Is Path of War missing anything Tome of Battle had?

[Epic Legand]

Responding to the suggestion that the swordsage required armor. The general consensus is that was a typo, the same as the typo about skill points. Also, the swordsage was wisdom based, but it was an easier sell to a DM to use Kung Fu Genius on a clear monk variant. With about 4 feats offering the same thing in 3.5 not to hard. While Pathfinder does not really offer that as a choice. I notice no one is disputing my statement about a clear preface for wisdom based classes and races. I also felt that was lacking in TOB. One can love a product, and still want it to be better, or offer more choices. Pathfinder is ALL about choices, and also clearly wants you to stay single class. Archtypes are like prestige classes from level 1. I responded to the thread with a suggestion about an area I felt was not covered well, and that I would like to see better developed. This does not mean I hate DSP, or the systems they have developed. But I am frustrated at so many of you who insist on reading 1/2 my statements and responding. Monk of the silver fist needs a gauntlet or does 1D3, also not a real martial character. If you want to play at the wizard level, and people keep saying "But bard offers arcane"....It's frustrating. Brawler, not a full martial character, no stat to AC.

The Aurora Soul has been pointed out to me, and it does cover most of the basics. Though, I hate it. Wisdom based, random known maneuvers, magical, start with 2, and only acquire a few more by the time combat is over.

While I agree many of the disciplines in the Swordsage list were magical. You had to pick a few to support, it was easy to build a full functioning character, and skip the clearly magical powers. While I love the traits that allow you to swap a discipline, or the tradition, Traditions are not accepted at some tables ( roleplaying cost for a mechanical reward is a nono to some) I would also point out many DMs are reluctant to have to learn a new system, and more so when you pile on extra. Name the tradition that allows you to get Broken blade, and would work in the all Drow underdark campaign ? Worse when you have to use your limited resources to make a concept work. Examples being the edgelord having to twist and turn to gain broken blade or fools errand ( read spend one of your 2 traits) then spending 2 feats to gain less then monk damage. I am not exactly chaseing the most powerful choices here. Unarmed is bad crit range, bad crit multiple. Level one choices for 99% of melee guys are 2D6/19-20/2X while the unarmed guys has to struggle for a while to get there. The same guy with the greatsword does not need to waste all his feats to use the greatsword. This is not me asking for a power up, I am pointing out a common trope of the unarmed guy who can cut it in the world of guns, spells or battle axes is not well supported by the existing long list of classes and archtypes. Since I do not work at DSP, and they clearly do not see this as a problem that needs solving, I will have to continue to do class acrobatics or get some DM to houserule stuff. Not exactly a world crushing issue.

[Ellrin]

Honestly you may as well take your complaints up with WotC, because 3e and its derivatives have NEVER been kind to unarmed combatants. On top of that, it sounds like you have something extremely specific in mind, so you might as well work with your DM to homebrew it, because it seems you aren't going to be satisfied with anything that doesn't match all of your criteria without any multiclassing. It really shouldn't be that difficult to homebrew, either, just make an archetype for a base initiating class you otherwise like the looks of.

[Cyrocloud]

I doubt it is optimal but Brutal Slayer kind of does what you are asking with it getting built in NA and Str to armor, even if it replaces Dex, even multiclassing into into Steelfist Commando would not be too bad with that trait that gives 2 IL.

