Ranking the ToBs 9 disciplines

[Rahdjan]

Hey playgrounders,

I've been reading the ToB a lot recently and I was curious how everyone would rank the 9 disciplines. From what I can tell Diamond Mind seems to be the top ranked. It has some amazing abilities and it gets thrown around here for various builds. I would probaly guess Shadow Hand would be next but after that, I'm not so sure. I've only played one ToB character and that campaign didn't last long so I don't have too much experience.

Thoughts?

[mabriss lethe]

Depending on what, exactly, you're trying to do, Diamond Mind, Ironheart, and Devoted Spirit are sort of the Big 3. Tiger claw and White Raven are very close seconds. Setting sun, Shadow hand, and Desert Wind are at the bottom probably in that order. Stone Dragon is sort of the oddball. Mechanically, it's one of the weakest schools, but has a handful of gems that make it significantly more useful than Shadow Hand or Desert Wind (both of which suffer from the problem that large swathes of the monster manual are immune or resistant to their tricks.)

[Xerxus]

Devoted Spirit has its own schtick, as does White Raven.

[Lateral]

Hmm. Top would either be Diamond Mind or Devoted Spirit, followed by White Raven and/or Iron Heart. After that, probably Tiger Claw, then Shadow Hand and Setting Sun, with Stone Dragon and Desert Wind at the bottom. Like Mabriss said, though, there are oddballs- Shadow Hand and Stone Dragon both have some maneuvers that are unusually great and don't have stringent prerequisites. The Shadow Jaunt/Stride/Blink line, Mountain Hammer, Cloak of Deception, and Mountain Tombstone Strike come to mind.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Shadow Hand and Desert Wind are explicitly meant to be combined with a bunch of stuff from other disciplines ala Sword Sage, so they are in turn comparatively weaker. Devotee Spirit rocks up and down the world. Extraordinary healing? Yes please.

[Draz74]

Overall I'd say

1. Diamond Mind
2. Devoted Spirit
3. White Raven
4. Tiger Claw
5. Iron Heart
6. Shadow Hand
7. Setting Sun
8. Stone Dragon
9. Desert Wind

... but just ranking them by number is kinda misleading; things are more complicated than that. For one thing, these 1-9 ranks aren't evenly spaced; #1-3 are all really close together; there's a small but significant gap between #3 and #4; #4-7 are all really close together; and #8-9 are significantly weaker than all the others (but still far from worthless).

White Raven always has a handful of awesome maneuvers that are worth cherry-picking, but the rest of its maneuvers can vary between "meh" and "AWESOME!" depending how many other melee-fighting characters are in your party.

Tiger Claw obviously is more restrictive than most of the other disciplines, in terms of what fighting styles allow you to take full advantage of it.

Of course all disciplines have some better and some worse maneuvers, but IMO Iron Heart has a bigger disparity than any other discipline (except probably Shadow Hand). People often classify it as one of the strongest disciplines, but I think when they do so they are ignoring a fair number of Iron Heart maneuvers that are really quite terrible. People just get excited about the better Iron Heart maneuvers and start thinking that the whole discipline is that strong.

Shadow Hand is one of the weaker disciplines in combat overall, but its out-of-combat utility is unmatched (teleportation, invisibility).

Stone Dragon gets significantly better if terrain, houserules, or other situations guarantee that its "must be in contact with the ground to use these maneuvers" restriction won't come into play.

Desert Wind gets significantly better if houserules or other situations guarantee that it won't just become ineffective whenever a fire resistant monster pops up.

[Shining Wrath]

Which discipline you want depends on what you want to do, and which class you are in, as not all classes have access to all disciplines.

The best single maneuver, IMNHO, is Time Stands Still, the Diamond Mind capstone. Two full attacks = WIN.

The crippling thing about Stone Dragon is that you have to be standing on the ground to use it. Depending on DM, you can't even use it standing on the floor.

The crippling thing about Desert Sun is that it is so fire-centric and so many things are fire-resistant.

