Your opinon on Tome of Battle

[OldTrees1]

Guys, both of you. Multiclassing exists, you know. Seems you forgot.
If someone built a Zhent Dungeoncrasher Figher 9/Spirit Lion Barbarian1/Warblade 10 would that break the reality for you two?

I don't have a problem is someone else built a _insert anything here_.
However we were not talking about someone else. I was asked to explain my preference (which would not be satisfied by that ECL 20 build for reasons previously stated) and I was heckled for doing so.

2) A preference for At Will abilities is not equivalent to "bonus feats forever". There are enough feats that are good enough(Improved Trip or better) to necessitate using a Bonus Feat class when trying to compress the most value into the lowest ECL.

My emphasis. I have read all of your posts. I have yet to see a character concept you've posited where the highlighted portion is both true and requires a fighter bonus feat, as used by a fighter and only a fighter.

This is not bile. I am not attacking anyone.

Question: Is this relevant to my preference of Fighter(a bonus feat class) over Warblade, or are you asking about my preferences between the Bonus Feat classes?

Since the first has been answered time and time again, I will only answer the second.
It depends on the prestige class(es) I am taking. If I am taking Warhulk 4, then the math works out that I want a Full BAB Bonus Feat class (aka Fighter) to minimize the ECL of completion. If I am going for War Mind, then Psychic Warrior is ideal but now Fighter is a 2 level dip for a passive buff(Dungeoncrasher). If I am going for neither of those area attacks, then Martial Rogue is ideal even if it calls for a Ftr 2 dip and requires skill points spent on qualifying for Avenger 1 (for Sneak Attack +1d6). Again remember this is under the constraint of trying to have the ECL of completion be as low as possible without excluding desired abilities.

[Flickerdart]

Wow, just wow. Are you really resorting to a strawman attack? Against an explanation of personal preference?

...

3) You were smart enough to know better. Stop maliciously misrepresenting my explanation of my preference as a means of satisfying your anti-Fighter-Players bile.

Yes, clearly I am only posting because I hate people who play fighters, and accusing me of this is simply a logical argument and in no way a personal attack. I'm glad we have such paragons of virtue as you to guide us.

[Fax Celestis]

Wait, that's right. ToB was horribly undersupported. I don't even think they got web enhancements or Dragon magazine material... did they?

Nope! And a bunch of stuff was cut from the final release too! Like these bad boys hidden in the art gallery:

Spoiler: Discipline Avatars

Show

Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, and Desert Wind


Iron Heart, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand


Tiger Claw, Stone Dragon, and White Raven (which was White Tower in development)

Spoiler: Stormblade

Show

A cut maneuver, presumably for Iron Heart (or a lightning-based discipline that got cut)

Spoiler: Script Fighter

Show

A construct that would presumably do things with martial scripts.

Spoiler: Diamond Swordmaster

Show

Presumably a Diamond Mind/Psionic PrC, a la Jade Phoenix Mage and Ruby Knight Vindicator, supported by the fact that the exemplary character is a githyanki and the discipline emboidment for Diamond Mind is an astral construct. But noooooooooo, we got Link and Navi Eternal Blade instead.

[eggynack]

The feat portion of the class ability neither has the ability to progress nor is it part of the damage progression.

Good thing that parts of a progression don't need to individually progress then, and a second good thing that it's still not a damage progression. It is, as always, an unarmed strike progression.

There is demonstrably no change in the feat itself, which by definition culls it from the concept of progression.

What? It's not, y'know, two progressions. That wouldn't even make sense. It's just one big progression. Not every part of a progression needs to individually progress. A good example of this sort of thing is vow of poverty. It's all one big progression, arranged on a table, except some of the abilities are completely static. If something were to grant you vow of poverty progression, then you would gain all of the abilities of vow of poverty, while if something were to grant you vow of poverty feat progression, then you would get only the feats.

[OldTrees1]

Yes, clearly I am only posting because I hate people who play fighters, and accusing me of this is simply a logical argument and in no way a personal attack. I'm glad we have such paragons of virtue as you to guide us.

Another strawman, what a surprise.
Well it is that or a malicious unwillingness to utilize intellectual empathy. Either way you have proven you are merely a heckler that prefers to use strawmen as your tools. Go heckle someone else for their personal preferences. I am done with you.

[Red Fel]

Wait, that's right. ToB was horribly undersupported. I don't even think they got web enhancements or Dragon magazine material... did they?

ToB was born under the last rays of 3.5's dying sun, on the final scions of a dying generation of gaming. The most it got was a half-formed errata and a web enhancement featuring printable maneuver cards. I can't think of anything else it got.

[Amphetryon]

Question: Is this relevant to my preference of Fighter(a bonus feat class) over Warblade, or are you asking about my preferences between the Bonus Feat classes?

