The Age of the Warriors - a ToB expansion book idea

[I_Got_This_Name]

Alright. I'm waiting on permission from the writers of Ocean Tempest and Ocean Soul before I begin work. Also, if I have both PairO'Dice's and Fax's permission to use CC-BY-SA licencing, I'll be working on D&D wikia because it's more permanent and has nicer formatting, unless I can post it on the project wiki and have it look pretty.

Right now, the reorganization is looking like:
Martial Arts for people who live underwater (No supernatural abilities, doesn't help you become a water creature, instead expecting you to already be able to e.g. breathe water)
Supernatural discipline of the depths (Underwater-themed (su) abilities, some cold damage, helps you become aquatic; for instance Water Breathing and Freedom of Movement effects)
Supernatural discipline of the surface (Surface-themed (su) abilities, some lightning and multi-energy damage, doesn't help you become aquatic but gives you water surface mobility. Water Walk effects, but no Water Breathing. Key skill will probably not be Swim, but I'm not sure I want another Balance discipline, either).

I may add in more disciplines, maybe one themed after inland water or something; the archery refactoring split started with two disciplines and made three, and there might be enough misfit maneuvers to need a fourth.

Nothing in the refactor is named yet.

[Danzig]

I was asking over at the Lesser Disciplines thread about Rending Scream... You are aware that you're missing a maneuver at level 7, right? I noticed because I was compiling it into my own Age of Warriors for my own campaign, and I said "Hold up, this can't be right".

I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to make up another 7th-level maneuver, could it?

[I_Got_This_Name]

Missing a maneuver in that it only has one? I think when I wrote it it was supposed to be like Setting Sun, which also has only one seventh-level maneuver. Unlike Setting Sun, though, it doesn't cause rules arguments if you try to make it work as advertised.

I am reviewing and (occasionally) reworking the disciplines I've written, so this might change if I see a reason to.

[DracoDei]

Yeah, I already pointed out the "only one 7th level Setting Sun maneuver" thing to him in another thread... don't know why Setting Sun would cause rules arguments though (don't know much about such things, since I focus on Homebrew).

[I_Got_This_Name]

Hydra Slaying Strike prevents things from making a full attack

A hydra's ability to attack with all of its heads is debatably either a special full attack that they can also move with and use at the end of a charge, or a standard attack. So whether "Hydra Slaying Strike" actually does anything to hydras can break down into a rules argument. Not "should", not "will in most games", but "can".

[DracoDei]

Hydra Slaying Strike prevents things from making a full attack

A hydra's ability to attack with all of its heads is debatably either a special full attack that they can also move with and use at the end of a charge, or a standard attack. So whether "Hydra Slaying Strike" actually does anything to hydras can break down into a rules argument. Not "should", not "will in most games", but "can".

Ah, I see...

[DracoDei]

Right. We can try, at least.

Anyway, working on my own discipline again.
a) Would people think that a counter that replaced your AC with a bluff check result is overpowered, given that there's stuff like Glibness which make bluff checks really easy to optimize? Probably not, I think.
b) What would an appropriate level for that be?

I realize this is very belated and I may be ninja-ed so much it isn't funny, but...
I ran into the same problem... or actually non-problem, depending on your fluff... look at the exact wording on Glibness it only applies to convincing people you are speaking (or writing?) the truth. So, for instance, it doesn't apply to Feinting.

[DracoDei]

I have made a tiny but perhaps significant change to the Falling Anvil fluff in its own thread, bringing it more in line with what I have said in this thread.

[Iferus]

Having been bumped, I'll give a status update. I tried to put together a mass-wikidot-uploader using urllib and it isn't working. I copied the login cookie out of firefox, and matched the wikidot_7 token. Wireshark confirms they're being sent properly. I still get a permission-denied error.

I haven't had a huge amount of time to work on it, nor am I likely to over the next few weeks.

How are things coming along?

[dspeyer]

How are things coming along?

Got caught up in other stuff and forgot about this. I'll try to get back to it sometime soon.

[dspeyer]

Thought I'd let people here know, I started a PBP to test some of this. Here's the recruiting thread.

Yes, I'll get back to the uploading problem at some point. Python is seeming undiagnosable, but maybe javascript...

[DracoDei]

What ever happened with Hero's Edge?

[The-Mage-King]

What ever happened with Hero's Edge?

Unfortunately, I ran out of steam.

And good maneuver ideas.

I suppose that I should finish it, but... I still need maneuvers...

[Eldan]

In other news, I have begun work on Protean Blade, one of two planned Disciplines for my homebrew setting. The maneuver list is nearly written up and I'll probably post it in a day or two.

[DracoDei]

Unfortunately, I ran out of steam.

And good maneuver ideas.

I suppose that I should finish it, but... I still need maneuvers...

