

Or if that won't do, I wasn't really impressed with Complete Warrior myself.


As a funny note, if you didn't like the BoED ("Geeze, look at how high and mighty these guys are... I couldn't stand being near one of them, let alone BEING one.") and the BoVD ("That's too horrible for words! :smalleek: ) Then you are probably neutral by DnD standards. :smallbiggrin:

[ericgrau]

Ugh, +1 you can play a core fighter/etc. and still have fun. It happens as regularly as the sun rising in real life, but if you even dare to mention it on internet forums the people who spend a ton of their time posting chase you away.

As for how ToB disrupts core fighters, it's like asking how Pepsi disrupts Cola. Sure, you're free to choose, but you better believe Pepsi is pissed at Cola and people who don't like Pepsi are annoyed when that's all they can get at certain places. Sure, they can just eat elsewhere, but there may be other reasons like the food and their friends for eating at that place. To say that the existence of something cannot possibly cause free people a problem is categorically false. Billions of marketing dollars ride on the realization that the opposite is true.

Oh, btw, I have nothing against Pepsi or Cola and carry zero angst b/c of my flavor preferences. The point is let people have their preferences about what they hate and like and shaddup about it.

[Eldariel]

Oh, btw, I have nothing against Pepsi or Cola and carry zero angst b/c of my flavor preferences. The point is let people have their preferences about what they hate and like and shaddup about it.

The problem isn't people having opinions on a matter to a direction or another, but rather people posting that their opinion is X or Y for wrong reasons. Some people post they don't like ToB simply based on hearsay (without ever actually playing games with ToB) or just to disagree with the masses.

Also, some say "ToB is bad for reason X", which is not an opinion anymore (unless X is "because I don't like it", which is just a stupid statement since then you're making a generic claim "ToB is bad" based on a personal opinion), and generally the reasons given don't actually hold in closer scrutiny.


So opinions, no problem as long as they're presented as opinions. Factual statements are going to lead to discussion (which is happening here).

[Neon Knight]

*Stuff.
I'm not certain I understand what you're trying to say here. The point of this thread is to vote for and talk about our favorite and least favorite books. Some people like ToB and vote for it as favorite. Some people vote for it as least favorite. People choose to inquire as to why this is, and discussion is held. I see no problem, aside from a slight misunderstanding.


To say that the existence of something cannot possibly cause free people a problem is categorically false. Billions of marketing dollars ride on the realization that the opposite is true.

A competitor can cause a problem for a business, and perhaps its investors, but consumers are in no way inconvenienced by the existence of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, or the fact that both do. This is a most bizarre statement.

[CASTLEMIKE]

A competitor can cause a problem for a business, and perhaps its investors, but consumers are in no way inconvenienced by the existence of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, or the fact that both do. This is a most bizarre statement.

I disagree plenty of establishments are prohibited from carrying the other brand (Coke/Pepsi example) so as a customer you are inconvenienced (slightly) if your brand is not carried since you can still get something to drink just not what you ordered or prefered to order.

This thread is Vote for Best/Worst 3.X book. No one is wrong for expressing their Vote. Voting doesn't make anyone else wrong. Lots of people and lots of books to choose from.

[ericgrau]

^ Bingo.

Discussion is fine. I'd have to slap myself if my point was to stop discussion. The point was that yes people really do have fun playing core fighters and yes ToB can rightly miff such people (as much as a beverage preference and corporate tactics can). Does that mean I don't want other people to use ToB? Nope, that's just swell. Does ToB hurt games that use core martial classes? It can; just making them coexist can be an issue. So can some people like ToB and use it while others hate it and ban it? Yeup.

[Neon Knight]

I disagree plenty of establishments are prohibited from carrying the other brand (Coke/Pepsi example) so as a customer you are inconvenienced (slightly) if your brand is not carried.

I seem to have suffered quite the brainfart. :smallredface:


^ Bingo.

Discussion is fine. I'd have to slap myself if my point was to stop discussion. The point was that yes people really do have fun playing core fighters and yes ToB can rightly miff such people (as much as a beverage preference and corporate tactics can). Does that mean I don't want other people to use ToB? Nope, that's just swell. Does ToB hurt games that use core martial classes? Certainly. So can some people like ToB and use it while others hate it and ban it? Yeup.

As long as you accept that some people do not enjoy core fighters (or at least not as much as ToB), and that yes core preference/adherence can rightly miff certain people, and that core preference/adherence can hurt players/games that enjoy ToB, and that some people like core and use it while others hate and replace it.

[Chronicled]

The point was that yes people really do have fun playing core fighters and yes ToB can rightly miff such people...Does ToB hurt games that use core martial classes? It can; just making them coexist can be an issue.

:confused:

Really now. How is my playing a Warblade hurting you if you want to play a Barbarian? Tell me, is it like Vow of Nonviolence, where I'm mechanically penalizing you for playing your character the way you'd like to? Of course not. How on earth can you be "rightly" miffed at my use of ToB in the same game?

For that matter, I've seen ToB and core melee side by side in my games with absolutely NO problem. If there's one thing that ToB classes don't do, it's outdamage an equally optimized core Barbarian.

[Knaight]

Fighters can be optimized way beyond what any of the martial adepts can be too. As can rangers, rogues, and monks, and thats without even getting into prestige classes.

[Chronos]

Personally, I find the base melee types boring, but there are a great many players out there for whom "Thog smash stuff. Thog smash stuff again the next round." is the reason to play D&D. Some people like a class which has very simple mechanics and few choices to make during play, and the core melee classes fill that niche.

Back on topic, though... I know of it only by reputation, but for "best", I'm going to mention Stronghold Builder's Guide, because nobody else has. Ever since I started playing D&D way back in 2nd edition, I've wondered, "Gee, the arch-villain has all these nifty magical things going on in his lair. When I get powerful enough to have my own stronghold, I want to be able to have nifty things like that, too. How would I do that?". Finally, after three editions, they gave us an answer to that.

For "worst", there are many other contenders, but I'm going to have to introduce Frostburn. It seems like every time anyone ever mentions that book, it's prefaced by "It's way overpowered, but...", or "No sane DM would ever allow this, but...". I mean, really, paralyzing dragons with a touch attack? A feat to let druids turn into cryohydras? What were they thinking? Plus, some of those overpowered options are badly edited enough that it's hard to tell just how overpowered they really are, anyway: Does the ability damage from Shivering Touch wear off after the end of the 1 round/level duration (contrary to the way ability damage works in every other situation), or does it mean that you can keep on making dex-damaging attacks for 1 round/level?

[Eldritch_Ent]

Does the ability damage from Shivering Touch wear off after the end of the 1 round/level duration (contrary to the way ability damage works in every other situation), or does it mean that you can keep on making dex-damaging attacks for 1 round/level?

I think it means "You can hold this spell without expending it as a touch attack for this long"... IE CL 10 Caster guy casts shivering touch, then can wait up to a minute before actually using it...

I think...

[monty]

I think it means "You can hold this spell without expending it as a touch attack for this long"... IE CL 10 Caster guy casts shivering touch, then can wait up to a minute before actually using it...

I think...

That doesn't make much sense, though. Touch spells can be held indefinitely.


Holding the Charge

If you don’t discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the discharge of the spell (hold the charge) indefinitely.

[Crow]

Covered in Bees; I don't think anyone but myself has rated ToB as the worst book (a matter of opinion), so you can lay off of Tormskull.

[Ned the undead]

BoEF. Why? Two words: Powerword Orgasm.

[KingGolem]

Dungeonscape: Yep. It's taught me so much about dungeon building and building encounters. The equipment and feats were cool, as was the factotum class.

Complete Champion: Easily the biggest disappointment for a book release I've ever had. The supplemental rules sucked and the fluff sucked even harder. No thanks. :smallmad:

[Covered In Bees]

Does ToB hurt games that use core martial classes? It can; just making them coexist can be an issue. So can some people like ToB and use it while others hate it and ban it? Yeup.

Making them coexist is an issue? How? Just let people play both classes. I've been in games with both before. If both are allowed, how does the option to use ToB classes hurt people who don't play them?


Covered in Bees; I don't think anyone but myself has rated ToB as the worst book (a matter of opinion), so you can lay off of Tormskull.

And he agreed with you despite not even having read through the book. And said things people thought were ridiculous, so they argued. I'm sure you and he will survive.

[Crow]

And he agreed with you despite not even having read through the book. And said things people thought were ridiculous, so they argued. I'm sure you and he will survive.

He heard enough to make up his mind about it. I didn't read the book cover to cover, but what I read was enough to determine that I didn't like it. I've never had bamboo chutes up my fingernails, but I've heard enough to know that I wouldn't like it either. The man voiced his opinion and was jumped on because of it. I wasn't aware that anyone had to "prove" why they thought a book was the best or the worst. Our opinions obviously differ from yours, Oh No!

[Covered In Bees]

He heard enough to make up his mind about it.
He also heard things that aren't true.


I didn't read the book cover to cover, but what I read was enough to determine that I didn't like it. I've never had bamboo chutes up my fingernails, but I've heard enough to know that I wouldn't like it either.
Yeah! That's, like, totally the same! Absolutely!


The man voiced his opinion and was jumped on because of it. I wasn't aware that anyone had to "prove" why they thought a book was the best or the worst. Our opinions obviously differ from yours, Oh No!
It's not like was dragged into an alley and beaten with a lead pipe. He had people disagree with him on an internet forum. It's lucky you're here to defend him, or he could have... something terrible! But I'll tell you what--I'll foot the bill for any therapy necessary after the trauma of being told he's wrong on the internet.

[Gavin Sage]

Best: PHB II, it just contains so much good stuff in it for players to use. Plenty has been said, and I dare say that no one seems to dislike this book. Which is an excellent qualifier for being the best.

Worst: That Elder Evils book. Okay this is about the last book for 3.X ever put out, so I guess its no suprise they didn't try hard. But this thing is a glorified half of a monster manual, only focused around lame big bad monsters. Why fight a guy made of worms when the Nine Hells are so established and more interesting? And frankly I think any halfway decent DM could make up something better if there's a burning desire for a new enemy. At least something like Tome of Magic (if it worked) you could make an interesting 'alternate' campaign by throwing out normal magic, but Elder Evils isn't even focused on giving the players options

My Most Hated: Tome of Battle. Mostly for political reasons. First understand I was never bored with Fighters. Given I never played a game where everyone else was either CoDzilla, Triple-classed from four books, or Batman. And in that sort of party... yeah, I see the problem. ToB though doesn't help, in the end what it does is give melee characters magic. Very different from Vancian magic I'll agree, but still in the end its magic. And I don't like it. Especially with the anime/video-game/wire-fu-movie feel to the whole thing.

As I'm concerned, Fighters should be the closest D&D comes to having Badass Normals. Now given the normalness of the class is its problems, but there are better ways to go about that. A book of feats for Fighters, particularly ones that could have granted class ablity level powers would be a great way. Fighters have so many feats, but comparatively little follow-up with that. You could even present them as linked styles for great bonuses or prestige class set-up. A feat to give multiple attacks as a standard action would go a long way. Or magical resistances, along with some loudly announced tweaks to the magic system and casting classes.

Okay maybe I'm splitting hairs here. But consider where the solution of ToB to underpowered melee has lead us. When the solution to over-powered magic is to give melee classes super-powers so they have an toychest of ablities to use in combat with special names, and this proves successful... well take that and apply it as the standard model to everything and the result is........

Fourth Edition.

(And no I'm not blaming ToB entirely for the lackluster undifferentiated classes of 4e. However I see clear parallels between the two sets of classes. Thus have no problem saying that ToB pushed that direction. And I suppose there are people who like 4e. Like I said it political reasons, and this is why I have a most hated category not simply worst.)

[Jimp]

Best: Lords of Madsness: I love that book so much. A really in depth look into some of the strangest and more twisted creatures in the D&D universe. It even features some strange and twisted character options, namely the grafting prestige class.

Worst: Complete Champion: Was this book good for anything other than massive grey guard debates and a barbarian variant? It's only marginally worse than Complete Scoundrel, which at least introduced skill tricks where are kind cool.

[Crow]

It's not like was dragged into an alley and beaten with a lead pipe. He had people disagree with him on an internet forum. It's lucky you're here to defend him, or he could have... something terrible! But I'll tell you what--I'll foot the bill for any therapy necessary after the trauma of being told he's wrong on the internet.

Yes, but he's not wrong. He's no more wrong than you are. We're talking about people's opinions here. Completely subjective. As I said, I didn't see anything about needing to prove that a book was good or bad. Really, what about his opinion was wrong?

[Covered In Bees]

Okay maybe I'm splitting hairs here. But consider where the solution of ToB to underpowered melee has lead us. When the solution to over-powered magic is to give melee classes super-powers

You realize the Warblade isn't any more magical than the Fighter, right?

[Crow]

You realize the Warblade isn't any more magical than the Fighter, right?

You realize the system that the Martial Adept classes use is very similar to D&D's standard magic system, right? I think this is why so many people say it feels like they gave melee classes magical powers, even if there is nothing inherantly magical in the power descriptions (except desert wind).

[Covered In Bees]

Yes, but he's not wrong. He's no more wrong than you are. We're talking about people's opinions here. Completely subjective. As I said, I didn't see anything about needing to prove that a book was good or bad. Really, what about his opinion was wrong?

Are you freaking kidding me?
Okay, then, it's my considered opinion that aliens built the Pyramids. I know it's true because I heard it from some guy on the internet.

And it can't be wrong! It's my ~OPINION~!



You realize the system that the Martial Adept classes use is very similar to D&D's standard magic system, right?
Yes. They both have nine levels of something, and...
...
...
Wait, no, that's pretty much it. Oops.


I think this is why so many people say it feels like they gave melee classes magical powers, even if there is nothing inherantly magical in the power descriptions (except desert wind).
Desert Wind and Shadow Hand have supernatural abilities, because the Swordsage is supposed to be mystical. The Crusader has some divine abilities, because like the paladin, he's divinely powered (Divine power source, in 4E terms). The Warblade is just That Damn Good and That Damn Tough. You're using an ability called Punishing Stance? So what? Real swordsmen used something called the Fool's Stance, for example.

[AstralFire]

You realize the system that the Martial Adept classes use is very similar to D&D's standard magic system, right? I think this is why so many people say it feels like they gave melee classes magical powers, even if there is nothing inherantly magical in the power descriptions (except desert wind).

Basically any system of special effects -has- to use that template for clarity. Trust me, I design a bit in my spare time, and I very quickly found that adapting the spell/power/maneuver/vestige/etc template is practically a necessity if you're creating a large set of abilities. That doesn't make those magic-like anymore than Warlocks are ranger-like.

[Crow]

Are you freaking kidding me?
Okay, then, it's my considered opinion that aliens built the Pyramids. I know it's true because I heard it from some guy on the internet.

And it can't be wrong! It's my ~OPINION~!

Are you being deliberately obtuse? He said he didn't like it, and gave reasons why he didn't like it. How is his completely subjective opinion wrong? It's like he said he doesn't like the taste of spaghetti...are you going to tell him he's wrong?

[Crow]

Basically any system of special effects -has- to use that template for clarity. Trust me, I design a bit in my spare time, and I very quickly found that adapting the spell/power/maneuver/vestige/etc template is practically a necessity if you're creating a large set of abilities. That doesn't make those magic-like anymore than Warlocks are ranger-like.

No, this I understand. But at the point when ToB came out, players had been buried in the vancian magic system for a really long time. I am not saying the classes are magicool or anything, but that because the system has these similarities to the magic system which the game was built on, it is easy for it to "feel" like you're just using magic with a different faceplate.

[Thurbane]

Grrr...had a lengthy post, but the server ate it. Brief recap:

Best: Player's Handbook II. Honorable mentions: UA, MiC and ToM. Also big props to Dungeonscape, the Complete Series (barring CC), and the Races Series...

Worst: Book of Vile Darkness. Even allowing for the fact it is pre-3.5, most of it's contents are just plain broken. The others I really dislike (Bo9S, MoI, CP, EPH) are more for flavour reasons than anything else. I will echo what many have said, Complete Champion has some serious issues, with balance, and poorly worded/thought out crunch. Book of Exalted Deeds has some of the same problems as BoVD, but not to quite the same degree. I really liked the intent of Weapons of Legacy, but the execution wasn't great. In most cases, what you gain from a WoL is hardly worth the costs you pay, to the point where I wouldn't bother using it in my games.

[CASTLEMIKE]

You realize the Warblade isn't any more magical than the Fighter, right?

That premise never seems to fly in gestalt when you want to throw in something like MT to 2 spellcasting classes for your PRC levels suddenly they are the equivalent of magic.