If there's no mechanical reason why the fighter - specifically the fighter - is chosen in order to perform a function, then yes, it's relevant. No, I'm not asking about dips. If you prefer to play fighters as a class, you're preferring to play the actual class, not some amalgam of classes that includes a 1, 2, or 6 level dip in fighter, and I have yet to see a thorough, rational explanation of that particular preference in your posts. If that's NOT the basis of your preference - if your preference for fighter really is rooted in it as nothing more than a dip for bonus feats - then that tells me something about how strenuously the fighter itself is being defended in your posts as a viable class.

[Segev]

It's worth noting that it's probable he's not defending it as "viable" so much as "a personal preference."

And all it takes to make Fighter preferable is multiple things along the lines of Improved Trip that he wants to be working with. If he wants a number of combat options that are along those lines, Fighter is a solid way to go.

[Flickerdart]

Another strawman, what a surprise.
Well it is that or a malicious unwillingness to utilize intellectual empathy. Either way you have proven you are merely a heckler that prefers to use strawmen as your tools. Go heckle someone else for their personal preferences. I am done with you.

Generations of my people will mourn the loss of intellectual stimulation provided by your disingenuous assertions.

[OldTrees1]

If there's no mechanical reason why the fighter - specifically the fighter - is chosen in order to perform a function, then yes, it's relevant. No, I'm not asking about dips. If you prefer to play fighters as a class, you're preferring to play the actual class, not some amalgam of classes that includes a 1, 2, or 6 level dip in fighter, and I have yet to see a thorough, rational explanation of that particular preference in your posts. If that's NOT the basis of your preference - if your preference for fighter really is rooted in it as nothing more than a dip for bonus feats - then that tells me something about how strenuously the fighter itself is being defended in your posts as a viable class.

1)
"I prefer Bananas", "I prefer Bananas over Oranges" and "I prefer Bananas over everything" are not equivalent sentences.

I prefer using Fighter as the main class (majority of the levels) over using Warblade as the main class. Depending on the other goals of the build I may prefer using Fighter as the main class over other Bonus Feat classes OR vice versa. It depends on the build (as shown in the 3 examples I gave).

2)
My position is not defending Fighter. My position is explaining a personal example of why some people prefer using Fighter over using Warblade. This was tangentially related to me defending the people trying to fix fighter (to have as an option alongside Wablade) rather than cave into the forum's desire to force everyone to replace fighters with Warblades.

3)
Why did you make mistakes 1 & 2? I assume you have been reading my posts, are bright and have been using intellectual empathy.

Related:
What impact do you think those mistakes from the majority have on the minority?

[OldTrees1]

Generations of my people will mourn the loss of intellectual stimulation provided by your disingenuous assertions.

Go heckle someone else for their personal preferences. I am done with you.

10 characters

[Rubik]

What I don't get is why someone would actually want 45% of their levels to be dead levels, while the majority of the other 55% are very, very weak. By no means level appropriate, certainly.

[Flickerdart]

What I don't get is why someone would actually want 45% of their levels to be dead levels, while the majority of the other 55% are very, very weak. By no means level appropriate, certainly.

Maybe having half of your levels do nothing is a personal preference.

[malonkey1]

Nope! And a bunch of stuff was cut from the final release too! Like these bad boys hidden in the art gallery:

Spoiler: Discipline Avatars

Show

Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, and Desert Wind


Iron Heart, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand


Tiger Claw, Stone Dragon, and White Raven (which was White Tower in development)

Spoiler: Stormblade

Show

A cut maneuver, presumably for Iron Heart (or a lightning-based discipline that got cut)

Spoiler: Script Fighter

Show

A construct that would presumably do things with martial scripts.

Spoiler: Diamond Swordmaster

Show

Presumably a Diamond Mind/Psionic PrC, a la Jade Phoenix Mage and Ruby Knight Vindicator, supported by the fact that the exemplary character is a githyanki and the discipline emboidment for Diamond Mind is an astral construct. But noooooooooo, we got Link and Navi Eternal Blade instead.

Ohh, that is some cool stuff! Why did they cut that!?

[Fax Celestis]

Ohh, that is some cool stuff! Why did they cut that!?

Obviously Pelor, The Burning Hate was offended by Desert Wind trying to horn in on his domain and struck the developers dead before they could complete the book.

[Flickerdart]

Obviously Pelor, The Burning Hate was offended by Desert Wind trying to horn in on his domain and struck the developers dead before they could complete the book.

That explains the errata document, too.

[Fax Celestis]

That explains the errata document, too.

^%$^&%$^*ing Pelor.

[Red Fel]

^%$^&%$^*ing Pelor.