I don't much care for Setting Sun, but I can see a use for it.

The other six are pretty close together depending on your build.

[Starbuck_II]

Desert Wind gets significantly better if houserules or other situations guarantee that it won't just become ineffective whenever a fire resistant monster pops up.

What about the Desert Wind move that grants an extra attack or extra reach? Works vs fire resistant creatures.

[Shining Wrath]

What about the Desert Wind move that grants an extra attack or extra reach? Works vs fire resistant creatures.

The First Level stance that makes you resistant to / immune to fire as your Tumble skill goes up is VERY tempting. It's the flip side of there being so many fire resistant creatures; there are lots of fire wielding creatures. Once Tumble reaches 20 you can take a full blast from a Great Elder Wyrm red dragon without harm, which is just nuts. Or walk through lava.

[Tokuhara]

I, having played all three of the ToB classes and used all 9 disciplines, I don't feel that "ranking" in a sense of saying Discipline X is better than Discipline Y in inaccurate. Considering that all 9 are reasonably powerful in their own style (Stone Dragon is a Damage Monster, Diamond Mind is great at striking things that normal melee types struggle with, Devoted Spirit is the pivotal "Tanking" discipline, etc.), you have to truly compare apples to apples here. Sure, Desert Wind isn't a damage-dealer's wet dream, but for sheer mobility, it's nearly unrivaled. Sure Stone Dragon has a really bad requirement, but you cannot fathom how useful getting past DR/Hardness can be for a melee type who may not have the gold to have a weapon of every material and damage type, giving the Stone Dragon expert an answer to 99% of all DR/Hardness obstacles (Constructs, Skeletons, Doors, Outsiders). And while Diamond Mind has the best overall skillset, I feel it's maybe a little too varied, meaning that a Warblade focused on Diamond Mind has a lot of situational maneuvers that it's sometimes overwhelming and making a basic melee attack is simply easier on the untrained mind.

However, having seen and used the system extensively, I find that ToB is excellent for filling niches ("Tank", Damage Dealer, Hit-and-Run Striker, Melee Controller) that the party is missing. If you have the stereotypical "Four Square," a ToB character can fit the 5th wheel very nicely, either by being a generalist (see Mo9 builds) or by being specialized to fit a niche the party needs (Say a flank-buddy for the rogue filled by a Desert Wind/Shadow Hand Swordsage or a Crusader "Off-Tank" to help the Knight/Paladin/Fighter). And that's to me what the Disciplines are: Ways to fill a niche. So in short, I refuse to "rank" the disciplines, because whether for fluff or crunch, each discipline has its place in a party. Heck, I'd love to run an "All ToB" party in an established adventure (say Emerald Claw in Eberron) and see how they fare.

[Draz74]

What about the Desert Wind move that grants an extra attack or extra reach? Works vs fire resistant creatures.

The First Level stance that makes you resistant to / immune to fire as your Tumble skill goes up is VERY tempting. It's the flip side of there being so many fire resistant creatures; there are lots of fire wielding creatures. Once Tumble reaches 20 you can take a full blast from a Great Elder Wyrm red dragon without harm, which is just nuts. Or walk through lava.

I explicitly acknowledged that Desert Wind has its uses regardless of the fire resistance issue. I just said it gets a lot better if you have a way of ignoring the fire resistance issue.

The Level 1 Stance is definitely a good example of Desert Wind utility that doesn't have a problem with fire-resistant foes. (Alas, I tend to have a hard time fitting this stance into any of my builds ... but that might just be me.)

The boost that gives you reach for a turn, actually, also changes your damage to fire damage for the round. I still like it, though.

The strike that gives you an extra attack ... I dunno, I've actually seen some mathematical arguments lately that it's pretty weak. Not sure how sound they were. So it might not be worthwhile regardless of fire resistance issues. (In a similar vein, I love Desert Tempest, which is not fire-based at all ... but if I'm honest with myself, it's rather weak.)