[Thurbane]

Gee, who would have guessed that half the posts in a best/worst of 3.X would end up in a brawl about Bo9S? :smallbiggrin:

No other book I know of polarizes gamers more - it seems to be either love or hate. It was actually the second 3.X book I bought (after PHB II) - I ended up trading it and MoI in for a dicsount on Cityscape and Dungeonscape.

At first I thought Bo9S was horribly broken - but the more I think about it, the more I realised that most of my objections were personal taste than actual issues with it's balance.

I'm at the stage now where I believe live and let live - the Bo9S will never get used in one of my games, but if others dig it, more power to them. Same with psionics and Incarnum. :smallsmile:

[Chronos]

Quoth Ned the Undead:
BoEF. Why? Two words: Powerword Orgasm.Is this a vote for best, or worst? :smallwink:

Quoth Astral Fire:
Trust me, I design a bit in my spare time, and I very quickly found that adapting the spell/power/maneuver/vestige/etc template is practically a necessity if you're creating a large set of abilities.Spells, powers, and maneuvers are all more similar to each other than any of them is to vestiges. A vestige is something that you put into effect at the beginning of the day, and then for the rest of the day you have a suite of abilities you can use, most of which have no limit on the number of times you can use them. A spell, power, or maneuver is something that you put into effect in the middle of combat, and which depletes some resource immediately when you use it, such that you can't use it repeatedly and indefinitely. The nature of the resource required is different for spells, powers, and maneuvers, as is the method for regaining that resource, but you can still create a system which allows for plenty of flexibility, without particularly resembling spells, as proven by vestiges. You don't say "My action this round is to bind Acercerak", in the same way you might say "My action this round is to cast Web", or "My action this round is to manifest Energy Blast", or "My action this round is to initiate War Leader's Charge".

Another option, of course, would be something that you can use every round without limit (provided the tactical situation is appropriate for it), like a warlock's invocations or (surprise) a fighter's feats. In fact, a fighter's feats aren't even usually an action in themselves: They usually just take something the fighter could do anyway, and make him do it better.

[Covered In Bees]

Are you being deliberately obtuse? He said he didn't like it, and gave reasons why he didn't like it. How is his completely subjective opinion wrong? It's like he said he doesn't like the taste of spaghetti...are you going to tell him he's wrong?


From what I read of the ToB it seemed to basically say "Yeah, we messed up and made casters too powerful, here's a way of trying to put the melee characters on par with them."
But it didn't. It wasn't intended to fix casters or to bring melee characters to their level.


I was under the impression that the reason many people did not like playing non-casters was because they constantly felt overshadowed by the casters and their awesome powers. Is that not the case?
Well, since he asked, no, that's not it--or at least, that's just one part of the picture.

And then, "I have fun with it! Maybe you guys are just too used to video games."


You don't need to be his knight in shining armor. He can handle himself just fine. If he didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't be talking about it.

[Crow]

But it didn't. It wasn't intended to fix casters or to bring melee characters to their level.

Maybe, maybe not. Even if the intention was to just give melee characters the versatility that spellcasters had, there is no denying that it seriously increased their power level, which makes it very easy for someone to look at and say "Hey, they powered up the melee classes." Versatility equals power in 3.5, no doubt about it.


Well, since he asked, no, that's not it--or at least, that's just one part of the picture.

Maybe so, but I (and anyone else around here) have seen the occasional post about somebody being overshadowed while playing a melee character, and almost always, the second or third reply is to use ToB. It's a part of the picture, but if it's not convenient to your picture, it doesn't exist? Bottom line, there are people who like ToB because it helps melee characters to not be overshadowed so much by casters. For some this isn't the case, but for many it is, and it's a matter of versaltility equals power again.


And then, "I have fun with it! Maybe you guys are just too used to video games."

And I'm not defending that statement...


You don't need to be his knight in shining armor. He can handle himself just fine. If he didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't be talking about it.

...and I feel like talking about it. You don't need to be ToB's knight is shining armor. ToB can handle itself just fine.

[Gavin Sage]

Basically any system of special effects -has- to use that template for clarity. Trust me, I design a bit in my spare time, and I very quickly found that adapting the spell/power/maneuver/vestige/etc template is practically a necessity if you're creating a large set of abilities. That doesn't make those magic-like anymore than Warlocks are ranger-like.

I would argue that non-magical characters shouldn't have a "large set" of ablities to begin with.

At the end of the day there just only so much you can do with "I hit things with my sword" without lasping into some form of magic. This isn't to say that it should be just hitting things or a character should lack options, but there is a distinct diffence in my opinion. Modifications on the basic combat mechanic for example, or a handful of good options in battle but not a large variety of them.

Part of the problem is how more mundane manuvers in 3.5 like bull rushing or grappling are badly presented. Basic combat is either really really basic or is more arcane then the actual arcane. At least that's how I see it.

[Chronicled]

I would argue that non-magical characters shouldn't have a "large set" of ablities to begin with.

At the end of the day there just only so much you can do with "I hit things with my sword" without lasping into some form of magic.

:smallconfused: Why? Have you done any sort of martial arts, or learned the use of a medieval weapon? I have, and the number of unique things you can do is by no means limited to a small set (and I'm pretty sure I'm not using any sort of magic... I haven't checked, though). This is just some arbitrary decision on your part.


or a handful of good options in battle but not a large variety of them.

Hey-o! Someone just described a Warblade! At any given time, they've got a small number of cool, useful options--but they can switch these around with a bit of practice. Or in the case of a stance, as quickly as they can shift their body posture.

[Vortling]

Best Book: Tome of Battle. The maneuver and stance system works so very well and it makes melee characters less dependent on full attacks.

Worst Book: Drow of the Underdark. Did they *really* need their own book?

[OneFamiliarFace]

Best Book: MM III Great. Stuff. Nearly every monster was innovative, inspiring, and useful. When I would go out to a coffee shop to work on my campaign, this was often the only book with me. It was even slimmer than other books for easy travel.

Worst Book: MM II Man. It's kind of like a movie trilogy. You have MM I which is okay, has the basics, and sets the groundwork. And you have MM III which rocks your socks off with incredible special effects. And then there is that 2nd one. The middle movie that no one likes. The "Temple of Doom" of monster manuals if you will. Hey, it was good for a laugh and some knock off characters to try to revive in the 4th one, but no one would pick it as their favorite. That's MM II. It single-handedly broke the CR system. I heard it crack when I first opened the book.

Okay, so Temple of Doom was my favorite. But movies are different than Monster Manuals, okay?!

[Covered In Bees]

And I'm not defending that statement...
...you've just switched to arguing his points instead of arguing "well that's just, like, his opinion, man!"




...and I feel like talking about it. You don't need to be ToB's knight is shining armor. ToB can handle itself just fine.
You're really grasping at straws if you're suggesting that me vocalizing my disagreement with someone's opinion is the same think as you pretending you're standing up for him.

This started because you said "I'm the only one who rated ToB as the worst book, lay off him," remember? Then when I showed you that, actually, no, you're not, you switched to complaining that I'm oppressing poor Tormsskull by arguing with him. And now you've switched to just plain arguing with me. So what is it you want, exactly?
You've gone from telling me not to argue with someone because he's just expressing his opinion to attacking things I say. Oh, lawdy, is that some hypocrisy there?

[Knaight]

Maybe, maybe not. Even if the intention was to just give melee characters the versatility that spellcasters had, there is no denying that it seriously increased their power level, which makes it very easy for someone to look at and say "Hey, they powered up the melee classes." Versatility equals power in 3.5, no doubt about it.

You want to know what else dramatically increases versatality? 18 feats. Give a good optimizer the fighter class and complete warrior, and watch the fighter cut through martial adepts. Anyways, most of the powers are variations on "Hit someone really hard" ,"Hit someone really well" or "Hit someone very quickly". Desert wind and Shadow Hand notwithstanding, although those two actually are magical. Oh yeah and setting sun has a lot of "Throw someone very far" which is kind of like "Hit someone really hard", with the variation being that they go flying. That and various "Hit someone to buy time to make a nice defensive stance". Hardly magical.

The big difference is stances, which are pretty separate from magic anyways. Although they would have made good fighter feats too.

[Chronicled]

The big difference is stances, which are pretty separate from magic anyways. Although they would have made good fighter feats too.

Technically, a Fighter can take them via the Martial Stance feat, and they tend to be a good choice too.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Pretty off topic, but, although it can't really apply to this thread, as it would be hard to mention every 3e piece of work, didn't these forums used to have polls? I remember them being here about a year ago, then...just nothing.

[AstralFire]

Pretty off topic, but, although it can't really apply to this thread, as it would be hard to mention every 3e piece of work, didn't these forums used to have polls? I remember them being here about a year ago, then...just nothing.

There's a poll in Friendly Banter. I'm not sure what voodoo was used to do that. (I suspect it may have been restricted to limit the amount of server CPU stress?) Even so, there are way too many 3.x books to put them all on most polling systems.

[Myatar_Panwar]

There's a poll in Friendly Banter. I'm not sure what voodoo was used to do that. (I suspect it may have been restricted to limit the amount of server CPU stress?) Even so, there are way too many 3.x books to put them all on most polling systems.

But I'm pretty sure there also used to be a poll option for every forum section. Not sure why they decided to restrict it to random banter.

[Ponce]

Best: Spell Compendium and Tome of Battle
The spell compendium is really handy to have around. Much better than the other "compendium" books and very useful in-game. Yeah yeah, "casters are overpowered" and all that, but campaigns have casters, usually, and the SpC really cuts down on the paper work.
ToB has been mentioned many times.

Worst: Epic Level Handbook
It just doesn't work. I refuse to play or run epic levels, which is a shame because I'd really like to slay Demogorgon one day.

Honourable Mention: Tome of Magic
Yeah, didn't pan out so well, but it gets an "A+" for effort. I like what they tried to do. Binder's pretty good, at least.

Honestly, my biggest peeve is all the fluff that is stuffed in with every book. I find most of it rarely gets read. I understand that perhaps WotC may be trying to justify printing so many books by having this "lore" but I wouldn't be sad to see it all go. If I wanted fluff and campaign material, I'd get a setting book. CC is really bad when it comes to this. The "example builds" found after prestige classes seem to be a bit of a waste of space as well. They seem to have a reputation for being mechanically invalid and not very helpful.

[Deepblue706]

Best: Hard for me to really say. I'm a fan of Complete Warrior, Complete Mage and Complete Arcane (perhaps in that order?), mostly because I found them to possess the most interesting concepts. Never really cared about any lack of power in the content.

Worst: Probably gonna have to go with Epic Level Handbook on this one, for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else who shares this vote.

[Covered In Bees]

Oh man I forgot about the ELH when I was posted. That definitely gets my vote.

[AstralFire]

Oh man I forgot about the ELH when I was posted. That definitely gets my vote.

O_o;

Like half the first page was "Yeah this book is good OH AND THE ELH SUCKS".

[Chronicled]

But I'm pretty sure there also used to be a poll option for every forum section. Not sure why they decided to restrict it to random banter.

They're actually removed for all forums, but you can request one from a mod. See here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4685882&postcount=11) for details.

[Zeta Kai]

I should have added 1 more guideline:

Please, no arguing over other people's choices.

Too little, too late, I know.

[loopy]

I remember being very disappointed with the Complete Scoundrel, which was a shame considering that I pretty much only play Rogue types.

All I want is to play Silk from the Belgariad, dammit! Why won't you let me? (besides the fact that building him would take approximately 20 feats) :smallbiggrin:

[CASTLEMIKE]

I remember being very disappointed with the Complete Scoundrel, which was a shame considering that I pretty much only play Rogue types.

All I want is to play Silk from the Belgariad, dammit! Why won't you let me? (besides the fact that building him would take approximately 20 feats) :smallbiggrin:

One way to do it is to use the Feat Rogue Variant:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue

Then let him take Generic Class feats (Some will question if this is legal but it saves 6 feats :smallsmile:):

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#bonusFeats

+2D6 Sneak Attack, +3D6 Improved Sneak Attack, +4D6 Greater Sneak Attack.

Using the Psychic Rogue Variant which loses and delays a few feats for 15 first to fifth level psionic powers and 100 base PP at L20 could do the trick without a PRC.

FRCS has some interesting PRCs: PGtF has The Shadow Thief of Amn and some kind of Spymaster, Powers of Faerun has the Merchant Prince and the Unapproachable East has the Tefflammer Shadow Lord.

Making him a +0 LA Planetoucked "Dark" creature +8 Hide, +6 Move Silently, Hide in Plain Sight....... would certainly help (Might not be aware of his affinity).

[DownwardSpiral]

Best:Libris Mortis - Aw cmon, I'm only the second person to mention it? One of the only books I've read from front to back multiple times. Also? Necropolitains. Changed my life.

Honorable mention: ToB. Changed my DnD group.


Worst: .....It's kinda a toss up for me. I'll just echo the ELH thing I guess. xD

[Curmudgeon]

Best: Complete Scoundrel, because it introduced skill tricks, which add a new mechanic to the game that adds utility and flaver but they also work with all classes (unlike, for example, Incarnum or Tome of Battle).

Worst: Complete Champion. Just Pounce as a 1st level ability is enough to qualify this book as out of kilter, and that's merely the beginning.

[chevalier]

Best: Magic Item Compendium (no one else?) and Spell Compendium. We all love unique magic items (me especially) in my campaign, and this is the one-stope shop. Spell compendium is a very handy resource.

Not as bad for me as it seems to be for everyone else: DMGII. I found some of the magic items stuff, the saltmarsh section, and the list of NPCs and hooks to be useful.

Worst: Psionics, because we don't use it, Complete Psionics, b/c who really needs this, Nymphology (not WOTC) and the ToEF, because they're creepy rather than interesting or sexy. And Races of stone or the dragon just because they have no bearing in our campaign.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Best: Magic Item Compendium (no one else?) and Spell Compendium. We all love unique magic items (me especially) in my campaign, and this is the one-stope shop. Spell compendium is a very handy resource.



It's received mention in a few posts.

[hamishspence]

Spell compendium has a nasty reputation as unbalanced. however it does make for a source of interesting spells.

[expirement10K14]

Best: Hard. Probably Players Handbook 2. Three classes that rock, and one that doesn't, awesome alternate abilities and some awesome feats. The background/personality sections are a good way to get a base, and make for an interesting read. The Quick-NPC section is a lifesaver also.

Worst: Two. I hate the fact that Complete Divine was never completed (page numbers just say refer to page XX, not the actual page, shujenga table etc.) but I like whats in it. I really hated the Epic Level Handbook, most of the feats in it are mimicked or bested by a non-epic feat in 3.5.

[NobleSavage]

Best Tome of Battle: Party balance, swordy fun, etc. Everything everyone else mentioned.
Close Second PHBII: Gave more options without necessitating multi-classing. Really great feats/spells, too.

Worst Rules Compendium: Isn't that what the Errata is for? Aren't there enough mechanics clarification in the relevant books? I understand the need to get everyone on the same page with so many different authors, but Errata works nicely, and, worst comes to worst, your DM can just pick what he prefers. Usually happens that way in any event.

Close Second/Most Disappointing Spell Compendium: I understand this is mostly my fault, but it would have been nice to get all the spells printed previous to this book in here, you know? I still have to go hunting for the right book for certain spells.

[PhallicWarrior]

Best Book: Tome of Battle. It made melee fun again.

Worst Book: Complete Psionic It made Psions as overpowered as Wizards. Almost.

Honorable Mention For Worst/Most Awesome Book of 3.X: Epic Level Handbook. Horrible example of how the system breaks, irrevocably, after 20th lvl? Yes. Gateway to completely awesome things like swimming up a waterfall? Also, yes.

[Telonius]

:smallconfused: Why? Have you done any sort of martial arts, or learned the use of a medieval weapon? I have, and the number of unique things you can do is by no means limited to a small set (and I'm pretty sure I'm not using any sort of magic... I haven't checked, though). This is just some arbitrary decision on your part.

This wasn't directed at me, but I do want to say something about it. I haven't studied any martial arts, any more than I've cast spells like a Wizard. I can imagine maybe a dozen things that can be done with a sword. Thrust forward, slash in various directions (up, down, side to side, diagonally, forehand or backhand on any of that), parry somebody else's sword out of the way, hit somebody with the pommel, throw it at somebody.... and that's about it. So even though I consider myself a reasonably creative person, I can't come up with any more because I haven't studied it. Not everybody has that knowledge; I'm limited by it.

But practically anybody can come up with ideas for spells. They don't have to make sense, or be logical, or even have clear limitations. I can imagine dozens if not hundreds of ideas for things that could be accomplished by magic. Everybody has an imagination, and the imagination is the only limit on spells. So for me, Swordfighting is Green Arrow, while Magic is Green Lantern.