[Epic Legand]

Ellrin, I would politely beg to differ. Yes As I Already Said, I can just homebrew. I disagree that a class or archtype that offers a solid way to be a non item dependent, unarmed full martial class is super narrow focused. Countless movies, TV shows, and books showcase such people. I do agree that the idea has never been well supported, but the whole point of the thread was " what else could we include?"...Not " Hay, this does 1/3 of what your looking for"
Cryocloud, Brutal Slayer does not offer unarmed, and replacing dex with 1/2 of strength is actually worse in most cases. Yes I know I can multiclass, and use up my traits to make up for lost levels, and use my feats to get unarmed and superior unarmed ( still doing less then a monk or a 1st level fighter with a greatsword). I am hoping to not have to do gymnastics to twist and turn to cover a basic idea. I responded to the OP because I hoped they might see a untouched path. When a Sorcerer wakes up naked in jail...he is still teir 2. The Wizard, the Psion the Arcainist, the Witch, Sorcerer and the Psychic all are variants on one of the best chassis. All can wake up naked and still function at near peek ( Spell mastery helps the Wizard ). POW is supposed to help martials not be left out of the game. Maybe at teir 3 instead of 1 or 2, but still viable. This post was clearly looking for ideas to develop, I suggested one, they did not like it.

[Ellrin]

Ellrin, I would politely beg to differ. Yes As I Already Said, I can just homebrew. I disagree that a class or archtype that offers a solid way to be a non item dependent, unarmed full martial class is super narrow focused. Countless movies, TV shows, and books showcase such people. I do agree that the idea has never been well supported, but the whole point of the thread was " what else could we include?"...Not " Hay, this does 1/3 of what your looking for"

It may not be an especially niche trope, but your interpretation of it is plenty niche. As far as I can tell you're asking for pretty nearly every core monk class feature with 9th level maneuvers on top of it. You're not going to find that outside of homebrew or multiclassing. Sorry, but nobody's published a 1-20 class that completely matches what you want.

And for reference, there isn't a single class that isn't at least partially item-dependent. WBL is such a massive part of the assumed strength of a 3.x character that anybody is crippled without access to their stuff—although yes, some classes (both mundane and magical) fare worse than others.

[ghanjrho]

It may not be an especially niche trope, but your interpretation of it is plenty niche. As far as I can tell you're asking for pretty nearly every core monk class feature with 9th level maneuvers on top of it. You're not going to find that outside of homebrew or multiclassing. Sorry, but nobody's published a 1-20 class that completely matches what you want.

And for reference, there isn't a single class that isn't at least partially item-dependent. WBL is such a massive part of the assumed strength of a 3.x character that anybody is crippled without access to their stuff—although yes, some classes (both mundane and magical) fare worse than others.

Let's be fair. He's not asking for every core monk class feature. He just wants:
The monk unarmed damage table (specifically)
Mental-stat-to-AC in place of armor
Full BAB
INT or CHA dependency
9th level maneuvers
No supernatural class features
And independence from magic items. So just the good monk class features, plus a bunch of other stuff. Also, access to full WBL is worth two entire increments of CR (-1 for NPC wealth, -2 for no or starting wealth).

[BearonVonMu]

One thing that I missed from ToB was the Aura of Chaos. It was a stance that made all of your damage dice explode.
Exploding dice is not something I've seen often in Pathfinder or 3.5, and it was well worth the three feats it took to get in my opinion.
The other thing was the Superior Unarmed Strike feat. I felt that it helped monk-like characters to get one notch closer to "competitive" damage-wise.

[exelsisxax]

One thing that I missed from ToB was the Aura of Chaos. It was a stance that made all of your damage dice explode.
Exploding dice is not something I've seen often in Pathfinder or 3.5, and it was well worth the three feats it took to get in my opinion.
The other thing was the Superior Unarmed Strike feat. I felt that it helped monk-like characters to get one notch closer to "competitive" damage-wise.

Aura of chaos isn't coming back because of how easily exploitable it was. Ever hear of the d2 crusader?

PoW's version is greater unarmed strike, effectively adding 4 levels of monk unarmed damage scaling.

[digiman619]

One thing that I missed from ToB was the Aura of Chaos. It was a stance that made all of your damage dice explode.Exploding dice is not something I've seen often in Pathfinder or 3.5, and it was well worth the three feats it took to get in my opinion.The other thing was the Superior Unarmed Strike feat. I felt that it helped monk-like characters to get one notch closer to "competitive" damage-wise.