[Talionis]

Part of the confusion this post is causing is that characters are built to do different things. You'll notice you have several posts with only one list.

Even simply which discipline deals the most damage can be complicated. Do you favor single target damage or multiple targets? Do you care that a lot of monsters have immunity or resistance to fire damage?

Desert Wind and Shadow Hand provide excellent mobility. Shadow Hand is the only discipline that turns you invisible and intangible. If either of those things are important to you then it could easily be the best.

Divine Spirit and Iron Heart are the only two disciplines that provide healing (from memory).

Tiger Claw can add a lot to a person trying to make a Two Hand Fighter.

Shadow Hand makes for a very fun to play Rogue type of build, but would be less important to someone wanting to be a Fighter type.

Either way you quickly are weighing apples against oranges. It becomes not even what do you like or think is stronger, but "what are you trying to do?".

[Fouredged Sword]

Well, you have a couple of groupings here. Some schools are utility, others are movement, others focus on killing things. I think the schools should get rated 1-10 in each category and arranged based on that.

[Dusk Eclipse]

The First Level stance that makes you resistant to / immune to fire as your Tumble skill goes up is VERY tempting. It's the flip side of there being so many fire resistant creatures; there are lots of fire wielding creatures. Once Tumble reaches 20 you can take a full blast from a Great Elder Wyrm red dragon without harm, which is just nuts. Or walk through lava.

Actually you can do that when you get your first point of fire resistance, thanks to this gem

An immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. However, a creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava.

Linky

[Soranar]

tier 1 = always good
tier 2 = can be good in the right group/circumstances
tier 3 = has a handful of must haves but, overall, not that great
tier 4 = lacks the must haves, usually something more efficient in other disciplines


Diamond Mind tier 1

Best utility due to a good balance of defensive and offensive options

Devoted Spirit tier 1

Somewhat like Diamond mind but not quite as strong

White Raven tier 2

Requires a group of fighters to shine, very similar to inspire courage in utility (often paired with inspire courage in bard/sader bard/blade builds)

Tiger Claw tier 4

the jumping tricks can be good but are easily ignored for better, TWF is still a weak style of fighting

Iron Heart tier 3

has iron heart surge and other singular goodies but it's unlikely you'll take most of your maneuvers from this one

Shadow Hand tier 3

has assassin's stance which is crucial to many builds due to prestige classes requirements, has many unique abilities (teleportation, concealment) not that useful in combat oddly enough, something of a mixed bag

Setting Sun tier 4

giant killing stance arguably works with ranged weapons, making it rather unique, tripping with dex is still subpar though and normal tripping doesn't really deserve a whole discipline

Stone Dragon tier 4

just not that useful overall

Desert Wind tier 4

fire is the most resisted element in dnd, does provide a source of flanking for rogues though

[Kazyan]

A great way for any Swordsage to deal with the Desert Wind problem is to splash 3 or 4 levels of Spellthief, since it has other synergy as well. Steal energy resistance, man.

[Draz74]

Setting Sun tier 4

giant killing stance arguably works with ranged weapons, making it rather unique, tripping with dex is still subpar though and normal tripping doesn't really deserve a whole discipline

I disagree with a number of your rankings, but I'll just point out that you're totally missing the strength of Setting Sun. Tripping maneuvers are fun, but not truly optimal; but the ability to use Baffling Defense or Shifting Defense to just say "no" to a threat is the real power of the discipline.

[Fouredged Sword]

Countercharge has a place on every TOB build I make. It is simply worth a feat to get.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Stone Dragon tier 4

just not that useful overall

The Mountain Hammer line provides guaranteed DR pen and makes sunder great in adddition to doing solid damage. Honestly, having the ability to bypass rare DRs like Unholy, epic, and some of the material based ones makes Stone Dragon useful by itself. The fact it let's you auto quality for Stone Power is cool.