[AstralFire]

So for me, Swordfighting is Green Arrow, while Magic is Green Lantern.

It's funny you say that, because with "Boxing Glove Arrow" and "Fire Extinguisher Arrow" and "Buzzsaw Arrow", Ollie has been more consistently creative than several green lanterns.

'course, Kyle Rayner sorta stomps that into the ground.

[CASTLEMIKE]

There are hundreds of moves and attacks just in a sport like Judo based off Jujutsu partly because you start incorporating other moves into more complex moves and attacks. Pretty much the same for most martial arts. Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do and other martial arts like Kendo have various katas (ritualized dances incorporating various attacks and defenses).

[expirement10K14]

There are hundreds of moves and attacks just in a sport like Judo based off Ju jutsu partly because you start incorporating other moves into more complex moves and attacks. Pretty much the same for most martial arts. Karate has various katas (ritualized dances incorporating various attacks and defenses).

Jiu Jitsu is actually Judo recreated by the Gracie family, then refined by Helio Gracie to work better for weaker people, but your point stands.

Nevermind, different martial arts with similar names hurt my brain. I think you mean jujitsu- only one word.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Jiu Jitsu is actually Judo recreated by the Gracie family, then refined by Helio Gracie to work better for weaker people, but your point stands.

Judo (I earned a Brown Belt many years ago) is a lot less lethal than Jujustu (Don't want all the friendly competitors killing each other :smallsmile:) Neatest thing was I took it back up for a few months after a decade when I relocated near some of my old friends (3 All Black belts, the best had become a Sandan (3rd degree) and instructor but for all his skill he couldn't beat me in a refereed match because it is a sport and I had good balance and 80# on him (We only sparred after his students had left)). Now my karate buddy could kick me around the room because it is quite a bit more lethal and there was less of a size difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judo

[Telonius]

But to somebody who hasn't studied it, it's still two people either punching, kicking, or throwing each other around. I know that it's more complicated than that - obviously, or any schmoe could be a gold medalist in judo. But my point is that the uninitiated (probably 99% of the general population and well over half of the D&D population) won't know that. They'll only be able to describe things in very general terms. But with magic, 99% of the general population will immediately "get" it, and be able to come up with some creative things if you ask them.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Excellent point. Discipline of applying some logic and structure to an art (martial) to make it more effective (Helping you attack or control your opponent(s) better).

In gestalt it's also one of the reasons Warblade Rapid Recovery should apply to other Martial Adept class maneuvers IMO.

[Chronicled]

This wasn't directed at me, but I do want to say something about it. I haven't studied any martial arts, any more than I've cast spells like a Wizard. I can imagine maybe a dozen things that can be done with a sword. Thrust forward, slash in various directions (up, down, side to side, diagonally, forehand or backhand on any of that), parry somebody else's sword out of the way, hit somebody with the pommel, throw it at somebody.... and that's about it. So even though I consider myself a reasonably creative person, I can't come up with any more because I haven't studied it. Not everybody has that knowledge; I'm limited by it.

But practically anybody can come up with ideas for spells. They don't have to make sense, or be logical, or even have clear limitations. I can imagine dozens if not hundreds of ideas for things that could be accomplished by magic. Everybody has an imagination, and the imagination is the only limit on spells. So for me, Swordfighting is Green Arrow, while Magic is Green Lantern.

So... your lack of knowledge and creativity (seriously, there's a lot more I could come up with even before I started swordfighting) means that everyone else should be restricted to a few moves? Why not let the designers talk to the people who have studied it, and then convert what they're told into game mechanics? Heck, a lot of the ToB maneuvers aren't especially creative--the level 9 maneuver for Iron Heart is +100 damage to a single hit. Wow, that took a lot of thinking. Stone Dragon is almost entirely made up of a couple strikes that just get more damaging as levels progress.

As for anyone and their brother being able to come up with a spell but not a maneuver, that wouldn't be the case if either magic was expected to obey certain laws of physics, or martial maneuvers weren't. If by making a DC 50 Martial Study check I could use a maneuver directed at the ground to create an earthquake (similar to what epic spellcasters are allowed to pull off), you can bet the ideas for maneuvers would never stop coming.

[hamishspence]

thats why I wouldn't put Epic Handbook last: poor rules, sure, but some moments of awesome. I liked some epic creatures, though rules might be poor.

[LotharBot]

Top-tier books: Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic Item Compendium. These books are simply superb.

good books: MM3, Spell Compendium (if used with restraint), frostburn, stormwrack, heroes of battle, BoVD, Draconomicon

Average books: most of the "complete" series, most of the monster manuals, fiend folio

Below average: ELH (poorly balanced, and didn't have much of anything inspiring), MM4 (mostly just uninspired.) Though I think ELH gets a worse rep than it deserves because it was written for 3.0, and a lot of 3.5 power creep ended up replacing the things it did well.

[arguskos]

Best Book: Tome of Battle (for sure for sure, it's amazingly well put-together)

Worst Book: Epic Level Handbook (So. Poorly. Designed. Gah.)

Favorite Books: Spell Compendium, Complete Mage, Book of Vile Darkness/Exalted Deeds, and the Fiendish Codex's (1 and 2).

Least Favorite Books: Tome of Battle (it's just not for me, matter of taste I guess) and Expanded Psionic Handbook (same thing here, it's just not to my taste).

Note: Just cause I don't like the XPH or ToB doesn't mean I ban them in games (that's not cool now is it?).

-argus

[Chronos]

So... your lack of knowledge and creativity (seriously, there's a lot more I could come up with even before I started swordfighting) means that everyone else should be restricted to a few moves?Really, it depends on how you count distinct moves. I've got some karate experience under my belt, and I can think of close to a dozen ways of hitting people with my hands alone, plus probably that many more for feet, elbows, knees, etc. But in D&D terms, every one of those is just "Unarmed strike". Likewise, I know several different ways of getting an opponent to the ground (leg sweeps, arm twists, etc.), but they would all be translated to just "Trip", in D&D, and several different ways to grab an opponent, but they're all just "Initiate grapple". If you do know multiple ways of getting an opponent to the ground, then in real life, you're more likely to be in a situation where you can get one of them to work (since some of them sometimes work better than others), but that's probably just represented in D&D by things like Improved Trip and a higher BAB. Now, if you want, when you use a Trip action, you can describe it in-game as "I grab the back of his hand, and twist his arm around in such a way that he can't stay upright", or whatever, but the end result is still the same: You roll a die to see if it worked, and if it does, your opponent is now prone.

[Edan]

Best: PH2, made playing the game much more enjoyable. I would praise it over and over but it has been praised enough. Rule Compendium is a close second, having everything in one spot is fairly convenient, especially because it can be difficult to try to find that one errata or rule without internet access close at hand.

Worst: ELH. Big steamy pile of crap. It had a few good things in it, but mostly stuff that will never get used and is better house ruled away.

Favorite: I have to give a nod to Frostburn, I was addicted to that book. One of the coolest books in hit the market.

[Tokiko Mima]

Best: Tome of Battle - it took a bad system in D&D and made it really, really fun.

Worst: Weapons of Legacy - I really wanted to like this book. It was a great idea, but I could never see myself using it without extensive houseruling to make it worthwhile. It's unclear on several points, poorly put together and referenced, not developed sufficiently, and it's section on creating your own Legacy weapon is incredibly limiting.

[sonofzeal]

Best: PHB2, Dungeonscape, Tome of Battle, XPH, BoEF (even if it's 3rd party, it's still awesome)

Worst: Complete Champion, Tome of Magic, Complete Champion, Complete Psionic, Complete Champion.




I really can't stress enough how much I hate Complete Champion. Every time I open the cover I find something new that offends my sensibilities in brand new ways. Everything I see is ludicrously good, or ludicrously bad, or just plain ludicrous, and all of it is poorly written. There's no other book I'd even concider banning out of hand in any of my campaigns, but that one's on the blacklist.

[Gavin Sage]

Spell compendium has a nasty reputation as unbalanced. however it does make for a source of interesting spells.

Its no more unbalancing then the twenty or so books it draws from... just easier on the wallet. :smallbiggrin:

[sonofzeal]

On the "things you can do with a sword" debate....

I've actually studied several different style of sword forms (though not to the point of mastery), and there's a pretty good variety of things you can do with them. There's the obvious nine points of attack (downward, the two decending diagonals, the two horizontals, the two rising diagonals, the direct rising attack, and the straight thrust). The four diagonals and two horizontals are generally your "basic" strikes, and the various ways of performing them would be lumped under "I attack again", like Chronos's dozen different unarmed strikes. But downwards would be concidered "power attack", as it gets the best leverage and most power, benefits the most from two hands, and is relatively easy to see coming (hence a lower attack rating). Direct upwards slashes are very difficult to do properly, but also very difficult to block, and could belong in the "martial maneuver" category. Horizontal attacks by the face cause profuse bleeding even if they don't fully connect, and belong there as well, as could a good swipe for the legs to force them back (difficult without leaving yourself wide open). One of my favorite personal moves is a series of rapid strikes designed to push the enemy off-balance until one of them hits (possibly analogous to a "get one more attack, all attacks at -2" trick). Beyond that, there's a whole host of techniques that only come up in response to the opponent's moves, such as deflecting an enemy's downward attack to the side to give you momentum going into a diagonal attack of your own - in D&D terms, it would be gaining an AoO on someone attempting to Power Attack you.

So yeah. There's a lot of ways of doing "I attack again" depending on your school of swordsmanship, but also a lot of ways of doing things that require extra talent or training, but have more interesting effects. Not that D&D should try to simulate exactly what's possible - I prefer my games to be FUN on some level - but I have no problem with it providing for a host of different attack techniques that do different things.

[Swok]

That premise never seems to fly in gestalt when you want to throw in something like MT to 2 spellcasting classes for your PRC levels suddenly they are the equivalent of magic.

Alright, I don't want to start whatever debate this was a part of but...What the hell did you say there? I can't make any sense of it in context to what you replied to with it.


Best: My vote goes to ToB. It actually made me glad to like playing melee.


Worst: ELH for being a pile of poorly implemented trash. (dis)Honorable mentions to BOVD and BOED for critical overload of stupid in text form.

[Gavin Sage]

:smallconfused: Why? Have you done any sort of martial arts, or learned the use of a medieval weapon? I have, and the number of unique things you can do is by no means limited to a small set (and I'm pretty sure I'm not using any sort of magic... I haven't checked, though). This is just some arbitrary decision on your part.



Hey-o! Someone just described a Warblade! At any given time, they've got a small number of cool, useful options--but they can switch these around with a bit of practice. Or in the case of a stance, as quickly as they can shift their body posture.

I've fenced personally. And its not that there aren't any number of things to do in combat, but whether these demand special ablities to define their specific mechanics. I don't know that I want a kick from Muay Thai and one from Karate to be handled mechanically differently. Punches versus trips and throws could have differences, but even that I would hope would be more a variation on the basic combat mechanic.

And nothing in real combat resembles anime super-fu. Which where ToB is. And no matter how they are renewed, named or fluffed expendable powers with fancy names cross into magic territory.

I'm quite honest about my beefs with ToB being purely subjective. Its not that the ideas in it are so bad, they don't mesh well with what I feel D&D has established as its own paradigm. I'd play a campaign with the book, but not alongside the normal fighting classes. And maybe not alongside any of the core classes period. An eastern styled game that's d20anime is not something I'm opposed totally opposed, it is not the same as the wizards and warriors in D&D though.

[Covered In Bees]

I've fenced personally. And its not that there aren't any number of things to do in combat, but whether these demand special ablities to define their specific mechanics. I don't know that I want a kick from Muay Thai and one from Karate to be handled mechanically differently. Punches versus trips and throws could have differences, but even that I would hope would be more a variation on the basic combat mechanic.

And nothing in real combat resembles anime super-fu. Which where ToB is. And no matter how they are renewed, named or fluffed expendable powers with fancy names cross into magic territory.
Would you like me to show you how Tome of Battle represents, say, a fencer better than a normal melee class does? Because it does, and I totally will.

"Everything is just tripping and attack rolls" is a mechanically dull approach to combat. ToB is loved because it's fun to use as much or more as because of what it does for melee characters (I can build a hyper-optimized Fighter, but he'd be dull to play--and bog down gameplay to boot).


I'm quite honest about my beefs with ToB being purely subjective. Its not that the ideas in it are so bad, they don't mesh well with what I feel D&D has established as its own paradigm. I'd play a campaign with the book, but not alongside the normal fighting classes. And maybe not alongside any of the core classes period. An eastern styled game that's d20anime is not something I'm opposed totally opposed, it is not the same as the wizards and warriors in D&D though.
Tome of Battle is not "d20 anime". It is not "anime super-fu". Many Western sword schools, especially some of the Spanish ones, had very flowery names for things--and even the German ones had things like "the Fool's Stance" and the "Extended Guard of Wrath". What the Warblade does is hit things and be tough, which is pretty much the Western idea of the "Just That Good" swordsman in a nutshell.

Maneuvers do not have to have their names shouted out when you use them. They do not produce glowing special effects (except some of the Crusader's... because the Crusader is the Paladin analogue, fuelled by divine power... and the supernatural ones the Swordsage uses... because the Swordsage is a mystic warrior, like the monk with its supernatural abiltiies. The Warblade is the Fighter analogue).

A swordsman Warblade in Punishing Stance is probably using some variation of the Fool's Stance (http://www.angelfire.com/art2/longswordmasters/chapter7/chapter_7explainofguards_files/image013.gif).
If he's a fencer, his blade is out wide and he makes flourishing parries, baiting attacks.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

As a mention from someone who has a Warblade in a FR campaign right now, it has done, so far, nothing to make it seem 'anime' or 'magic' for my group. All they care about is I'm the furry meatshield for their delicate caster bodies, and I'm good at it. The only one who considers it magic is the DM, and that's just so he can try to keep IHS balanced. No one in the group has the impression that I'm anime.

[arguskos]

This is totally off-topic, but I had to ask:

I'm the furry meatshield
What race are you playing...?

-argus

[Covered In Bees]

This is totally off-topic, but I had to ask:

What race are you playing...?

-argus

Human. His character's a furry. :smalltongue:

[Deepblue706]

This is totally off-topic, but I had to ask:

What race are you playing...?

-argus

He's human, just with a few fetishes.

Edit: Damn you, Bees!

[arguskos]

Human. His character's a furry.
Ah... interesting character concept. Never run into a furry character before.

Anyhoo, aside over, continue with your regularly scheduled word wars.


Catfolk(RotW), thank you very much. My character is alternatively called Stripes, Fuzzy, Catman, and Tiger, depending on the player and the day.
And this is the sign I need more sleep, when I miss the joke. >_< *sigh*

-argus

[Colmarr]

Human. His character's a furry. :smalltongue:

I always thought that the "furry" was the object of affection (eg. catgirls), rather than the fetishist in question.

Learn something new and undesirable every day :smallsmile:

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Catfolk(RotW), thank you very much. My character is alternatively called Stripes, Fuzzy, Catman, and Tiger, depending on the player and the day.

[Gavin Sage]

Would you like me to show you how Tome of Battle represents, say, a fencer better than a normal melee class does? Because it does, and I totally will.

"Everything is just tripping and attack rolls" is a mechanically dull approach to combat. ToB is loved because it's fun to use as much or more as because of what it does for melee characters (I can build a hyper-optimized Fighter, but he'd be dull to play--and bog down gameplay to boot).

I've never been bored with Fighters in combat personally. Frustrated by the lack of skill points when I'm leveling up sure, but not bored with attacking the Dragon head on.

And I don't think any pen-and-paper RPG could replicate the feel of actual fencing. If I was to try I'd think it would have to be a martial arts RPG where the classes are things like "Western Saber" versus "Kendo" and making the subtleties of swordplay the focus of the games mechanics.


Tome of Battle is not "d20 anime". It is not "anime super-fu". Many Western sword schools, especially some of the Spanish ones, had very flowery names for things--and even the German ones had things like "the Fool's Stance" and the "Extended Guard of Wrath". What the Warblade does is hit things and be tough, which is pretty much the Western idea of the "Just That Good" swordsman in a nutshell.

Maneuvers do not have to have their names shouted out when you use them. They do not produce glowing special effects (except some of the Crusader's... because the Crusader is the Paladin analogue, fuelled by divine power... and the supernatural ones the Swordsage uses... because the Swordsage is a mystic warrior, like the monk with its supernatural abiltiies. The Warblade is the Fighter analogue).

You realize you undermined your whole argument by rather conceding how for 2/3 this is exactly the case. When its only for one out three cases not being magical I fail to see the point. Especially given the classes as I remember were more variations on a general system.