Well, I don't know if it would fit the discipline in the long-run, but just to get your juice moving you could do worse than to make the REST of Cloud Strife's limit breaks into a Strikes. Another thing would be some MORE lower level Boosts based in parkour (also known as Free Running) for bouncing up buildings in the levels before you just fly everywhere. Improved versions of "Surface Wrecking" could be good at higher levels (Stone Dragon has the "______ Mountain Hammer" series that just goes up in damage), these could increase in damage and range (remember, most individual strikes shouldn't scale with level). Do you have anything for cutting through a building to make it fall like a tree on a very large foe? You should probably also have a Strike or Boost that is EXPLICITLY supposed to be used for "Dungeon By-Pass" at high levels. IE lets you cut a huge tunnel through anything with hardness 8 or less (or maybe even 10 as a higher level version). Because if you can cut a building in half, going in a straight line towards the BBEG rather than bothering with corridors and rooms per se should be in there.

((Had to edit the above a lot... the original only showed I hadn't read the discipline very carefully.))

[The-Mage-King]

Well, I don't know if it would fit the discipline in the long-run, but just to get your juice moving you could do worse than to make each of Cloud Strife's limit breaks into a Strike. Another thing would be some lower level Boosts based in parkour (also known as Free Running) for bouncing up buildings in the levels before you just fly everywhere.

The first part, I did. I suppose I'll work on the parkour idea over the weekend...

[Eldan]

I also need some inspirations... I have levels one to five filled out, and some of the top levels as well, but I'm lacking a few things for the middle levels.

The idea of the discipline is that you transform your weapon into other weapons, or give it new abilities. What can be done here? On the low levels, it's pretty mundane, giving weapons reach, better crits, making them lighter, that sort of thing. What is there for higher levels? I have a few, but I need more.

[DracoDei]

Re-read my above (including the disclaimer). I am working on editing it further. Done.

[DracoDei]

STARTED to make this blank template for myself from a post by DragoonWraith (who did the basic 9). But after realizing I would prefer to do it in the Google-docs spreadsheet, I FINISHED IT for people who can't or don't want to edit the Google-docs thing.


(Discipline Name)
{table=head]Level | Strike | Boost | Counter | Stance | Other | Total
1 | | | | | |
2 | | | | | |
3 | | | | | |
4 | | | | | |
5 | | | | | |
6 | | | | | |
7 | | | | | |
8 | | | | | |
9 | | | | | |
Total | | | | | | [/table]




(Discipline Name)
{table=head]Level | Strike | Boost | Counter | Stance | Other | Total
1 | | | | | |
2 | | | | | |
3 | | | | | |
4 | | | | | |
5 | | | | | |
6 | | | | | |
7 | | | | | |
8 | | | | | |
9 | | | | | |
Total | | | | | | [/table]



*Goes off to make Google-docs stuff...*

EDIT: Ok, have completed the charts for the basic 9 plus Falling Anvil (although that may be out of date) and Chthonic Serpent.

Here is some data, some or all of which may have already been transferred to the spreadsheet: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=225

Help appreciated in filling out the tables, but I am also probably willing to take requests for which tables I might end up filling out next.

[DracoDei]

Done with Army of One's chart. I did it at this time because it is the first one alphabetically, and seems popular among the play-test group, so we may be discussing it soonish around here. I also note that at 7th level it has ONLY boosts (three of them)... not sure if lacking any strikes at that level is such a terrible thing (could be totally fine), but I thought I would mention it.

EDIT: Black Heron, Black Lotus, and a bit of Solarus Arcanum (just to finish out the data in one of my old posts) done... if you count the original 9, and lump the energy substituted versions of Desert Wind in with Desert Wind itself that means we are 20% done... so let's keep charging!

[DracoDei]

Blood Sage's "Twist of the Knife" is impossible to actually initiate... it should probably be an immediate action boost (or Swift with provisions for activating it in the middle of a full-attack, if you don't want them using it on AoO's).

Also, the fact that nobody objected to 6 out of 24(23 if you don't count the capstone) maneuvers being required to get the final maneuver makes me feel like maybe I ought to raise the pre-requisites for Falling Anvil's capstone (Unnecessary Burial) to 6, since it has 36 maneuvers not counting the ones that are only in play in games with the Sanity mechanic.

[DragoonWraith]

On Army of One: I've been playing a character using them in a game, and we've found several instances of "make a Skill Check versus a Save" that really shouldn't be there.

[DracoDei]

Blood Sage and Broken Blade (which was a good bit of work in terms of pre-requisites) brings it to 17 (counting the original 9). 25% complete!

Broken Blade is... a lot of work to meet the pre-requisites including having Tiger Claw's "Only one entry maneuver at first level" thing going on, and requiring maneuvers from 4 OTHER disciplines (pick any 4), to get either of the TWO capstones... then again, it has two capstones, and really tends to win duels with other martial adepts.

[JoshuaZ]

Broken Blade is... a lot of work to meet the pre-requisites including having Tiger Claw's "Only one entry maneuver at first level" thing going on, and requiring maneuvers from 4 OTHER disciplines (pick any 4), to get either of the TWO capstones... then again, it has two capstones, and really tends to win duels with other martial adepts.