[Shining Wrath]

tier 1 = always good
tier 2 = can be good in the right group/circumstances
tier 3 = has a handful of must haves but, overall, not that great
tier 4 = lacks the must haves, usually something more efficient in other disciplines


Diamond Mind tier 1

Best utility due to a good balance of defensive and offensive options

Devoted Spirit tier 1

Somewhat like Diamond mind but not quite as strong

White Raven tier 2

Requires a group of fighters to shine, very similar to inspire courage in utility (often paired with inspire courage in bard/sader bard/blade builds)

Tiger Claw tier 4

the jumping tricks can be good but are easily ignored for better, TWF is still a weak style of fighting

Iron Heart tier 3

has iron heart surge and other singular goodies but it's unlikely you'll take most of your maneuvers from this one

Shadow Hand tier 3

has assassin's stance which is crucial to many builds due to prestige classes requirements, has many unique abilities (teleportation, concealment) not that useful in combat oddly enough, something of a mixed bag

Setting Sun tier 4

giant killing stance arguably works with ranged weapons, making it rather unique, tripping with dex is still subpar though and normal tripping doesn't really deserve a whole discipline

Stone Dragon tier 4

just not that useful overall

Desert Wind tier 4

fire is the most resisted element in dnd, does provide a source of flanking for rogues though

I'm going to argue with you about Iron Heart. While not every maneuver is a keeper, it has good defense (Wall of Blades, IH Surge, IH Focus) and good offense (Mithral Tornado, Finishing Move, Adamantine Hurricane, Lightning Throw). Some of the "utility" things are superior to the Diamond Mind counterparts; compare Dazing Strike to Disrupting Blow.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ratings, from best to worst: Purple, Blue, Green, Orange, Red

Strikes

DW: Terrible. Fire-based mostly. Has some decent utility, like the movement of the charge attacks or Desert Tempest's "attack EVERYONE."
DS: Healing strikes are helpful. Divine Surge is crazy damage for its level. Some of the charge attacks are pretty good. If only there were some more good strikes, it'd be higher rated.
DM: Great and numerous array of options for multiplying damage, using a skill check for it... Emerald Razor + Power Attack is divine. Best striking discipline.
IH: Early ones are all terrible. Late game it gets noticeably better.
SS: Throw maneuvers just really suck mechanically... Too low success rate for too little effect.
SH: Starts out poorly, but from level 3+, it gradually gets better and better.
SD: Very useful DR- and hardness-busters. Crushing Vise is 1 round of "no save, just lose" if you out-reach the victim. 9th level is cheap and easy, and gets better as your foes get tougher.
TC: Almost as good as DM. Tons of options, some doing pretty amazing damage. Pounce is great and combines w/ boosts for lots of attacks. Swooping Dragon is basically WR Hammer 1 level lower w/ a 5% failure rate. Caps it all off w/ a "die, or still get hurt bad" at 9th.
WR: WR Hammer and the Charge strikes are incredible. Like DS, only reason it's not rated higher is the small quantity of good strikes (but those few are very good!).

Counters

DW: Leaping Flame is a stand out, the rest just...isn't.
DS: The few it gets (shield block/counter) are nice. Just...so few.
DM: The save replacers alone make this a top contender.
IH: Lightning Recovery is the best counter ever! Oh, and there's some other nice counters here, too. Like Wall of Blades and IH Focus.
SS: Counter Charge is always useful, Fool's Strike is quite potent.
SH: One With Shadow is the only one it gets. Great counter, but... quantity matters a bit.
SD: WHAT?! DID YOU SAY STRIKE? YAH, I GOT ALL THE STRIKES YOU COULD EVER WANT, MAN!
TC: Can't I just kill everyone before they even do anything?
WR: What's a counter? You mean that thing I strategize battle plans on?