It might hold up if the different schools in ToB weren't presented rather like spells, down to the nine levels of them. In a common chapter list. And for that matter I recall there being overlap between the classes having some of the same schools. And of course there's still that whole 'expend and renew' angle to things. Thus making the entire argument to me rather like saying a Charm Person isn't magical while Magic Missile is, because the former doesn't produce a flashy light show.

And the book if I recall evokes Final Fantasy VII by name as one of its inspirations. Though I haven't looked at it in sometime since I don't buy books I don't like.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Did you just ignore my post? Beyond that, there are several "martial" classes in the PHB, and only 3(Rogue, Barbarian, and Fighter), don't have magic. The 1/3 of ToB not having magic is keeping with the norm for D&D, where every adventurer over 10th level has magic undies just in case they're ever attacked while sleeping.

[Covered In Bees]

I've never been bored with Fighters in combat personally. Frustrated by the lack of skill points when I'm leveling up sure, but not bored with attacking the Dragon head on.
I find "full attack, full attack, charge, full attack, move and standard attack, maybe mix some tripping in three" to be very dull, especially after getting used to ToB and 4E.


And I don't think any pen-and-paper RPG could replicate the feel of actual fencing. If I was to try I'd think it would have to be a martial arts RPG where the classes are things like "Western Saber" versus "Kendo" and making the subtleties of swordplay the focus of the games mechanics.
Tome of Battle sure as hell does a better job than normal melee, though. The swashbuckler gets... some bonus damage. Wooo.

The Nightmare Blade maneuvers can be fencing lunges. The fencer focuses, and strikes at the precise moment with perfect focus. If he didn't seize the right opening, the lunge isn't going to do much. Emerald Razor is a precise attack that slips through the flaws in armor, beneath a scale, etc. The saving-throw maneuvers are just a matter of willpower and focus. Most of the other maneuvers fit.
A "mundane" fencer just kind of stands there and stabs at his opponent a lot.
A Tome of Battle fencer is mobile (just as he should be), uses different techniques and maneuvers (just as fencers do), and his prowess is based on precision and focus (just as good fencers do). Occasionally he needs to pause to recover--just as a fencer recovers after a lunge or a bind or both people disengaging.


You realize you undermined your whole argument by rather conceding how for 2/3 this is exactly the case. When its only for one out three cases not being magical I fail to see the point. Especially given the classes as I remember were more variations on a general system.
No, here's what I pointed out to you:

CRUSADER = PALADIN: Paladins are magic. They have supernatural powers. They have actual, honest-to-god spells. The Crusader is of the same bent, but he's even less magical... and if you avoid things like Castigating Strike and Tide of Law (or whatever it's called), you can make a nonmagical Crusader.

SWORDSAGE = MONK: the Swordsage is a "blade wizard". He has pretty much all of the supernatural stuff in the ToB. The core monk learns to walk faster than people can run, talk to anything, teleport himself, touch someone and then make them die later, heal his wounds, and so on.

Nevertheless, it is possible to build a non-supernatural swordsage. Half of Shadow Hand is stealth/precision stuff, and you can use it for Shadow Blade. Skip Desert Wind, take Diamond Mind and Tiger Claw attacks, and you can have a fairly gritty infighter.

And, finally, WARBLADE = FIGHTER: this guy is Just That Good and Just That Hardcore. Take a look at Iron Heart--it's all "I'm so tough and manly" and "I'm so good with my weapon" stuff. Mithral Tornado? It's just Whirlwind Attack, people!

So why are you compraing the Swordsage to the core Fighter? That's like comparing an Enlightened Fist or an Eldritch Knight to one. The Tome of Battle classes are EXACTLY as magical as their core counterparts--if not less so.

Of the core classes, only the Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue have no supernatural abilities. The ToB classes are exactly as magical as their counterparts.


It might hold up if the different schools in ToB weren't presented rather like spells, down to the nine levels of them. In a common chapter list. And for that matter I recall there being overlap between the classes having some of the same schools. And of course there's still that whole 'expend and renew' angle to things. Thus making the entire argument to me rather like saying a Charm Person isn't magical while Magic Missile is, because the former doesn't produce a flashy light show.
"Nine levels of them" is the only similarity. You don't renew spells. As for what recovery represents? I'm gonna quote someone from the Wizards boards:


Recovery is an abstraction. In a real combat, you can't just use any technique at any time. Especially for the harder and more involved stuff, it is often the case that you have to be in the right position and so does your enemy relative to you. Otherwise it will be too easy for him to avoid or block your move. That's one reason why in real life you basically never see a martial artist do the same maneuver again and again, attack after attack. D&D doesn't deal with this level of positioning, the subtle distinction between a person holding themselves one way or another (especially after an attack). So the recovery mechanic is an abstraction of this. Is it always realistic? No, but it serves well enough. The Crusader and Warblade certainly have decent approximations regarding this. Note that you don't even need to view "recovery" for these two classes as something the characters are aware of; they are merely fighting and taking advantage of opportunities as they see them (it just so happens the warblade has a bit of a different style than the crusader, but the WB can recover with a full attack, so there's nothing that unusual in rounds of recovery).


Look, most maneuvers are, fundamentally, "I hit it harder/better".
Beyond that, Desert Wind is supernatural, but only the (mystical, monk-like) Swordsage gets it. Shadow Hand has supernatural maneuvers--but, again, Swordsage only.

"There are nine levels of it" is about the only similarity with spellcasting.


And the book if I recall evokes Final Fantasy VII by name as one of its inspirations. Though I haven't looked at it in sometime since I don't buy books I don't like.
Some of the book is inspired by Eastern stuff, although wuxia is a much closer fit than anime. 2/3s of it, at least, is inspired by Western stuff (the Crusader is a western-style holy warrior; the Warblade is just a more badass Fighter).

Tome of Battle is not "OMG SO ANIME". You can make a master fencer, a gritty, knife-wielding street thug with an infighting style, a powerful swordsman who has both strength and technique and can face many enemies at once. You can also make a samurai, a stereotypical ninja, or even a mystical warrior who teleports around and throws fire. But then, you can make a Monk who uses HADOKEN and SHORYUKEN, with the PHBII, and the core Paladin and Monk are explicitly supernatural.

ToB does not restrict itself to only the mundane, because D&D never has, but the Warblade is no less mundane, and no worse (and perhaps even better) at modeling combat than the "stand toe to toe and full attack, spam the same attack, like trip, over and over" of core fighters.

[Chronicled]

What's sad is that even after such a thorough, accurate, and well-written support of ToB (and Lord knows this hasn't been the first of them), there's plenty of people who will just cover their ears and chant "LOLWUT ANIME." And others who still wish that the core classes could have been "fixed" without a massive rewrite, not realizing that it was unfeasible and would have prompted even more griping from the fanbase, and then blame that lack of fulfillment on ToB (seriously, if it makes you feel better, rename the ToB classes "Paladin," "Rogue/Monk," and "Fighter/Barbarian"). Still others who think that the core rules descended from on high, and are never to be changed or added to in any way. And still others who think that because they're fine with their every turn, every combat, consisting of "I attack," that everyone else should be forced to play that way too.

So +1 to your post, Bees.

[Kyros]

Best: Stormwrack, hands down. It's the only book I've read that isn't just a bunch of recycled prestige classes, spells, feats, and monsters - it's basically go the "rules" for piracy.

Worst:
http://1d4chan.org/images/4/48/The_Book_of_Weeaboo_Fightan_Magic.jpg
Tome of Battle. It caused the annoying dual-katana wielding Mary Sue spawn.

[Covered In Bees]

Tome of Battle. It caused the annoying dual-katana wielding Mary Sue spawn.

What.

Because no one ever went "OVERSIZED TWF W/ BASTARD SWORDS, LOLOLOL" before ToB, right?

[Chronicled]

Tome of Battle. It caused the annoying dual-katana wielding Mary Sue spawn.

My sarcasm detector is pinging.

In case Kyros is serious: actually, the dual-katana wielding Mary Sue spawn rose from the twisted union of R.A. Salvatore novels and the Complete Warrior Samurai (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66567) class.

The only dual-wielding Mary Sues I've seen IRL stayed far away from Tome of Battle (One was quite the Japanophile: "Oh a Samurai class!"... and the character was a geisha beforehand [that was the extent of her backstory] :smallconfused:. She'd never heard of ToB, but since none of the classes are explicitly Oriental, would have passed on them. The other was a self-professed Drizzt fan, and the Dervish was his favorite PrC EVAR. ToB levels < Ranger levels, because Drizzt was a Ranger!).

[Cainen]

"Everything is just tripping and attack rolls" is a mechanically dull approach to combat. ToB is loved because it's fun to use

To be fair, that's largely a matter of opinion. ToB classes don't swing around iteratives and it's only really viable to do that around 6th level for the Crusader/Warblade - it undermines magic weaponry by reducing their effects to a single swat per round, and tossing dice around for extra damage isn't what I'd call reliable. Not only that, I've had more fun playing a combat rogue AND a plain fighter than I have had playing a Warblade even though I'm not more partial to any of the three as far as roleplay goes.

In all honesty, though, ToB is probably the best 3.X book, since it has a sad lack of any worthwhile Planescape material. Worst would be Champions of Ruin, since I found NOTHING related to the book's theme that I'd want to use at any point.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Tome of Battle. It caused the annoying dual-katana wielding Mary Sue spawn.

No, no, you're looking at R.A. Salvatore for that. Drizzt clones abound, especially after he releases a new books.

In addition, your post seems unusually... Venemous. Did Tome of Battle steal your bike, or something?

[AstralFire]

Anyone who uses a picture of Weeaboo Fightan' Magic outside of /tg/ is almost certainly joking.

The level of seriousness that this debate has taken on, even as one of the participants, is kind of amusing and the picture caused me to laugh and smirk. So here's to internet isn't serious business?

[Kurald Galain]

No, no, you're looking at R.A. Salvatore for that. Drizzt clones abound, especially after he releases a new books.

The news reports we have an 80% chance of afternoon drizz'ls,

[Covered In Bees]

No, no, you're looking at R.A. Salvatore for that. Drizzt clones abound, especially after he releases a new books.

I'm starting to think people make sneering comments about Drizzt clones just to feel superior to someone. I haven't seen one in years and years.

[OzymandiasVolt]

Best Book: Complete Mage. I am in love with the Ultimate Magus. Sure you're weaker in terms of highest spell level, but it gives you so many spell slots you can actually afford to spend them on trivial things for roleplaying reasons! Not to mention the interaction between the two classes involved for spontaneous metamagic. Also the sheer number of spell slots available increases the chances you'll have a desired spell available at any given time.

Worst Book: Epic Level Handbook. Seriously, it's like they had a few interesting ideas, threw together a rough draft, and then PUBLISHED IT.

[AstralFire]

I'm starting to think people make sneering comments about Drizzt clones just to feel superior to someone. I haven't seen one in years and years.

You know, I never thought about it before because I dislike FR, but I've never seen a single drow in any games I've played or DMed outside of the NWN series.

[only1doug]

You know, I never thought about it before because I dislike FR, but I've never seen a single drow in any games I've played or DMed outside of the NWN series.

during a ongoing campaign we found out one of our players who's original character had died had decided to play a drow...
Sadly the player wasn't very popular and now of us were inclined to like drow...
"hello, i'm...."
"A Drow, Kill IT!"
"...Aaargghhh"

(due to roleplaying reasons we cast identify on one of the magic items that his original character had started with (it cost more than his starting budget) so we called it the sling of Chee'Taar)

(this player was the reason we used dicecups for all roles in board games if he was playing)

[Drider]

Best for DMs Heroes of horror
Best for players Tome of battle
Worst I had to flip a coin for epic level hand book and weapons of legacy :smallwink: and it came up weapons of legacy.

Heroes of horror had a lot of fluff I liked, and I <3 old horror movies. Tome of battle, because it made melee less boring.

[Walken]

I am seeing a lot of hate towards Complete Champion, the variants in there are great, the Ranger Variant, Champion of the Wild is great for RPing a character that doesn't like magic. No magic but you get bonus feats, may be weak in comparison, but it's fun.

[DigoDragon]

The news reports we have an 80% chance of afternoon drizz'ls,

Okay, I had to LOL at this one. :smalltongue: Funny.


Okay, based upon what I use the most and least from my modest collection of books--
Best 3.X book: Players Handbook 2. There really isn't anything new to add, I think everyone else has pretty much named all the finer points of the book (i.e. new options).

Worst 3.X book: Epic Level Handbook. I've used it... once? I was the DM at the time too. Most of the feats & stuff are "Meh" and the few really neat things don't seem so powerful as to warrent needing you to be epic level. And really how often will I use this thing as a player? So it'll probably be sitting on my shelf for years before it gets used again. :smallsmile:


Other good books I like using a lot are Races of the Dragon (yay kobolds!), Spell Compendium, and Complete Warrior. But I stand by my vote above. Now I like Complete Divine, but dang that book is littered with errors. :smallredface: If there was any book that could benefit from a correctional reprinting...

[AstralFire]

I am seeing a lot of hate towards Complete Champion, the variants in there are great, the Ranger Variant, Champion of the Wild is great for RPing a character that doesn't like magic. No magic but you get bonus feats, may be weak in comparison, but it's fun.

Spontaneous Domains. L1 Pouncing Barbarian.

Yes, C. Champion has some good, but...

[hamishspence]

Yes, Underwhelming writing style counts more for me than overpowered or underwhelming (or both) rules. Which Is why I prefer fluff-heavy books (Draconomicon, Lords of Madness, Libris Mortis, BoED, BoVD) to less interesting ones, even if rules make more sense.

Epic manages to be both overpowered and underpowered at the same time, but the moments of interesting writing prevent me from placing it near the bottom of my list.

[DareTheRogue]

Best:Heroes of Battle This book has been nothing but a blast, it opened a whole new idea to the war would to games, and players and GMs I have played with all equally liked it. Dragon Compendium would be MY ALL TIME favorite, but I can not call it a try D20 Book, cause it is really just a magazine collection, but a book that makes my players forget there are wizards and play sorcerers is great to me.
Worst:ToB Unfortunately I never had a problem with the system till this book came out. My first experience with a optimized wizard and CoDzilla appeared with this book, when the melee character in the campaign out shined everyone for once, and in response accidentally was the only survivable one.

[Vexxation]

My first experience with a optimized wizard and CoDzilla appeared with this book, when the melee character in the campaign out shined everyone for once, and in response accidentally was the only survivable one.

Wait.
The party contained an optimized wizard and either a cleric or druid?

Optimized Wizard and CoDzilla, and they were out shined by a ToB melee class?

Either they weren't really optimized, or they weren't playing optimally.
But really, just because in one game there was one melee who was powerful, there's no reason to discount the entire book.

[Saph]

Wait.
The party contained an optimized wizard and either a cleric or druid?

Optimized Wizard and CoDzilla, and they were out shined by a ToB melee class?

Trust me, it happens, and it's not as rare as you seem to think. If you want a blow-by-blow account, I played a warblade in a short campaign a while back and wrote up one of the encounters in detail on these boards.

Since then, my group refuses to use ToB anymore. Sigh . . .

- Saph

[Tormsskull]

Its amazing how many people are super-protective of the ToB. If you like it, cool. If you don't, that should be fine too, right? I think the Original Poster even mentioned something along the lines of "No arguing with other posters about their choices." From what I can see, all the arguments are from people who profess it is impossible not to like the ToB.

[AstralFire]

Magic is undoubtedly more b0rken technically, but you have to realize that not everyone - not even people who try to optimize, self included - has a talent for getting the most out of things. And I'm not even talking about theoretical optimization wordplay, I'm just talking about noticing killer combos or situations. Then add in the fact that you can never get laboratory conditions and the more spontaneous a class is, the better adapted it is to handle certain kinds of DMs/Adventures/lack of player foresight.

I have been in a gestalt optimizer campaign where anything went. I ended up having to scrap my Psion//Wilder because the Druid//Cleric, Sorcerer//Knight, Psychic Warrior//Swordsage and Wizard//Archivist were all feeling useless and completely outshined by me, like I was winning their entire encounters for them. (Granted, Sorcerer//Knight wasn't the best thing ever, but he was actually the only one keeping pace with me, oddly.)

I would say in your average play situation - or at least mine - ToB keeps up fine with a CoDzilla and the reality-warpers. Note that I am not invoking the Oberoni Fallacy since I am not saying that that makes magic's easy-abuse-for-power nature A-OK.


Its amazing how many people are super-protective of the ToB. If you like it, cool. If you don't, that should be fine too, right? I think the Original Poster even mentioned something along the lines of "No arguing with other posters about their choices." From what I can see, all the arguments are from people who profess it is impossible not to like the ToB.