Aura of chaos isn't coming back because of how easily exploitable it was. Ever hear of the d2 crusader?PoW's version is greater unarmed strike, effectively adding 4 levels of monk unarmed damage scaling.

Thanks to the errata, it also increases non-monk/brawler unarmed damage to 1d8 (size notwithstanding), and it increases to 1d10 at 10th.

[Epic Legand]

...I never said anything about full BAB, I also never said no need for items, I said not ITEM DEPENDENT. Also, a Sorcerer waking up in jail might not have his +4 cloak of Chr, but hes still like 90%+ effective, Still teir 2. Also, Lets not pretend passing the bar for monk is hard. Its teir FIVE. The entirety of TOB and POW is about correcting the problem of martials sucking so bad compared to casters. Which it does in both cases overshadow the monk by leaps and bounds. When I talked about monk unarmed damage, I did feel that the Aurora Soul did cover that because they could add initiation mod to damage ( meaning not necessarily less then the monk ). Superior unarmed does help close the gap. It also once again costs 2 feats to do less then the monk, and still leaves you with the worst choices in the game for crit range, crit mult or cost to increase magic bonus.

[MilleniaAntares]

It's been a while since I actually looked at anything, but I don't recall POW having any equivalent to the TOB scroll-equivalent items for maneuvers.

I could be wrong.

I don't remember there being any other magic items introduced in any POW texts, either.

None of the PoW texts included magic items, but the Steelforged book (I think?) has maneuver-granting potions.

However, there is no equivalent to the items that permanently grant you +1 maneuver of a specific school.

[ChrisAsmadi]

Let's be fair. He's not asking for every core monk class feature. He just wants:
The monk unarmed damage table (specifically)
Mental-stat-to-AC in place of armor
Full BAB
INT or CHA dependency
9th level maneuvers
No supernatural class features
And independence from magic items. So just the good monk class features, plus a bunch of other stuff. Also, access to full WBL is worth two entire increments of CR (-1 for NPC wealth, -2 for no or starting wealth).

You can manage most of this as a Steelfist Commando Warlord with Greater Unarmed Strike, you'd just need to convince your DM to let you use the Spheres of Power Rogue Talent, Prescient Dodger.

...I never said anything about full BAB, I also never said no need for items, I said not ITEM DEPENDENT. Also, a Sorcerer waking up in jail might not have his +4 cloak of Chr, but hes still like 90%+ effective, Still teir 2. Also, Lets not pretend passing the bar for monk is hard. Its teir FIVE. The entirety of TOB and POW is about correcting the problem of martials sucking so bad compared to casters. Which it does in both cases overshadow the monk by leaps and bounds. When I talked about monk unarmed damage, I did feel that the Aurora Soul did cover that because they could add initiation mod to damage ( meaning not necessarily less then the monk ). Superior unarmed does help close the gap. It also once again costs 2 feats to do less then the monk, and still leaves you with the worst choices in the game for crit range, crit mult or cost to increase magic bonus.

Maybe ask your DM to use Automatic Bonus Progression? Then you can spend your cash on actually interesting items, to boot.

[Elricaltovilla]

None of the PoW texts included magic items, but the Steelforged book (I think?) has maneuver-granting potions.

However, there is no equivalent to the items that permanently grant you +1 maneuver of a specific school.

Martial Elixirs from Steelforge 2 (I think). Each one gives you a single use strike, boost and counter from one Discipline for an encounter. They're pretty good.

[n00b17]

Coming back to the original question:

ToB had a better variety of ranged options. Although PoW has two disciplines devoted to range (plus elemental flux), almost all the ToB maneuvers could be used as either melee or ranged. That made it easy to build ranged characters into a variety of roles by pulling from different disciplines, whereas in PoW most ranged characters have a fairly limited pool of maneuvers to draw from.