Boosts (+ unclassified maneuvers)
DW: Get a flanker, make your blade scorching hot or reach further... not bad at all.
DS: Defensive Rebuke is so lonely...
DM: Going first on round 2 and swift action moving 12 character levels after Sudden Leap, and nothing else. Can't be good at everything...
IH: Iron! Heart! Surge! ...Isn't enough to make this purple.
SS: Who needs boosts? I'm too busy countering to have a swift by the next round.
SH: Greater Invisibility and Ex teleportation are incredible.
SD: I have an over run thingy... Over Run's sort of like a Strike with your feet, right?
TC: Extra attacks, massive rend damage, swift moving right at 1st level... what's not to like?
WR: WR Tactics is the best maneuver in the game. Also have options to grant allies attacks or movement.

Stances
DW: Flame's Blessing is boring, but useful. The others are all the exact opposite.
DS: Every level of maneuvers has something amazing. Best standouts are Thicket of Blades and the law and chaos auras.
DM: Getting Blindsense is the star, here. The rest are fairly underwhelming.
IH: All of them are just "ok," albeit none outright suck, either.
SS:
SH: Sneak attack damage, near-constant concealment, Air Walk... need I say more? Even the bad stances are at least totally badass.
SD: Not only are almost all of these awful (Roots of the Mountain is pretty decent, to be fair)...they don't work off the ground and "turn off" when you move over 5 ft. Bleh!
TC: Getting plus 10 feet on jumps is quite nice. Hunter's Sense is impressive before Hearing the Air obsoletes it. There's also support for crit builds. The final stance could be very tactically useful.
WR: 10 ft stepping is pretty cool and a Scout's wet dream. Leading the Charge retains its value over all levels. The others are pretty forgettable.

[Draz74]

IH: Early ones are all terrible. Late game it gets noticeably better.

Steel Wind and Steely Strike are decent as Level 1 maneuvers go. Certainly become obsolete soon. Overall, you're right that Strikes aren't really IH's specialty.

SH: Starts out poorly, but from level 3+, it gradually gets better and better.

I'd say from Level 9+.

DW: Leaping Flame is a stand out, the rest just...isn't.

Zephyr Dance is awesome, if your DM announces the numerical results of your enemies' attack rolls (so you can know if an additional +4 AC would prevent the hit).

SS: Counter Charge is always useful, Fool's Strike is quite potent.

Both true (although Fool's Strike is better for a Mo9 build with great BAB). But you can't leave out Baffling Defense!

IH: Iron! Heart! Surge! ...Isn't enough to make this purple.

Iron Heart Endurance is good too. But still not enough to make this purple.

[StreamOfTheSky]

IH Strikes: No, I don't think those are good, even at level 1. Maybe Steel Wind.

SH Strikes: I meant maneuver level 3, if it mattered... Shadow Garrote is solid ranged attacking, Hand of Death is basically save or die... SH has some good mid level strikes. It just improves very gradually, while as IH goes from total s*** to "Whoa, Lightning throw does HOW MUCH damage *and* ignores AC?!"

Zephyr: IF you're allowed to know the result before using...

Baffling Defense: How well can you optimize sense motive? I figure the AC replacers (this includes Wall of Blades) are most useful for skyrocketing touch AC. But Swordsage tends to have good touch AC already, while Warblade does not. Also, you can use WoB after knowing the result, but not so for BD.

I like IH Endurance, too. But it's small potatoes compared to IHS, and the only other IH boost is pretty weak.

[Draz74]

IH Strikes: No, I don't think those are good, even at level 1. Maybe Steel Wind.

I wasn't impressed by Steely Strike either, until Saph ran the math on it and posted the results.

SH Strikes: I meant maneuver level 3, if it mattered... Shadow Garrote is solid ranged attacking, Hand of Death is basically save or die... SH has some good mid level strikes. It just improves very gradually, while as IH goes from total s*** to "Whoa, Lightning throw does HOW MUCH damage *and* ignores AC?!"

I meant maneuver level too ... but this is pretty much "YMMV." As you say, the improvement is very gradual.

Zephyr: IF you're allowed to know the result before using...

Which at the least means it's a great maneuver for NPCs.

Baffling Defense: How well can you optimize sense motive?

It's a skill. That means you can optimize it a lot. Probably more than attack bonus.