I will not argue that we're largely a defensive lot on the whole. It's mostly the result of often having to fight to get people to even look at it, both on the internet and IRL. (I had to drag my group kicking and screaming into it as the DM - now the party thinks it's really cool, they draw up Swordsages and Warblades all the time and they do not ever recall putting up such a fuss. PCs, eh? :smalltongue:) So yes, we can be an awful pushy lot. Sorry.

[The Demented One]

For those of you keeping track at home...

{table=head]Name|Best|Worst
Book of Erotic Fantasy|2|0
Book of Exalted Deeds|0|3
Book of Vile Darkness|0|4
Cityscape|0|2
Complete Arcane|2|1
Complete Divine|0|2
Complete Champion|0|8
Complete Mage|2|1
Complete Psionic|0|5
Complete Scoundrel|1|1
Complete Warrior|1|2
Draconomicon|1|0
Dragons of Eberron|0|1
Drow of the Underdark|0|1
Dungeon Master’s Guide II|0|3
Dungeonscape|3|0
Eberron Campaign Setting|1|0
Elder Evils|0|3
Epic Level Handbook|0|17
Expanded Psionics Handbook|7|1
Fiendish Codex I|1|0
Frostburn|0|1
Ghostwalk|1|1
Heroes of Battle|1|0
Heroes of Horror|1|0
Iron Kingdoms|2|0
Libris Mortis|2|0
Lords of Madness|1|0
Magic Item Compendium|2|0
Monster Manual II|0|1
Monster Manual III|3|0
Monster Manual IV|0|1
Monster Manual V|1|0
Player’s Handbook II|15|0
Races of the Dragon|0|2
Rules Compendium|0|2
Savage Species|1|2
Spell Compendium|2|0
Stormwrack|2|0
Stronghold Builder’s Guide|1|0
Tome of Battle|29|3
Tome of Magic|1|3
Unearthed Arcana|1|0
Weapons of Legacy|0|7
[/table]

So, the consensus appears to be that the Best are Tome of Battle (29), Player's Handbook II (15), and Expanded Psionics Handbook (7); the Worst are Epic Level Handbook (17), Complete Champion (8), and Weapons of Legacy (7).

And an amusing side note: The Book of Erotic Fantasy beat out both Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness. Apparently, Sex>Good>Evil.

[AstralFire]

And an amusing side note: The Book of Erotic Fantasy beat out both Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness. Apparently, Sex>Good>Evil.

That is extremely accurate to how the average person under 40 thinks, I would say.

[Eldariel]

Although I'm fairly sure those two BoEF votes were "Worst", not "Best". At least I haven't noticed anyone naming it as the best (and if someone did...they wouldn't be long for this world)...

[The Demented One]

Although I'm fairly sure those two BoEF votes were "Worst", not "Best". At least I haven't noticed anyone naming it as the best (and if someone did...they wouldn't be long for this world)...
One was best, the other was unspecific but I'm guessing yes from context.

[Eldariel]

Oh my god. I have located the offenders. I think I have an axe to grind!

[Walken]

Best: I would have to go with Unearthed Arcana. Flaws, Traits, and Variants for pretty much everything under the sun including skills.

As for the Complete X books I would have to put them in a separate category. Scoundrel and Adventurer are great books, skill tricks, great feats, spells, PrCs and base Classes.

Worst: Epic Level Handbook. Good idea concept, horrible execution.

Worst Complete X: Psionic made Psionics way too... stuff

[Chronicled]

Best for DMs Heroes of horror

Heroes of horror had a lot of fluff I liked, and I <3 old horror movies. Tome of battle, because it made melee less boring.

I knew I was forgetting something! Heroes of Horror is an awesome book (even if I don't like how they did taint).

[monty]

And an amusing side note: The Book of Erotic Fantasy beat out both Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness. Apparently, Sex>Good>Evil.

Well, obviously.

[hamishspence]

Was BoEF WOTC product? I thought it was 3rd party (haven't got it, so cannot check. Wouldn't allowing it on list open gates to other 3rd party books?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Was BoEF WOTC product? I thought it was 3rd party (haven't got it, so cannot check. Wouldn't allowing it on list open gates to other 3rd party books?It was(by Arthaus, IIRC), but it is both referenced constantly, and has some fairly good mechanics and fluff. Better than a lot of WotC products, as this thread shows. Not my favorite book, but that's more due to a lack of usability than any inferiority of the BoEF itself.

[hamishspence]

so, most famous non-WotC 3rd ed book, for better or worse? or are there any others due to appear on list? (dragonlance campaign setting, or Tome of Horrors series)

[Thurbane]

Its amazing how many people are super-protective of the ToB. If you like it, cool. If you don't, that should be fine too, right? I think the Original Poster even mentioned something along the lines of "No arguing with other posters about their choices." From what I can see, all the arguments are from people who profess it is impossible not to like the ToB.
QFT.

ToB is a polarizing book for sure, but the defenders of it seem a bit overly zealous in telling others they are at fault for not recognizing that it is the best thing to hit 3.X ever! :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

I'm just worried that people are missing the fun that is the book - it's one of the best things to ever have enhanced our play experience and we want others to be able to enjoy of it too, especially if the reasons they aren't trying the book have something to do with misconceptions. Everyone I've first presented the book to has been reserved about it and everyone who's played a campaign or two with it has begun to love it.

[Neon Knight]

QFT.

ToB is a polarizing book for sure, but the defenders of it seem a bit overly zealous in telling others they are at fault for not recognizing that it is the best thing to hit 3.X ever! :smallbiggrin:

Attempting to paint one side in a different light than the other is, I feel, a mistake. The ToB/anti-ToB debate is no different than Pepsi/Coca Cola divide. Neither side is more or less zealous. Both sides are equally committed to their path, equally zealous in promoting/defending it, and equal in their non-understanding of the opposite view point.

For most people, ToB either clicks or it doesn't. Applying rational thought or logic to it is a waste of time.

[Covered In Bees]

Worst:ToB Unfortunately I never had a problem with the system till this book came out. My first experience with a optimized wizard and CoDzilla appeared with this book, when the melee character in the campaign out shined everyone for once, and in response accidentally was the only survivable one.

I find this... unlikely.

[Thurbane]

Wait.
The party contained an optimized wizard and either a cleric or druid?

Optimized Wizard and CoDzilla, and they were out shined by a ToB melee class?

Either they weren't really optimized, or they weren't playing optimally.
But really, just because in one game there was one melee who was powerful, there's no reason to discount the entire book.
I think what he is saying is that no-one in his group actually bothered taking an optimized caster until someone else took a character from ToB, and then took one because the ToB character was better than their un-optimized casters.

[Gavin Sage]

I find "full attack, full attack, charge, full attack, move and standard attack, maybe mix some tripping in three" to be very dull, especially after getting used to ToB and 4E.

4e is my now the single biggest reason for my loathing of ToB.



Tome of Battle sure as hell does a better job than normal melee, though. The swashbuckler gets... some bonus damage. Wooo.

I don't need to replicate an actual melee though, I like things like merely extra damage or bonuses to hit.


So why are you compraing the Swordsage to the core Fighter? That's like comparing an Enlightened Fist or an Eldritch Knight to one. The Tome of Battle classes are EXACTLY as magical as their core counterparts--if not less so.

I consider the differences between the ToB classes to be rather like the differences between Sorceror and Wizard. Maybe with Bards and Clerics thrown in. And while there are some meaningful class differences, they do not change the underlying nature of the system used. Which is an expy of magic focused around sword play.


"Nine levels of them" is the only similarity. You don't renew spells.

What the heck? Spell renewal is the reason adventurers spend more time sleeping in dungeons than in inns.

Also "I cast X spell" versus "I use X manuver" is incredibly similar when you are talking expendable powers. Simply because it doesn't take sleeping and study/prayer to restore a power doesn't change how alike the two are. For comparasion a Rogue doesn't run and have to recharge Evasion, and a Fighter doesn't run out of Power Attack.

The school of ToB are just like the schools of magic. As I recall brewing a Warblade that uses Desert Wind would be simply, switching out name and then going forward.


Some of the book is inspired by Eastern stuff, although wuxia is a much closer fit than anime. 2/3s of it, at least, is inspired by Western stuff (the Crusader is a western-style holy warrior; the Warblade is just a more badass Fighter).

Tome of Battle is not "OMG SO ANIME". You can make a master fencer, a gritty, knife-wielding street thug with an infighting style, a powerful swordsman who has both strength and technique and can face many enemies at once. You can also make a samurai, a stereotypical ninja, or even a mystical warrior who teleports around and throws fire. But then, you can make a Monk who uses HADOKEN and SHORYUKEN, with the PHBII, and the core Paladin and Monk are explicitly supernatural.

Indeed and you can make all such things in anime. While not everything in ToB is explicitly eastern, neither is everything in anime. You can put anime sensiblities onto a Western framework and setting. Mahou Sensei Negima does this. It still comes out rather a martials art sort of anime for all its main character being a wizard however.

(And okay maybe wuxia is closer, but this is a minor point to me. Crouching Tiger is not DBZ, but both of them are far from LOTR.)

And I kinda like the PHBII monk abilities, along with a similar system used for paladins. However as you note those are explicitly supernatural classes. Fighters of course are not, and the ToB classes push too much to be considered merely natural. If one wants to run a game based around everyone having super-powers of one sort or another, I can live with that. Its not something I feel fits a standard D&D game though.

So ToB does not improve or "fix" melee combat, it replaces it with a different system that resembles the magic system more then anything else. Thus basically make swordsmen into quasi-magic fighters, to close the gap with magic-magic wizards. Pretending its somehow not magic is far too hollow to me, which is why I find this nonsense in 4e about a "Martial power source" exactly that. Magic is magic, and if its eastern martial arts magic its still magic.

And in D&D I want my fighter to be badass normal of the group, the poor joe who's out of his league and doesn't have the fantastic/fancy to rely on... but endures by being quick or strong or just stubborn. (Which of course is a subjective desire, but so be it)


Attempting to paint one side in a different light than the other is, I feel, a mistake. The ToB/anti-ToB debate is no different than Pepsi/Coca Cola divide. Neither side is more or less zealous. Both sides are equally committed to their path, equally zealous in promoting/defending it, and equal in their non-understanding of the opposite view point.

For most people, ToB either clicks or it doesn't. Applying rational thought or logic to it is a waste of time.

I love wasting time personally. This exact point though is why I don't consider ToB to be the Worst book out there. Since its merits and flaws are (mostly) subjective to the person involved.

[Neon Knight]

*stuff*

You know, the particular thing that seems to be occurring with this thread isn't so much about differing opinions as about differing perceptions. Its almost as if we read two different books.


I like things like merely extra damage or bonuses to hit.

Sadly, these are not sufficient to correct the Fighter's problems. Unless you manage to get the power of a full attack on a standard action. Then we're talking. But that requires some homebrewin'.

Though, oddly, I seem to recall numerous maneuvers in ToB being little more than regular melee attacks with damage dice or modifiers attached. Bizarre.


The school of ToB are just like the schools of magic. As I recall brewing a Warblade that uses Desert Wind would be simply, switching out name and then going forward.

Home brewing which requires DM approval, like any homebrew. (Hopefully.)

Some schools of ToB are blatantly magical. The Crusader, is, after all, powered by divine magic, and the Swordsage is similar to the monk and hiz quasi-mystical leanings. The text and maneuvers available to these classes both directly support this.

The Warblade, however, does not receive maneuvers or abilities I would consider magical. (Note: There are probably a few Warblade maneuvers out there that are questionable, I will admit, but almost none brazenly break the extraordinary barrier as far as I know. And if you're going to complain about Tiger Claw, I'd like to note that the skill system lets you achieve ridiculous results on Jump checks already with Core Fighters.)


(And okay maybe wuxia is closer, but this is a minor point to me. Crouching Tiger is not DBZ, but both of them are far from LOTR.)

Query: Which LOTR do you refer to? I do not remember the text of LOTR being so specific as to spell out how its combatants fought. I remember it being vague. Perhaps they decided combat with ritual dancing, the winner getting to slay the loser with his weapon. If you are referring to the recent Peter Jackson movies, then that is you preference, but I will state that I believe both Core fighters and ToB can represent all 3 (DBZ,Crouching Tiger, and LOTR.)

I suppose this is a good lead in to the heart of my point. I practice an extreme form of mechanics/fluff separation. I believe almost any fluff can fit any mechanic; and any mechanic can be used to represent any fluff.

This comes in part from my freeform experience. I completely and throughly loved the freeform games I've played in. The realization that fluff and mechanics could be separated and exist completely independent of one another gave me a whole new perspective on verisimilitude.

To tell you the truth, I confess a belief that between the ridiculous number of spells and things like Reserve feats, one could create a spellcaster that could be effectively refluffed as a Fighter.


And in D&D I want my fighter to be badass normal of the group, the poor joe who's out of his league and doesn't have the fantastic/fancy to rely on... but endures by being quick or strong or just stubborn. (Which of course is a subjective desire, but so be it)

Bizarre. I have this desire too... but I use the Warblade to represent it.


I love wasting time personally. This exact point though is why I don't consider ToB to be the Worst book out there. Since its merits and flaws are (mostly) subjective to the person involved.

Actually, I love wasting time to. I didn't mean "Wasting" in the "making worthless sense"; I meant it in the "no one's opinion/outlook is going to change" way.

Every time I engage in these discussions I'm struck by how different the perceptions of the work are. You see and associate ToB with concepts and ideas that simply do not occur to me when I read the text. You always assume differences of opinion are merely differing emotions on the same set of data; but in reality, each side seems to perceive a different set of data.

[Thurbane]

*stuff*
That probably echoes my own opinon of ToB better than almost anything else I've read.

[Covered In Bees]

I don't need to replicate an actual melee though, I like things like merely extra damage or bonuses to hit.
Whether you need it or not, ToB replicates, for example, a master fencer better than core melee does. That's not a point against it.

You may like going "I attack at +25! 40 damage!" but for some of us that gets old.


I consider the differences between the ToB classes to be rather like the differences between Sorceror and Wizard. Maybe with Bards and Clerics thrown in. And while there are some meaningful class differences, they do not change the underlying nature of the system used. Which is an expy of magic focused around sword play.
Except IT'S NOT MAGIC. Most of the maneuvers are attacking with extra damage. The non-Supernatural maneuvers (that is, the vast majority) are not magic in any way, shape, or form.
A Warblade in Punishing Stance is not using magic. He's using a sword technique. A warblade using Sapphire Nightmare Blade is not using magic. He's focusing, and then striking suddenly when he sees an opening. This is not magic, nor is it "anime" (unless you can't stop yourself from yelling the name out). It's something a skillful warrior might do.

FFS, Strike of Perfect Clarity is just an attack flat bonus to damage. How is that magic? Because you can do it once before you have to recover it? You must not have read the post about what recovery represents, or you have some sort of mental block about "can't use it constantly = IT'S MAGIC, no matter what." I guess Barbarians and Rogues are magic, then.


What the heck? Spell renewal is the reason adventurers spend more time sleeping in dungeons than in inns.

Also "I cast X spell" versus "I use X manuver" is incredibly similar when you are talking expendable powers. Simply because it doesn't take sleeping and study/prayer to restore a power doesn't change how alike the two are. For comparasion a Rogue doesn't run and have to recharge Evasion, and a Fighter doesn't run out of Power Attack.
But a Barbarian runs out of Rage. A Rogue runs out of the Defensive Roll special ability. A Fighter who takes the PHB II combat focus feats runs out of Combat Focus.

"Doesn't take sleeping"? It can be done AS A SWIFT ACTION with an attack for Warblades. For Crusaders it happens AUTOMATICALLY.
This is IN NO WAY the same as expendable once-per-day spells. A Crusader can fight all day and never run out of maneuvers. Same for a Warblade--all he needs to do is attack normally and take a swift action to refocus/reposition.
Oh, but a wizard can take a Reserve feat and shoot lightning bolts out of his eyes every single round of a day. I guess since you can do that over and over it's not magic?

Maneuvers are melee attacks or things that enhance your melee attacks. They last 1 round, rather than being "fire-and-linger" like spells. You can use as many in a day as you want. The Warblade's maneuvers don't do anything a tough, strong, super-skilled swordsman couldn't do. So, HOW are they magic?


The school of ToB are just like the schools of magic. As I recall brewing a Warblade that uses Desert Wind would be simply, switching out name and then going forward.
The only similarity the schools have to the schools of magic is that they're a group of stuff lumped together. The ToB schools are tightly focused thematically, far more so than the slapdash.