Yeah I know there may be issues here. If people think they should be tweaked I'll do it. I suspect that other people here have a better idea of balance than I do.

[DracoDei]

Yeah I know there may be issues here. If people think they should be tweaked I'll do it. I suspect that other people here have a better idea of balance than I do.

I wasn't really expressing an opinion either way actually... just noting an interesting point or two to stir up thinking/discussion.

EDIT: A through Gentle Breeze complete... if my calculations are correct that puts us at 26 out of 61 or over one third complete... don't expect me to do ALL of the remaining work however.

EDIT^2: While working on the data for Gentle Breeze, I found that "Run on the Wind" was at a different level between the summary (note that the summaries are missing actual... summary) and the full version.

[DracoDei]

I saw another Anonymous user flit through... note that it is VERY possible for more than one person to be editing these documents at one time... the system is MADE for that (and even includes a chat side-pane option so they can coordinate their work).

EDIT: Just finished up Infinite Torment. It had a problem that I also ran into with Falling Anvil (If this not all just my imagination!). All of its maneuvers have the [Chaos] and [Evil] tags. So far so good evil. But, in keeping with a theme of corruption, the lower level ones don't have any alignment requirements(the requirements become progressively more strict as you get into higher levels). The value of this is pretty obvious. The problem comes in that in the Tome of Battle, on page... wait, I can't find it... is one really allowed to take maneuvers with an alignment that doesn't match your own, and even is opposed to it?! Oh well, since the specific over-rules the general, I guess Falling Anvil is good to go in either case (since I specified "Non-Lawful" as a pre-requisite for the maneuvers I think).

Now working on Iron Rain. Finished it

EDIT^2: Ride the Storm needs:

Initiation Action: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance

Except with the appropriate bolding.
Also, it seems like Flanking Shot either has a typo, or was moved to 2nd level but the summary listing was not changed to match. If one goes by its pre-requisites, it is PROBABLY the latter. Intercepting Arrow Kata is similarly missing a lot of boiler-plate.

EDIT^3:
Do my eyes deceive me, or are we lacking the Bow-backed Monkupine (and the equivalent Stone Dragon critter) from our list of monsters? If the author didn't want them in here, and I am just having memory phail, just tell me...

But what I REALLY can't figure out is why the Subra isn't currently on the list.

[DragoonWraith]

The problem comes in that in the Tome of Battle, on page... wait, I can't find it... is one really allowed to take maneuvers with an alignment that doesn't match your own, and even is opposed to it?! Oh well, since the specific over-rules the general, I guess Falling Anvil is good to go in either case (since I specified "Non-Chaotic" as a pre-requisite for the maneuvers I think).

Maneuvers do not, in general, have alignment restrictions. Specific maneuvers (like Doom Charge or Aura of Perfect Order from Devoted Spirit) list an alignment in the Prerequisite section, however. That is how that restriction should be handled.

Also, why does Falling Anvil require non-chaotic? They seem chaotic more than anything else!

[DracoDei]

Also, why does Falling Anvil require non-chaotic? They seem chaotic more than anything else!

Because I got bashed on the head by the typo fairy while making the post you are referring to? Should have said "Non-LAWFUL"... which is what the stuff for the actual discipline says. Edited now.

EDIT: Lost Lyrics ALSO doesn't match between the summary and the full text... see this is why I tried to have people PEACH the summary before I ever posted the full text... not that they really did anything with that, but at least I tried.

[DracoDei]

Now being more selective, going with what is getting play-tested/is especially popular AFAIK, rather than just going alphabetically...

Scarlet Bravura and Witch Razor done... I am pretty sure all the maneuver counts by level match up between the summaries and the full lists, but in Scarlet Bravura I found a typo in the header for "Risky Gambit" which is a four level boost. It is missing "Prerequisite:" before the listing of the prerequisite.

[DracoDei]

Posting this here before I forget. dspeyer, you might want to think twice before looking, since this might concern OOC knowledge from the POV of the arsonist:

Spoiler

Show

This has come up in the Zany side of the test campaign (posts 13 and 14). No arguing going on (I may have been the only person to note this). But with Moment of Weakness does the foe know that if they miss the AoO they don't get their Standard action next turn? It should probably state explicitly either way.

With a calculated appearance of weakness, you attack a foe, forcing them to overplay their hand. As part of this maneuver, you make a single melee attack against an opponent. If it hits, it deals an additional 5d6 damage. The attack provokes an attack of opportunity from the enemy you attack. If they choose to make it, but they miss you, they are unable to take standard actions for 1 round.

It was originally going to be a PM to The Demented One, but his mailbox is full.

EDIT: And it looks like someone is playing a Sublime Archer HERE (I don't know what other homebrew might be present in that thread). In any case, there might be some play-test data to be mined there (and in the associated IC thread of course).