The worst offender imo is Mithral Current, which has the perfect flavor for a gunslinger(all about quickdraw, not to mention that gunslingers were westernizations of stories about rogue samurai), but cannot be used to build a ranged character.

I love the ranged options that PoW presents, but I wish it didn't feel the need to restrict attack types (unless there's a balance concern I'm missing).

[torrasque666]

ToB had a better variety of ranged options. Although PoW has two disciplines devoted to range (plus elemental flux), almost all the ToB maneuvers could be used as either melee or ranged. That made it easy to build ranged characters into a variety of roles by pulling from different disciplines, whereas in PoW most ranged characters have a fairly limited pool of maneuvers to draw from.

Almost all? You did notice that almost all the maneuvers in the Tome of Battle have the entry "Range: Melee Attack" right? Aside from boosts and stances.

[bahamut920]

Yeah, the best way to build a ranged ToB character was to either focus on boosts, stances, and counters, or to go with Bloodstorm Blade, which was a specific thrown weapon PrC. Very few strikes allowed you to use ranged attacks, and most of them were simply, "make a full attack plus this happens". Time stands still doesn't restrict the type of attacks you can make with your two full attacks, and neither does pouncing charge, technically (although I forget if charging itself restricts you to melee). Flashing sun, another "full attack plus" strike, does restrict you to melee attacks, however. You were better off using assassin's stance for sneak attack and dancing or raging mongoose for extra attacks and full attacking rather than using strikes. Other than that, your best ranged options were the few Desert Wind strikes that had you shooting fire and shadow garrote which was precision damage. PoW has two specifically ranged-focused disciplines, at least, and I'm pretty sure at least a few others have ranged options.

[n00b17]

Huh, that's weird. I usually just look it up on the site-that-must-not-be-named, which doesn't list any range restrictions. Nevermind then

[MesiDoomstalker]

A lot of PoW Strikes can be used with Ranged weapons. Pretty much any that don't have a melee or ranged specific fluff to it can be used with either. Though Mithral Currant incompatibility with Gunslinging is unfortunate.

[bahamut920]

Huh, that's weird. I usually just look it up on the site-that-must-not-be-named, which doesn't list any range restrictions. Nevermind then

The fact that two out of the three classes in the book only had proficiency with simple weapons and martial melee weapons should have tipped you off that the book did not favor ranged combat.

[Epic Legand]

ChrisAsmadi, I like the suggestion, but In strongly suppect getting 2 different 3ed party's materials approval will be tough. Put another way, if YOU were DM, would you allow a feat to equal +one mental stats PLUS 1 per 4 levels? Keep in mind...Dodge is considered a feat.

[ChrisAsmadi]

ChrisAsmadi, I like the suggestion, but In strongly suppect getting 2 different 3ed party's materials approval will be tough. Put another way, if YOU were DM, would you allow a feat to equal +one mental stats PLUS 1 per 4 levels? Keep in mind...Dodge is considered a feat.

It's not a feat, it's a Rogue Talent. And it basically just gives Rogues a Monk's AC bonus class feature. The only place it might ever be an issue is some weird stacking issue or some edge case where more than a few classes less bad than Rogues get access to Rogue Talents and one of them might combo too well with it.

Also I, personally, don't think limiting sources is the way to a balanced game (because there's plenty of high power stuff in the Core book, so it doesn't actually make the game balanced, it makes Martials boring and bad) - the way to a balanced game is for a group to have a mature session 0 and make characters at roughly the same power level with their own niches.

[BearonVonMu]

Aura of chaos isn't coming back because of how easily exploitable it was. Ever hear of the d2 crusader?

Yes, I am familiar with that little abusive trick. Just because something has the possibility of being horribly terribly abused doesn't necessarily demand that it be removed from the game in my mind.
It was enough to be tossing my ten or sixteen dice and tacking on the extra three or four re-rolls. Perhaps it reminded me of other, older games like L5R.
To be fair, though, Pathfinder is still full of hilariously exploitable tricks.