"Schools of magic"?
Let's see.
-Desert Wind: this one is actually supernatural. Only Swordsages get it. Next.
-Diamond Mind: I've already shown you how this school is about focus, discipline, force of will, and extreme precision. What about these things is magical?
-Devoted Spirit: the Crusader's discipline. This contains equivalents of the Paladin's smiting and laying on of hands, but even the healing can, for the most part, be fluffed to be inspiration and morale. It doesn't need to, though--it's the Crusader disicpline. Crusaders are Paladins. What complaint applies to Crusaders that doesn't also apply to Paladins?

-Iron Heart: pay attention, here. This is the Warblade-exclusive school. It consists entirely of being really tough and being a good swordsman. The first-level maneuvers are "hit a guy better, but he'll hit you better too", "try to hit two guys as a standard action instead of one", and "a stance that lets you make yourself more vulnerable but hit harder, you know, just like real swordsmen used." Apparently, "hit a guy better" is now MAGICAL, folks.
The only thing you could possibly have an issue with in this whole discipline is Iron Heart Surge. This amounts to "being so manly you shrug off the ray of enfeeblement/pull yourself out of the Entangle/stop being Sickened through Sheer Force of Will". If you don't like it, don't use it. Later on, you develop such arcane, magical techniques as "learn to lunge farther" and "hit a wounded guy for more damage"! Wow, this is stuff only wizards could do, folks. Oh, wait. Maybe the really high-level stuff? "Be Captain America" and "extra-good Whirlwind Attack". The ninth-level strike? "Hit him really, REALLY hard. Like, really." So, Gavin, why don't you explain how doing this stuff makes a Warblade more magical than the Fighter?

-Setting Sun: grappling and super-judo. Did you know that knights learned wrestling techniques and ways of getting opponents down on the ground? Well, they did. Eastern? Yeah, this one more than most. Of course, only Swordsages (you know, the wuxia kung-fu inherently supernatural monk-like guys) get it. So... WHAT, exactly, is the problem?
-Shadow Hand: you're a ninja. Yeah, this one's eastern and supernatural... because it's for the Monk-equivalent class. Irrelevant.
-Tiger Claw: You get angry, attack savagely, and jump around! Oh no! That's so anime, just like a barbarian! With techniques like "full attack on a charge" and "a couple of extra attacks" and "brutally kill enemies to intimidate the others", this is just mundane swordsman stuff.
-White Raven: this is about tactics and working with and inspiring your allies. This is exactly as magical as the Marshal class.


God, it's like you just skimmed through the book once, saw "Swordsages can use Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike", and decided "man, this whole book is nothing but Anime Fighting Magic!"

Plus there were, you know, actual schools of swordsmanship, historically.

You're saying Warblades are magical because you can house rule that Warblades get Desert Wind? If you give them magic powers they'll have magic powers, geez.


Indeed and you can make all such things in anime. While not everything in ToB is explicitly eastern, neither is everything in anime. You can put anime sensiblities onto a Western framework and setting. Mahou Sensei Negima does this. It still comes out rather a martials art sort of anime for all its main character being a wizard however.

-Only a few things in ToB are explicitly Eastern.
-ToB is not animated in a Japanese style.
-It has no other commonalities with anime whatsoever
So, HOW IS ToB ANYTHING LIKE ANIME?
This is the EXACT equivalent of what you're doing: "Record of Lodoss War is an anime based on D&D. Therefore, all of D&D is anime, especially swordsmen and Fireballs."


(And okay maybe wuxia is closer, but this is a minor point to me. Crouching Tiger is not DBZ, but both of them are far from LOTR.)
D&D is absolutely nothing like Lord of the Rings. What's your point?


And I kinda like the PHBII monk abilities, along with a similar system used for paladins. However as you note those are explicitly supernatural classes.
PHB II monk abilities have HADOKEN and SHORYUKEN. But that doesn't strike you as anime? If monks aren't anime, why are Swordsages anime? If Paladins aren't anime, why are Crusaders anime?


Fighters of course are not, and the ToB classes push too much to be considered merely natural.
2 out of 3 ToB classes AREN'T considered merely natural. Compare the Crusader to the Paladin, the Swordsage to the Monk. If the Paladin and Monk aren't "anime and magic", how are the Crusader and the Swordsage?


A level 20 Fighter is doing completely physically impossible things all over the place, just as much as a Warblade is.


If one wants to run a game based around everyone having super-powers of one sort or another, I can live with that. Its not something I feel fits a standard D&D game though.
The Warblade doesn't have any "superpowers" the normal Fighter doesn't have. He's just mechanically more mobile and less vulnerable.
The Crusader has exactly as many "superpowers" as the Paladin.


So ToB does not improve or "fix" melee combat, it replaces it with a different system that resembles the magic system more then anything else. Thus basically make swordsmen into quasi-magic fighters, to close the gap with magic-magic wizards. Pretending its somehow not magic is far too hollow to me, which is why I find this nonsense in 4e about a "Martial power source" exactly that. Magic is magic, and if its eastern martial arts magic its still magic.
You have yet to say anything except "well, there's nine levels, and different disciplines" about how it's magic.
Hey, what if I created a series of feat chains, with nine levels of feat in each chain, to emulate German greatsword techniques (with their STANCES and MANEUVERS and different STRIKES), Spanish sword-and-cape fencing techniques, Italian fencing with its wider parries and quick shuffling footwork, Slavic mounted saber-and-shield fighting, etc? There'd be nine levels of them and different disciplines. CLEARLY MAGIC, right?

What Warblades do is not magic, in any way, shape, or form. You seem to be hung up on the idea that because they can't do it again every single round (even though they can still do it multiple times a fight), it must be MAGIC.
Barbarian Rage is now magic. The Rogue's Defensive Roll is now magic.

How about SKILL TRICKS? Those are once a minute/encounter. I guess they're magic, too! That's right, folks: jumping off a wall after you ran up it is now magic. So is being able to repeat a sound you heard, or get up from being prone quickly and safely.

ToB does fix melee combat. It does so by creating a more fun system that also fixes the problems melee fighters had. It does not resemble the magic system, and playing a "Steely Strike, Rabid Wolf Strike, Disarming Strike, Wall of Blades, recover and attack, Steely Strike, Rabid Wolf Strike, Disarming Strike, recover" Warblade is absolutely nothing like playing a spellcaster.


And in D&D I want my fighter to be badass normal of the group, the poor joe who's out of his league and doesn't have the fantastic/fancy to rely on... but endures by being quick or strong or just stubborn. (Which of course is a subjective desire, but so be it)

I love wasting time personally. This exact point though is why I don't consider ToB to be the Worst book out there. Since its merits and flaws are (mostly) subjective to the person involved.
You just described the Warblade. To the hilt. Except that the Warblade really DOES endure by being quick, strong, stubborn, and skilled, and the Fighter just kind of dies.

This whole "it's animu magic because there's nine levels of it and some of the explicitly magic classes in the book can do magic, even though the mundane class can't, and because you can't do it every single round, even though using the same move in a fight over and over makes no sense" thing? It doesn't make any sense.

[CASTLEMIKE]

My biggest issue with ToB is the base fighter classes didn't get any optional retro martial adept pick ups.

3 - 5 levels of base fighter class levels didn't translate to a single Warblade or Crusader or Swordage level one ability of martial maneuvers and recovery and the fighter classes had the same IL as full and partial casters with poor and average BAB.

4E has that kind of class conversion system.

[Covered In Bees]

My biggest issue with ToB is the base fighter classes didn't get any optional retro martial adept pick ups.

3 - 5 levels of base fighter class levels didn't translate to a single Warblade or Crusader or Swordage level one ability of martial maneuvers and recovery and the fighter classes had the same IL as full and partial casters with poor and average BAB.


Fighter adaptation for ToB: rebuild as a Warblade. Done.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Fighter adaptation for ToB: rebuild as a Warblade. Done.

So the fighter doesn't lose anything in the conversion (Treat is as Gestalt?) :smallcool:

[Covered In Bees]

So the fighter doesn't lose anything in the conversion (Treat is as Gestalt?) :smallcool:

Not flavor-wise, no. He'll lose some specific feats, but he'd be trading those in in any "Fighter adaptation to ToB".

[Frosty]

I see the Fighter and Warblade as fundamentally different classes. I'm not sure we need a conversion.

[Cuddly]

Best: ToB
Worst: PHB I
Yes, you read that correctly. Core is terribly terrible.

[Covered In Bees]

Yes, you read that correctly. Core is terribly terrible.

Not as terrible as the ELH.

[Thurbane]

Seriously, how can anyone see Inferno Blast and think anything other than DBZ? :smalltongue:

http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/832/832982/dragon-ball-z-budokai-tenkaichi-3--20071106111738652.jpg

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Best: ToB
Worst: PHB I
Yes, you read that correctly. Core is terribly terrible.There's a sig over on Wizards that reads something like "My Fighters are Warblades, my Wizards are Psions, my Sorcerers are Wilders, my Rogues are Beguilers. My Clerics are Favored Souls, my Druids are Spirit Shamen, my monks are Swordsages, and my Rangers are Scouts. Support balance, ban the broken core." I heartily endorse that opinion.

[Devin]

Inferno Blast is Desert Wind, right? That's the one that deals with fire.


And CASTLEMIKE, there are ToB-updated versions of Rogue, Ranger, Barbarian, and Fighter, along with an archery focused discipline called Falling Star. They're homebrewed, I think, but they're all on a wiki, even though it doesn't seem to be working right now.

[AstralFire]

Seriously, how can anyone see Inferno Blast and think anything other than DBZ? :smalltongue:

http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/832/832982/dragon-ball-z-budokai-tenkaichi-3--20071106111738652.jpg

Actually, the only one of the Z Senshi who ever use a firebased attack is Vegeta. For a single strike. Saiyan Saga, when Vegeta and Goku are facing off early on, promptly before Vegeta goes berserk and all "OMG HE'S AS STRONG AS ME". Goku very explicitly doesn't actually have nearly as high heat resistance as anything else, he gets out of lava very fast in the Frieza fight, and Vegeta's fire attack rips off his shirt as I recall. "Weeaboo Fightan' Magic", at least as it pertains to DBZ, is very explicitly inferior to actual magic for the most part, and is actually pretty limited to Zanzoken (Flash Step), a completely forgotten about charging pounce form (Wolf Fang Fist), Flying, beam attacks (Kamehameha, Dodonpa), more beam attacks (Kikoho, Makosen), more beam attacks (Kienzan, and Piccolo's Drill Beam, and etc), and towards the end a super punch (Ryuken/Dragon Punch).

I'm kind of annoyed I recall this with such clarity.

Frankly, you would be better off citing Rurouni Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakusho, or any of a number of anime that actually vaguely involve intellect in the fighting to get a real sample of Weeaboo Fightan' Magic - Sanosuke, Kenshin, Saitou, Aoshi and Shishi-O from RK or Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei and Kurama from YYH alone show more variation in fighting style per their respective sources than the entire Dragonball franchise does, which can actually be modeled extremely well under the "full attack full attack charge full attack" model, particularly by the Frieza Saga - the entire show at that point had devolved into a contest among the animators to see who could reuse their 10 seconds of frames in the most interesting manner, I am sure.

By contrast, amusingly, you can even describe the ones from RK -easily- with ToB - Shishi-O definitely uses some desert wind.

What's my point with this elaboration? If you're going to say it's all anime due to the wide variety of highly differentiated abilities that are only used once per fight, cite an actual anime that works on that model. There are plenty. DB/Z/GT are not three of them.

Why yes, yes, I -did- used to like anime. This was years ago though.

More over, Spellsword (3E) Fireball channel. Or that Duskblade spell. Or a spell storing weapon.

[CASTLEMIKE]

And CASTLEMIKE, there are ToB-updated versions of Rogue, Ranger, Barbarian, and Fighter, along with an archery focused discipline called Falling Star. They're homebrewed, I think, but they're all on a wiki, even though it doesn't seem to be working right now.

Thanks. ToB is a nice book. My only real issue with it (Personal Issue) is the base fighter classes (Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger) should have been tossed an "official" optional variant martial bone transitioning since they all have IL and Full BAB.

Well you guys bought this new book and George's F-10 died so he can start up a new Warblade -5, ToB PRC -5 but Nick your F-10 didn't die so at L-11 you can pick up Warblade -1 or a Martial Adept feat at L12.

Something along the lines of every 2 - 4 base class levels receives Manuevers Known and Manuevers Readied equivalent to a single level in the Bloodclaw Master PRC or 3 -5 base class levels pick up a level of Warblade MK and MR but using half base level for IL just like if adopting ToB.

[Devin]

These ones, I think, give up some of the original class features in exchange for some maneuvers. The ranger doesn't get magic, the rogue loses some sneak attacks, the fighter loses some feats, and the barbarian probably loses rage. I hope I'm getting this right.

[Thurbane]

Actually, the only one of the Z Senshi who ever use a firebased attack is Vegeta.
To be honest, I've only seen a collected total of about 15 minutes of DBZ - but people seemed to be blowing up the scenery with massive energy blasts left-right-and-centre. :smalltongue:

[AstralFire]

To be honest, I've only seen a collected total of about 15 minutes of DBZ - but people seemed to be blowing up the scenery with massive energy blasts left-right-and-centre. :smalltongue:

Well, to be blunt, that was pretty obvious. =p

But it's pretty much all bludgeoning damage. Or slashing or piercing in two particular cases. They don't have a wide variety of attacks, they do the same three, maybe four things over and over and over again. That's not Bo9S design -at all.- So I don't think of anything remotely like DBZ when I see Inferno Blast. I see the collected fury of the Sahara desert rising up and scalding foes with burning, slashing sand. I see an Arabian mystic knight. I see a Gish Wizard. I see the Human Torch. I do not see SSJ Goku.

[arguskos]

To be honest, I've only seen a collected total of about 15 minutes of DBZ - but people seemed to be blowing up the scenery with massive energy blasts left-right-and-centre.
Actually, they only really blow stuff up every few episodes, as the previous episodes are them "charging up" or whatever. :smalltongue:
/offtopic

-argus

[Thurbane]

Well, to be blunt, that was pretty obvious. =p

But it's pretty much all bludgeoning damage. Or slashing or piercing in two particular cases. They don't have a wide variety of attacks, they do the same three, maybe four things over and over and over again. That's not Bo9S design -at all.-
True, sounds more 4E. :smallbiggrin:

[AstralFire]

True, sounds more 4E. :smallbiggrin:

I never thought I would say these words. But.

"You have to watch DBZ."

Oh god, it makes me shrivel to think! But you will see what I'm talking about. The charging pouncing full attacks of "YAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAH" punches. And then the standing back machine gun (Rapid Shotting) of ki blasts "YAHYAHYAHYAHYAHYAH." Over and over and over. Followed by awed expressions as it is revealed to them that sounding like a broken dubbing tape as they do their worst impression of a martial artist didn't actually kill the opponent, like it has failed to do every time they've used that technique.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

No offense to the fans of the show(well, offense to those who watch the dubbed version, the subs are pretty good), but I always felt Naruto was modled fairly well by monks with a few dips into other classes. Some Ninjas aren't(Garra), but a lot of them seem to have the ability to "Run fast, jump far, and hit fast".

Core is far more anime than ToB, IMHO.

[CASTLEMIKE]

It's an entertaining anime. I thought they should all have a level of Barbarian possibly the Horse totem variant for all the running they do along with Scout?Druid for the way they run through the trees.

Shadow Sun Ninjas with Warblade (Naruto he probably has something like a Variant of the Unholy Scion template and Mortally Possessed by a Demipower/Demon Lord Imprisoned as a Rider) and or Swordsage.

Most of the Ninjas are probably Gestalt Psychic Warriors (Using Wisdom) or the Variant Psychic Rogue (Using Int) and Naruto is an Educated Wilder (Using Charisma) because his chakra was forced to develop with the Nine tailed fox imprisoned inside him.

[Swok]

There was a thread on the wotc boards (well, now the Gleemax boards) that modeled basically every character from Naruto with Psionics.

[AstralFire]

It's an entertaining anime. I thought they should all have a level of Barbarian possibly the Horse totem variant for all the running they do along with Scout for the way they run through the trees.

Shadow Sun Ninjas with Warblade (Naruto he probably has something like a Variant of the Unholy Scion template and Mortally Possessed by a Demipower/Demon Lord Imprisoned as a Rider) and or Swordsage.

Most of the Ninjas are probably Gestalt Psychic Warriors (Using Wisdom) or the Variant Psychic Rogue and Naruto is an Educated Wilder (Using Charisma) because his chakra was forced to develop with the Nine tailed fox imprisoned inside him.

My insecure and frail ego is mildly comforted by the fact that, although I can cite DBZ references at people on the internet while I'm yelling about D&D, I can't cite Naruto. :smallbiggrin:

...

:smallconfused:

...

:smallfrown:

...