I like IH Endurance, too. But it's small potatoes compared to IHS, and the only other IH boost is pretty weak.

Yup. I just thought it warranted a mention, not a color change.

DW: Flame's Blessing is boring, but useful. The others are all the exact opposite.

Well played. SO true.

DM: Getting Blindsense is the star, here. The rest are fairly underwhelming.

Um, what? Stance of Alacrity is THE best stance in the book.

IH: All of them are just "ok," albeit none outright suck, either.

DR 5/- counts as "outright sucking" at Level 15.

SD: Not only are almost all of these awful (Roots of the Mountain is pretty decent, to be fair)...they don't work off the ground and "turn off" when you move over 5 ft. Bleh!

The one that gives you Constrict is great for a grappler, which admittedly is not what most ToB builds are going for.

[Gnome Alone]

Iron Heart has the maneuver that lets you destroy the sun, that seems pretty strong.

[INoKnowNames]

Iron Heart has the maneuver that lets you destroy the sun, that seems pretty strong.

On the other hand, it also triggers an Attack of Opportunity from you Dungeon Master, who may or may not drop an entire book-shelf on your head.

On the subject at hand, several of them are designed to do different things, and makes it hard to really judge them. I feel like I agree with Tokuhara. It's not like Diamond Mind is a Wizard being compared to the Stone Dragon Samurai (though that last one needs to be a character). While the general plan is to make people you don't like dead, each style is geared at doing different things. Comparing Apples and Oranges, after all.

... I would like the idea of several players, each focusing on a different discipline or two and fighting in different ways from each other...

[Divide by Zero]

Iron Heart has the maneuver that lets you destroy the sun, that seems pretty strong.

IH: Iron! Heart! Surge! ...Isn't enough to make this purple.

Iron Heart Surge is one of the best maneuvers in the book even with sane limits on its power, but it's also only one maneuver.

[Soranar]

First of all, I'd like to point out that tier 3 = has a handful of must haves

-meaning they grant abilities no other discipline does better

Sure, Iron heart has interesting abilities depending on your build. But, usually, it'll be 2, maybe 3 tricks (a counter , a boost or two)

But then you have to think whether meeting the requirements to obtain that maneuver is worth the trouble

You also have to consider when you get certain abilities

Tiger claw looks nice on paper, but the best abilities come so late in the game that they become obsolete

for example: pounce is nice, I agree, but I'll dip barbarian to get it at level 1 and I'll make a 2 hander build to go with it. I won't gimp myself by going the TWF route and wait till I'm level 9 to do it. You can still go the 2 hander route with a tiger claw build mind, but I'm not sure why you'd want to do this

and ,even with all the abilities granted by tiger claw, TWF is still inferior to a 2 hander build, you just do more damage with a lesser feat and maneuver tax, never mind the DEX requirements of TWF

For the same reason, shadow hand is strange

sure, teleportation is great (and so is concealment) but is it worth so many maneuvers to get? why not just use a magic item ? There's also the problem that you need to be a swordsage to use it

Now can you mimic a diamond mind ability with a magic item? This is also true of white raven abilities and devoted spirit abilities.

Setting sun , again, makes you play a swordsage. And I've yet to see a powerful setting sun centric build that was versatile, at best it's ok.

As for stone power, bypassing DR is nice and all, but simply doing enough damage to not care about DR is better than using mediocre maneuvers.

finally I tend to rate stances higher because they give a constant bonus but I agree certain boost and counters in IH are too nice to pass up. however I'm not sure they warrant that much of an investment in the whole discipline.

It's like saying a barbarian dip is great, but more isn't necessarily warranted . Same goes for monk.

[Gnome Alone]

Plus, destroying the sun is kinda... well, the utility is very situational.

[Psyren]

Once Tumble reaches 20 you can take a full blast from a Great Elder Wyrm red dragon without harm, which is just nuts. Or walk through lava.

The former isn't hard, just get evasion and a good save mod. Walking across lava is a mere 2d6/round, easily resistable with the right spells/items.