I think you've just come up with the caption for this entire thread.

Your Opinion on Tome of Battle:
^%$^&%$^*ing Pelor.

We just need a photo and we've got a demotivator.

... Seriously, though, that was /thread.

[Curmudgeon]

Specific trumps general. The monk class entry is more specific than the general feat rules.

Except there's absolutely no trumping anywhere in the Monk class entry. The Bonus Feat text never mentions the Monk using those choices. The term "select" (the exact word appearing in the general feat rules) is used four times, while there isn't even a synonym for "use".

[Segev]

Except there's absolutely no trumping anywhere in the Monk class entry. The Bonus Feat text never mentions the Monk using those choices. The term "select" (the exact word appearing in the general feat rules) is used four times, while there isn't even a synonym for "use".

Is this the old argument that you can somehow take a feat without being able to use it? Not by virtue of lacking anything to which to apply it, but by the rules saying "you can't use it even though you have it?"

[mangosta71]

Except there's absolutely no trumping anywhere in the Monk class entry. The Bonus Feat text never mentions the Monk using those choices. The term "select" (the exact word appearing in the general feat rules) is used four times, while there isn't even a synonym for "use".

Is the monk not bad enough that you have to handicap it even more by not allowing it to use its feats?

[dascarletm]

Is this the old argument that you can somehow take a feat without being able to use it? Not by virtue of lacking anything to which to apply it, but by the rules saying "you can't use it even though you have it?"

It's the same reasoning that If I took power attack and had my STR dropped below 13, I could no longer use the feat. I would still retain it, but I'd lose it.

Is the monk not bad enough that you have to handicap it even more by not allowing it to use its feats?

I don't actually believe that is the goal he is trying to accomplish.

Either way, whether or not the monk is good has no bearing on how that ability works.

[VoxRationis]

I don't know... I'm with Segev here. It seems to me like the GitP hatred for monks is coloring your interpretations of the rules here. I'm not sure why people would think that the designers intended that monks get a bunch of abilities that they are flat-out incapable of using.

[eggynack]

I don't know... I'm with Segev here. It seems to me like the GitP hatred for monks is coloring your interpretations of the rules here. I'm not sure why people would think that the designers intended that monks get a bunch of abilities that they are flat-out incapable of using.

Because the rules support that interpretation reasonably well. It doesn't matter all that much what the designers intended, because the words in the book are as they are, However, if we're talking intent here, then I somehow doubt that designers intended the martial monk to be capable of taking weapon supremacy at first.

[georgie_leech]

Because the rules support that interpretation reasonably well. It doesn't matter all that much what the designers intended, because the words in the book are as they are, However, if we're talking intent here, then I somehow doubt that designers intended the martial monk to be capable of taking weapon supremacy at first.

They also probably didn't intend for Monks to not be proficient with Unarmed Strikes. Really, the difference between what they intended and what they wrote is enough that a Monk probably couldn't jump over it.

In other words, I'm not sure how much can be gleaned about what they "intended" about Monks, because of the basic flaws in writing it up.

[Curmudgeon]

In other words, I'm not sure how much can be gleaned about what they "intended" about Monks, because of the basic flaws in writing it up.

I think I can make an argument that they intended to make the class so screwed up that it was unplayable. Check out the Human Monk Starting Package (Player's Handbook, page 42):

Bonus Feat: If Dexterity is 13 or higher, Mobility; if Dexterity is 12 or lower, Blind-Fight instead.

You'll note

1. they actually thought about choices here, given the decision tree; and
2. neither of these feats appear anywhere in the Bonus Feat class feature (i.e., they're both RAW illegal).

[Sartharina]

I think I can make an argument that they intended to make the class so screwed up that it was unplayable. Check out the Human Monk Starting Package (Player's Handbook, page 42): You'll note

1. they actually thought about choices here, given the decision tree; and
2. neither of these feats appear anywhere in the Bonus Feat class feature (i.e., they're both RAW illegal).

Those are for the Human bonus feat, not Monk bonus feat.

[Optimator]

I love the Tome of Battle with a deep passion. After 15 pages I'm sure I can't say anything that hasn't been said before so I'll just chime in with the pro-ToBers.

My group calls it the "Tawb bawnis".

[Knaight]

There's literally no way to balance these two against each other without either nerfing Wizard into the ground, buffing Fighter into the stratosphere, or simply playing 4e (more or less the halfway-point between the two.) I don't see what's so desirable about that end-state anyway.

It's hardly just playing 4e. There are a bunch of games where mages and martial types are basically even.

[malonkey1]

It's hardly just playing 4e. There are a bunch of games where mages and martial types are basically even.

And games where there's not much distinction between the two, and when there is, it's sort of meaningless. *ahem*NWoD*ahem*.