I'm going to go cry to myself in the corner. :smalleek:

[ZekeArgo]

Man... I have always wanted to make a gestalt ninja/druid modeled around Kiba Inuzuka....

[CASTLEMIKE]

Bunches of places to watch it and other anime on the internet :smallsmile: and even get in a little reading if you don't speak japaneese.

[AstralFire]

Bunches of places to watch it and other anime on the internet :smallsmile: and even get in a little reading if you don't speak japaneese.

I don't actually have any interest in watching it, I was just playing that up for comic effect.

[Woot Spitum]

True, sounds more 4E. :smallbiggrin:Actually, DBZ combat reminds me more of 3.x combat: 2 hours of talking, debating, and strategizing in real time to get through 5 minutes of combat, a majority of which ends up boiling down to hitting the other guy with a melee attack.

[Gavin Sage]

You know, the particular thing that seems to be occurring with this thread isn't so much about differing opinions as about differing perceptions. Its almost as if we read two different books.

You seem more reasonable so I'll respond to you and save myself some time.

Anyways opinion flavors perception. I gave the book a read in the store then put my money where my mouth is... or in this case didn't. And I went in against the idea from a political perspective.


Sadly, these are not sufficient to correct the Fighter's problems. Unless you manage to get the power of a full attack on a standard action. Then we're talking. But that requires some homebrewin'.

Oh indeed there is a radical difference between fixing the fighter and replacing the fighter with an alternate class. ToB is the latter, I would rather get my DM to approve some bad ass custom feats to let the fighter attack and move if I'm out to fix fighters.

Though oddly in the game I played the fighters never had much problems with getting a full attack. Probably because we never used a grid, move and full attack isn't very useful when everybody is mostly stationary and movement is abstracted.



Though, oddly, I seem to recall numerous maneuvers in ToB being little more than regular melee attacks with damage dice or modifiers attached. Bizarre.

Yeah but I don't need a fancy name making it a special attack. The whole notion of special attacks period is pushing what I want in my D&D fighters. A Monk can get away with it, but while I don't dislike monks (don't know why really) I'd cry no tears if they never had been and never were.


Home brewing which requires DM approval, like any homebrew. (Hopefully.)

Some schools of ToB are blatantly magical. The Crusader, is, after all, powered by divine magic, and the Swordsage is similar to the monk and hiz quasi-mystical leanings. The text and maneuvers available to these classes both directly support this.

Well yeah, but so does using a non-core book strictly speaking. If the DM was inclined though I'm right that all it would take to make a Warblade blatantly magical is crossing out one school and writing in another. Right?

This is the point, its not simply the exact details that matter. Given that all the schools rely on the same underlying philosophy and not seriously differentiated into things fundamentally separate ideas... even if they are not all blatantly magical they amount to the same thing. All of them, as far as I'm concerned are built the same and rest on the same underlying philosophy. Even if Desert Wind didn't do fire damage, or didn't exist period, I would hold much the same opinion of ToB.

Its magic, magic different from Vancian magic to be sure but still magic. Only even arguing that its not is just exacerbating the any problems that arise with me. I can respect everyone being magical, just its not something I want shoehorned onto standard D&D. And praised as fix for flaws in the system. I can live and would even play ToB, just not in a standard game.

Part of the problem once again is because of D&D's magic system. Which is the root of all this anyways, if spellcasters weren't unbalanced to begin with then a lot more people would have been content with the fighter


Query: Which LOTR do you refer to? I do not remember the text of LOTR being so specific as to spell out how its combatants fought. I remember it being vague. Perhaps they decided combat with ritual dancing, the winner getting to slay the loser with his weapon. If you are referring to the recent Peter Jackson movies, then that is you preference, but I will state that I believe both Core fighters and ToB can represent all 3 (DBZ,Crouching Tiger, and LOTR.)

Well I well remember Legolas and Gimli orc killing game at Helm's Deep. And the Witch-King was taken down by a backstab to the leg to create an opening for Eowyn. And Boromir being hit by arrows and not, oh slicing them in half or something. So ritual dancing no.

And core fighters would have to stretch to get Crouching Tiger, probably not build-able without rolling really well to be able to spare some Int for skill points on top of the high Dex and decent Str and Wis. And I don't know you can argue to the point of say parrying a machine gun needles as opposed to dodging them. And DBZ though would need some kind of Gestalt to get enough boom spells going.

I don't think ToB could squeeze down to LOTR though, too stylized for classical fantasy fighting. You could retell certainly, but it would be shifting genres to a greater or lesser degree. (Though something like Dune wouldn't be a problem)


I suppose this is a good lead in to the heart of my point. I practice an extreme form of mechanics/fluff separation. I believe almost any fluff can fit any mechanic; and any mechanic can be used to represent any fluff.


This comes in part from my freeform experience. I completely and throughly loved the freeform games I've played in. The realization that fluff and mechanics could be separated and exist completely independent of one another gave me a whole new perspective on verisimilitude.

And I would contend that mechanics do stongly define the fluff. Not bind or confine, but still impact. Its deepens the class system by doing so, by making Rogue mean something about the character in a real way. When mechanics are all the same it lessens the distinction of classes at a metagame level.

And I do think most players engage in metagaming. It may not be obvious in ToB but in the rather tepid response to 4e I've seen plenty of complaints about the lack of class distinction. I think most of my argument for disliking ToB are maybe two steps removed from those applied against 4e. The metagame is not irrelevant. Not to me, and not to those I RP with most.

(Though I love free-form I think of it as separate much like I separate video-games and pen-and-paper. Each is distinct and the less cross-over between all three the better each becomes)



To tell you the truth, I confess a belief that between the ridiculous number of spells and things like Reserve feats, one could create a spellcaster that could be effectively refluffed as a Fighter.

I'd consider that a dismal Fighter, though a cool subversion of the squishy Wizard so long as its noted as a swordmage, magic knight, or some such. Or it would have to be a system where everybody has a magical basis to begin with. Like a Bleach style RPG though without normal humans existing period, and everyone not being hypothetically dead.



Bizarre. I have this desire too... but I use the Warblade to represent it.

Its just not enough, too fancy.


Actually, I love wasting time to. I didn't mean "Wasting" in the "making worthless sense"; I meant it in the "no one's opinion/outlook is going to change" way.

Okay not in this, but I've actually an seen internet debate change someones mind. Once. Partially.

(I do it more for personal enrichment, deepening my own views and philosophy.


Every time I engage in these discussions I'm struck by how different the perceptions of the work are. You see and associate ToB with concepts and ideas that simply do not occur to me when I read the text. You always assume differences of opinion are merely differing emotions on the same set of data; but in reality, each side seems to perceive a different set of data.

Nah opinions are generally formed in advance then merely reinforced via colored perception. The real trick is in accepting there is no such thing as an objective view. Take any three facts and any three people, and at least one of them will consider a particular fact more important then the other two.

(Which isn't the same as suggesting there is no objective truth, thus truth becomes subjective... which is ridiculous crap. Somebody IS wrong and somebody IS right. Its merely that we are as a collective are unable to perceive the one truth with clarity. Thus not being to sure in being right, while still taking a decisive stand. I digress though....)

[Covered In Bees]

This is the point, its not simply the exact details that matter. Given that all the schools rely on the same underlying philosophy and not seriously differentiated into things fundamentally separate ideas... even if they are not all blatantly magical they amount to the same thing. All of them, as far as I'm concerned are built the same and rest on the same underlying philosophy. Even if Desert Wind didn't do fire damage, or didn't exist period, I would hold much the same opinion of ToB.

Its magic, magic different from Vancian magic to be sure but still magic. Only even arguing that its not is just exacerbating the any problems that arise with me. I can respect everyone being magical, just its not something I want shoehorned onto standard D&D. And praised as fix for flaws in the system. I can live and would even play ToB, just not in a standard game.

How. Is. It. Magic.

So far, you have not been able to support this statement AT ALL, except to say "well, there's nine schools, that's kinda the same, right?"


Its just not enough, too fancy.
"Fancy"? He hits people. He shrugs off blows and spells. He hits people some more.

It seems you'd rather drone on about how if it has a name, OMG IT'S MAGIC, rather than try to support the statement (probably because it can't be supported), just like you've abandoned the "OMG IT'S ANIME" tack once you were shown that the Warblade doesn't actually do more than hit things and be tough.

I guess if the maneuvers were called "melee attack," "Stronger melee attack," "move and melee attack," "double melee attack," and so on, they'd stop being magic?

Is it just that you're unable to handle the idea of anything remotely abstract? In that case, explain how armor makes you harder to hit, rather than take less damage.

[Gavin Sage]

How. Is. It. Magic.

So far, you have not been able to support this statement AT ALL, except to say "well, there's nine schools, that's kinda the same, right?"

Because its stretches the suspension of disbelief in a manner that goes beyond the limits of non-magical ablity as relevant to the paradigm traditionally established by Dungeons and Dragons. Both via it mechanical structure and the effective results of said structure.

If magic was traditionally presented differently in D&D; it might hold up better. If the Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage were not variations on a common approach merely lacking a prototype base class to blatantly establish themselves as variations of each other; it might hold up better. If the schools were not nigh interchangeable revealing a common underlying principle regardless of whether it throws fire around or not; it might hold up better. Alternately if ToB used a system like the PHBII presents for Monk to trade Stun Fists for effects while inventing some suitably non-magical resource for a melee character; it *might* hold up better.

In short its the magic system merely re-fluffed and re-detailed to for a melee character, pretending its not magic. This is insufficient thus ruining my metagame experience when exposed to it... and I'm calling bull**** on that whole "its not magic deal" because it is for reasons deeper then what its flavor text might come out to. The destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. And loathe.

(By the way calm down a bit maybe yah? :smallconfused: )

[FMArthur]

Flavor? The flavor describes what the attack is doing, and outside of Desert Wind and Shadow Hand maneuvres (many of which actually are magical in nature), that flavor is saying that you hit them, or you hit them in the legs, or you try really hard and hit them.

Are you sure it's not just an unconscious reaction to seeing ordinary melee attacks given textual descriptions and level requirements that's making you think of magic?

[Da Beast]

If warblades are magical because you can house rule them to pick up maneuvers from desert wind, then Aren't fighters magic too? The main component of the fighter class is bonus feats. There are a couple feats that let you pick up low level spells as once per day spell like abilities (I think they're in complete arcane, but I didn't bother to check). They aren't on the list of bonus feats fighters can normally select but it's pretty easy to house rule them in. If warblades are anime supermen because you can house rule them to pick up desert wind and shadow hand maneuvers, then fighters are sorcerers.


In short its the magic system merely re-fluffed and re-detailed to for a melee character, pretending its not magic. This is insufficient thus ruining my metagame experience when exposed to it... and I'm calling bull**** on that whole "its not magic deal" because it is for reasons deeper then what its flavor text might come out to. The destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. And loathe.

Maybe you're on to something here. In fact, it turns out that wizards has done the same thing before! Look at the warlock. It gets a basic, unlimited attack. The only mechanic is role to hit, role for damage. The attack can't really be taken away and the damage dicer scale with your level. The warlock is nothing more than a reflavored monk who attacks at a range! I'll never be able to enjoy the warlock class again knowing that I'm just playing a monk with some BS demon pact flavor tacked on.

[Covered In Bees]

Because its stretches the suspension of disbelief in a manner that goes beyond the limits of non-magical ablity as relevant to the paradigm traditionally established by Dungeons and Dragons. Both via it mechanical structure and the effective results of said structure.
Barbarians can rage X/day, and once/encounter. Rogues can Defensive Roll X/day.

What do Warblades do that "goes beyond the limits of non-magical ability" established by Fighters and Barbarians (the guys that can jump off a cliff, twice in a row, just for kicks)?


If magic was traditionally presented differently in D&D; it might hold up better. If the Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage were not variations on a common approach merely lacking a prototype base class to blatantly establish themselves as variations of each other; it might hold up better. If the schools were not nigh interchangeable revealing a common underlying principle regardless of whether it throws fire around or not; it might hold up better. Alternately if ToB used a system like the PHBII presents for Monk to trade Stun Fists for effects while inventing some suitably non-magical resource for a melee character; it *might* hold up better.
But you still haven't said anything about how what the characters do is magic. I think I'm hearing "they use the same subsystem, therefore it's magic, which is... ridiculous.

The schools are not "nigh interchangeable", because their maneuvers determine WHAT THEY DO. A Desert Wind guy and a Stone Dragon guy do not do the same thing. You're saying that because one has a magical maneuver that lets him throw around fire as a standard action adn the other has a nonmagical maneuver that lets him hit real hard as a standard action, both are magic?


In short its the magic system merely re-fluffed and re-detailed to for a melee character, pretending its not magic. This is insufficient thus ruining my metagame experience when exposed to it... and I'm calling bull**** on that whole "its not magic deal" because it is for reasons deeper then what its flavor text might come out to. The destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. And loathe.
But it's not the magic system. You don't have a spontaneous/prepared divide, you don't have a list of daily effects, you can ready each maneuver once rather than multiple copies of the same spell, you recover a maneuver after you use it easily, but you have to rest to recover spells.
The only similarity is that there are nine levels of it.

I've already shown you how the system can represent melee combat as well as the core mechanics, or even better. And yet, "it's magic"?

So, anything with nine levels is magic, no matter what it is? A feat chain with nine levels would be magic?


I'm still waiting for you to actually lay out a REASON. You keep saying "it's magic", but all I can see from what you're saying is that "it's magic because it has nine levels and is divided into categories" and "it's magic because Desert Wind and Iron Heart use the same system." Are those really your complaints? HOW do those things make it magic, even though all Warblades to is fight well?

[Crow]

He explained his reason quite clearly. You are either choosing not to acknowledge it, or have honestly failed to understand it (which is fine). I think in the end, as with many other aspects of this game, it comes down to personal preference and subjective "feel". What feels right in your game is different from what feels right in my game. What feels similar (not THE SAME) to the vancian magic system to me, feels nothing like it to you.

[Gavin Sage]

If warblades are magical because you can house rule them to pick up maneuvers from desert wind,

An amusing case in different perceptions that Kasrkin was talking about. I love not even being in the same book as people never mind page... because this sentence of mine:

If the schools were not nigh interchangeable revealing a common underlying principle regardless of whether it throws fire around or not; it might hold up better.

And the previous like it about Desert Wind switching into a Warblade, has nothing to do with Desert Winds' details. Nor does it have anything beyond the superficial to do with homebrewing it onto a different class. It is expanding on my central theme of:

In short its the magic system merely re-fluffed and re-detailed to for a melee character, pretending its not magic. This is insufficient thus ruining my metagame experience when exposed to it... and I'm calling bull**** on that whole "its not magic deal" because it is for reasons deeper then what its flavor text might come out to. The destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. And loathe.

Special emphasis must be made on the second to last sentence. The specific effects do not matter terribly, because they don't change the core problem. That the schools of swords are interchanable between classes easily does not make one more magical (because I view every single one of them as magic to begin with) but is to draw a comparasion to the schools of magic, and their interchangeable nature. Observe:

Presented generally a common chapter arranged along nine levels from which one can pick techniques and then prepare, expend, and renew after. Heck if I recall correctly most cases even know more techniques then one can prepare at any given time fairly easily.

Does the above paragraph refer to Mages or ToB? I submit it applies to both nearly equally. As for the differences I reiterate, the destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. The differences are fluff and detail, both minor and umimportant to what is really going on.

[Covered In Bees]

If the schools were not nigh interchangeable revealing a common underlying principle regardless of whether it throws fire around or not; it might hold up better.
The only real underlying principle is "there's nine levels of this stuff, and you can get it back really fast after you use it".

Do you really mean to say that anything renewable with nine levels is magic? If I make a feat chain with nine levels, is it magic? If there were nine levels of Combat Focus (PHB II) feats, would they be magic?


Special emphasis must be made on the second to last sentence. The specific effects do not matter terribly, because they don't change the core problem. That the schools of swords are interchanable between classes easily does not make one more magical (because I view every single one of them as magic to begin with) but is to draw a comparasion to the schools of magic, and their interchangeable nature. Observe:
"Being magic or not has nothing to do with what happens in-character".

Wow.

[quote]Presented generally a common chapter arranged along nine levels from which one can pick techniques and then prepare, expend, and renew after. Heck if I recall correctly most cases even know more techniques then one can prepare at any given time fairly easily./QUOTE]
This is obviously ToB, not the magic system. Why pretend that "regain it as a swift action" is the same as "have to rest for 8 hours and spend an hour of prep time to regain it"? Mages prepare multiple copies of a spell and can't regain it without 8 hours' rest; Warblades use a single maneuver once, then another, then a third, then take a moment to reposition and refocus. By this reasoning, Barbarian Rage is a magic spell!

You're saying that anything with nine levels that isn't at-will is magic, no matter what the differences or the fluff are. That is incredibly, ridiculously arbitrary.

[Neon Knight]

Anyways opinion flavors perception. I gave the book a read in the store then put my money where my mouth is... or in this case didn't. And I went in against the idea from a political perspective.


I'm not quite sure if a certain set of preferences concerning a PnP RPG can be called a political motivation. Not objecting to you having that "political perspective", just to the terminology. It makes us sound like Republicans and Democrats, and I find that association distasteful.



Oh indeed there is a radical difference between fixing the fighter and replacing the fighter with an alternate class. ToB is the latter, I would rather get my DM to approve some bad ass custom feats to let the fighter attack and move if I'm out to fix fighters.

Though oddly in the game I played the fighters never had much problems with getting a full attack. Probably because we never used a grid, move and full attack isn't very useful when everybody is mostly stationary and movement is abstracted.


Hmm. Its not that odd, really. One thing I have always been uncomfortable about is the fact that the "DnD balance is borked" school of thought hasn't always acknowledged that the variable nature of DnD means that it is quite possible to play DnD and not experience certain problems.

For instance, the full-attack conundrum. A fighter usually fights three kinds of opponents:
1. An opponent who benefits from staying 5 feet away from a Fighter (i.e. usually a monster that has a better full attack than the Fighter. Because of the nature of CR and piling monster hit dice, late game monsters tend to be better at fighting than one fighter. And the stereotypical rogue and wizard don't want to get close to the LGM, leaving the cleric as the sole Fighter backup. Between his buffs and his spells, he often fairs better than the Fighter.)

2. An opponent who loses to the Fighter in melee, but has no better course of action to pursue (usually enemy NPCs with melee focused class levels of a level lower than the Fighter.)

3. Opponents who do not want to be in a melee with a Fighter. Late game, a disturbing number of these can evade the Fighter with superior mobility, and if worse comes to worse, taking a charge and an AoO is better than taking a full attack, unless you're facing a trip build/uber charger.

Now, I'd argue that Type 2 opponents are rare because building late game NPCs is a chore and a headache, but some games probably feature only Type 2 opponents, and the Fighter's weaknesses don't show up as often against them.




Yeah but I don't need a fancy name making it a special attack. The whole notion of special attacks period is pushing what I want in my D&D fighters. A Monk can get away with it, but while I don't dislike monks (don't know why really) I'd cry no tears if they never had been and never were.


I doubt many people would mourn the monk. A question: Do special attacks/complexity = magic/not being a badass normal in your eyes? Or is it a mere prefrence for mechanical simplicity? Or do simple mechanics = mundane and complex mechanics = magical?



Well yeah, but so does using a non-core book strictly speaking. If the DM was inclined though I'm right that all it would take to make a Warblade blatantly magical is crossing out one school and writing in another. Right?

This is the point, its not simply the exact details that matter. Given that all the schools rely on the same underlying philosophy and not seriously differentiated into things fundamentally separate ideas... even if they are not all blatantly magical they amount to the same thing. All of them, as far as I'm concerned are built the same and rest on the same underlying philosophy. Even if Desert Wind didn't do fire damage, or didn't exist period, I would hold much the same opinion of ToB.

Its magic, magic different from Vancian magic to be sure but still magic. Only even arguing that its not is just exacerbating the any problems that arise with me. I can respect everyone being magical, just its not something I want shoehorned onto standard D&D. And praised as fix for flaws in the system. I can live and would even play ToB, just not in a standard game.

Part of the problem once again is because of D&D's magic system. Which is the root of all this anyways, if spellcasters weren't unbalanced to begin with then a lot more people would have been content with the fighter


Oh, I think I see. Because the Warblade uses the same mechanics that represent something blatantly magical, it to is basically blatantly magical? I'm asking honestly, here. I want to understand what you're saying perfectly.

Because Iron Hand (a mundane discipline) uses the exact same system as Desert Hand (a magical discipline) the implication is that they, in the fluff, both have the same fundamental philosophy underlying them and are both magical (or is that taking what you're saying a bit too far/literally?)



not seriously differentiated into things fundamentally separate ideas


I think this is a key phrase. It seems that you require mechanical differentiation; for you, it does not make sense to represent two different concepts with the same system of mechanics. You view the mechanics as sort of the "physics" of the game.

That's okay. I accept that. I also accept that this fact makes ToB a poor choice for you and your game. In turn, I would ask you to accept that some of use view the mechanics as a game; used to resolve certain things in the fluff world, but not a direct representation of that game world; not the "physics", so to speak.



Well I well remember Legolas and Gimli orc killing game at Helm's Deep. And the Witch-King was taken down by a backstab to the leg to create an opening for Eowyn. And Boromir being hit by arrows and not, oh slicing them in half or something. So ritual dancing no.

And core fighters would have to stretch to get Crouching Tiger, probably not build-able without rolling really well to be able to spare some Int for skill points on top of the high Dex and decent Str and Wis. And I don't know you can argue to the point of say parrying a machine gun needles as opposed to dodging them. And DBZ though would need some kind of Gestalt to get enough boom spells going.

I don't think ToB could squeeze down to LOTR though, too stylized for classical fantasy fighting. You could retell certainly, but it would be shifting genres to a greater or lesser degree. (Though something like Dune wouldn't be a problem)


The dancing was a jest. :smalltongue: Although I would like to note that it never said how Gimli and Legolas killed the orcs, just that they had a game to see who could kill more. At least, from what I remember.

Like I said before, our differing ideas on what the mechanics represent is the key to our differing opinions on what the mechanics can do.



And I would contend that mechanics do stongly define the fluff. Not bind or confine, but still impact. Its deepens the class system by doing so, by making Rogue mean something about the character in a real way. When mechanics are all the same it lessens the distinction of classes at a metagame level.

And I do think most players engage in metagaming. It may not be obvious in ToB but in the rather tepid response to 4e I've seen plenty of complaints about the lack of class distinction. I think most of my argument for disliking ToB are maybe two steps removed from those applied against 4e. The metagame is not irrelevant. Not to me, and not to those I RP with most.

(Though I love free-form I think of it as separate much like I separate video-games and pen-and-paper. Each is distinct and the less cross-over between all three the better each becomes)


Like I said before (twice, now), our differing ideas on what the mechanics represent is the key to our differing opinions on what the mechanics do.

Also, the only tepid response I've seen are from people who were already cool or sour against it. I'm not challenging your statement; I'm honestly surprised you made it, as I have seen no evidence to support it. (That the overall response was tepid.)



I'd consider that a dismal Fighter, though a cool subversion of the squishy Wizard so long as its noted as a swordmage, magic knight, or some such. Or it would have to be a system where everybody has a magical basis to begin with. Like a Bleach style RPG though without normal humans existing period, and everyone not being hypothetically dead.


You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. Even though in the mechanics he would be casting a spell, I would describe him as swinging a sword in a completely mundane fashion, with completely mundane results such as causes lacerations in the enemy flash via the sharp edge of the blade. But to do the damage mechanically, I used the mechanics of the spellcasting system.

I'm talking about playing a Fighter in the fluff, but playing a Wizard in the mechanics.





Because its stretches the suspension of disbelief in a manner that goes beyond the limits of non-magical ablity as relevant to the paradigm traditionally established by Dungeons and Dragons. Both via it mechanical structure and the effective results of said structure.


Well, form your perspective the entire system might do so mechanically, but can you at least admit that some of the results are entirely mundane, and it is possible to use the system only to achieve mundane results?

No one says you can't break physics with ToB, just that not all of the material does so by default. The stuff that does is clearly labeled and for the most part separated from the non-breakage stuff.



If magic was traditionally presented differently in D&D; it might hold up better. If the Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage were not variations on a common approach merely lacking a prototype base class to blatantly establish themselves as variations of each other; it might hold up better. If the schools were not nigh interchangeable revealing a common underlying principle regardless of whether it throws fire around or not; it might hold up better. Alternately if ToB used a system like the PHBII presents for Monk to trade Stun Fists for effects while inventing some suitably non-magical resource for a melee character; it *might* hold up better.


I think you're stretching that interchangeability thing a bit too far. There's nothing preventing me from changing out the Fighter's bonus feat for sorcerer spells. Both are homebrew alterations.

Per the ToB fluff and rules, you can't switch out schools. It is suggested as a reasonable houserule or homebrew, but you still have to go outside of those rules and thus cease to be governed by them.


The destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. And loathe.

I understand. To us, the destination is all important, or the ToB path simply doesn't bother our sensibilities. I accept that, and I would like you to accept my position.

It's not magic to us, but it is magic to you. Whether it is magic or not is a subjective perception. What makes something magic to us is if it has magical fluff. What makes it magical to you is both fluff and mechanical differentiation.

You have to understand that this desire and need for both fluff and mechanical differentiation is completely alien to us, and that it might put you in a minority.


He explained his reason quite clearly.

The problem is his that reason is almost alien to us. It comes from a completely different mindset. That sounds like hyperbole, but I honestly felt like my mind was blown when I finally got what he was getting at. It was something that had never occurred to me and something that is simply a non-issue to me.

Its like... Growing up under Christianity, and then finding a belief system not based around dualism, something that doesn't concern two forces pitted against one another in a conflict for the universe, one exemplifying good and one evil. Finally understanding that good vs. evil isn't the big show for some people throws you for a loop. This is similar.

An aside: Gavin Sage, do you recognize varying levels of verisimilitude defiance?

For instance, Kung Fu Hustle and Hero are both wuxia (or at least wire-fu) films, but Hustle busts reality and physics in a much more obvious and explicit way than Hero. Are both equally offensive to you?

[Da Beast]

An amusing case in different perceptions that Kasrkin was talking about. I love not even being in the same book as people never mind page... because this sentence of mine:

If the schools were not nigh interchangeable revealing a common underlying principle regardless of whether it throws fire around or not; it might hold up better.

And the previous like it about Desert Wind switching into a Warblade, has nothing to do with Desert Winds' details. Nor does it have anything beyond the superficial to do with homebrewing it onto a different class. It is expanding on my central theme of:

In short its the magic system merely re-fluffed and re-detailed to for a melee character, pretending its not magic. This is insufficient thus ruining my metagame experience when exposed to it... and I'm calling bull**** on that whole "its not magic deal" because it is for reasons deeper then what its flavor text might come out to. The destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. And loathe.

Special emphasis must be made on the second to last sentence. The specific effects do not matter terribly, because they don't change the core problem. That the schools of swords are interchanable between classes easily does not make one more magical (because I view every single one of them as magic to begin with) but is to draw a comparasion to the schools of magic, and their interchangeable nature. Observe:

Presented generally a common chapter arranged along nine levels from which one can pick techniques and then prepare, expend, and renew after. Heck if I recall correctly most cases even know more techniques then one can prepare at any given time fairly easily.

Does the above paragraph refer to Mages or ToB? I submit it applies to both nearly equally. As for the differences I reiterate, the destination is irrelevant, its the path to there I care about. The differences are fluff and detail, both minor and umimportant to what is really going on.

The only problem is that the schools are not nigh interchangable and to suggest that they are shows such a profound ignorance of the actual mechanics that Ihave to wonder how you can even attempt to debate this. Furthermore, I'd like you to explain to me how all the schools are magic. Desert wind, shadow hand, and devoted spirite? Definitely. Setting sun? Not explicitly but it certainly pushes the boundries. Stone Dragon has a bit of vague analogies linking it to the earth but beyond earthstrike quake nothing jumps out as magical. Iron heart has iron heart surge which while I can see how it would bug people is not explicitly magical. Tiger claw is getting angry and hitting people fast. Diamond mind is all about mental discipline. White raven is all about tactics and inspiration. I can not for the life of me see how all of them are magical. Please explain it to me. You've been refusing to address this for pages. How is it magical beyond some vague similarities in the way the system is presented?

[Covered In Bees]

How is it magical beyond some vague similarities in the way the system is presented?

It seems like he really is saying that because there's (a) nine levels of it and (b)it's not all stuff you can *quite* use at will, it must be magic, because those mechanics inherently represent magical things.

Which... wow. Just wow.

[Neon Knight]

It seems like he really is saying that because there's (a) nine levels of it and (b)it's not all stuff you can *quite* use at will, it must be magic, because those mechanics inherently represent magical things.

Which... wow. Just wow.

Like I said earlier, to him the mechanics are the physics of the world. Mechanical differentiation is important. Because there is relatively little mechanical differentiation in his eyes between ToB and Vanican magic, the two are very similar and basically the same.

Because there is little to no mechanical differentiation between the magical and non-magical parts of ToB, the method to achieve them must be similar.

This is radically different from my way of thinking, wherein mechanical differentiation is not required. Fluff differentiation is all that matters in my way of doing things.

Neither method is more valid, but his method does have problems with ToB, while mine doesn't. That's fine, so long as neither of us try to make value judgments about it.

For the record, I have as much problem with his way of doing things as he does ToB, but I don't see that as requiring hostility or belittling things. If someone tried to force my games to work on his method, I would loathe it as much as he does ToB. We're both equal here.

EDIT: An Alternate explanation.

In the equation M(F)=R, m represents mechanics, f represents fluff, and r the result.

In my line of thinking, M = 1. Thus, fluff determines the result.

In his line of thinking, M has a different value that can affect the outcome of the equation.

[MeklorIlavator]

I believe that his point is that the mechanics, in their basic form, are interchangeable(which they are). Also, they share traits of the traditions magic system. To him, this means that they are all simply magic. He's not talking about specific disiplines, only about the group as a whole.

Granted, I think that basically saying that you can only use one system for one aspect of the game potentially harmful to the game. For example, look at the different forms of Magic. We have Arcane/Divine, Psioncs, True name, Shadowcrafters, vestige, and Incarnum. All these systems breed confusion, which is one thing that 4ed is trying to improve on(one might say they went a bit too far, but they were trying to improve), as everything uses the same system. I think my big question to Gavin Sage is why can only magic use similar mechanics?

[Da Beast]

I can accept that people don't like Tome of Battle because they dislike the mechanics. But does that really make it the worst 3.X book? It's a well made book that adds a lot to a game. I can't accept people calling it the worst out of all the books printed for 3.X when there are books out there like the 3.0 Psionics Handbook or Weapons of Legacy. No matter what your personal distaste for the book may be, it at least provides a worthwhile system.

Edit: I realize that Gavin never called Tome of Battle the worst book of 3.X, he's just the only person still arguing against it and made some comments I really disagree with.

[FMArthur]

Maybe it's the 'skilled professional' character type that might seem more like a trained wizard or something, rather than the natural talent or simple ordinary strength presented by the normal melee classes. Sometimes it's nice to play the simple townsman who happens to be pretty good with a sword, instead of the blademaster who trained for combat while still in the womb.

[Neon Knight]

Maybe it's the 'skilled professional' character type that might seem more like a trained wizard or something, rather than the natural talent or simple ordinary strength presented by the normal melee classes. Sometimes it's nice to play the simple townsman who happens to be pretty good with a sword, instead of the blademaster who trained for combat while still in the womb.

From my point of view, ToB can represent both of those concepts. But once again, my idea of what the mechanics represent may differ from yours.

[arguskos]

I can accept that people don't like Tome of Battle because they dislike the mechanics. But does that really make it the worst 3.X book? It's a well made book that adds a lot to a game. I can't accept people calling it the worst out of all the books printed for 3.X when there are books out there like the 3.0 Psionics Handbook or Weapons of Legacy. No matter what your personal distaste for the book may be, it at least provides a worthwhile system.
Well, given that "worst" and "best" are subjective, I can see how someone with Gavin's ideas about Tome of Battle would call it the worst book printed. Not saying I agree with him, but I can see how his mind works.

-argus

[FMArthur]

Well, given that "worst" and "best" are subjective, I can see how someone with Gavin's ideas about Tome of Battle would call it the worst book printed. Not saying I agree with him, but I can see how his mind works.

-argus

It's entirely possible he hasn't seen things like Epic Level Handbook and Weapons of Legacy. If you don't like the mechanics introduced in ToB, I can see that the entire book would be made essentially useless to you. If you don't like the maneuvre/stance system, even otherwise crappy books that introduced one or two good things would be of more use to you than the ToB. I still don't understand how someone can dislike the ToB, but I'm not sure it's worth trying to understand, either. :smallsigh:

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I'm still stuck on how he can see it as inherently magical because it shares some mechanics with the spellcasting system. Yes I don't like 4e because melee and magic characters function the same, but that's because I liked characters having varied mechanics, not because I see the Martial power source as magical just because it is a power source. If something is fluffed as completely non-magical, as 2/3 of ToB is, I don't see how it can be honestly considered magic without an inherent design flaw, which most agree ToB has almost none of.