Tome of Battle; some classes?

[Kymus]

This is in reference to the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords (Wikipedia link, PDF link to the book)

Tome of Battle introduces three new base classes (Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage) and a handful of prestige classes (which I am unfamiliar with). It seems that the intent is to give players some more far-east sort of options to play with and also to balance the power level between late-game spell casters and hack-n-slashers. 

I don't know anything about the prestige classes in the book, but I do know that the base classes have already been coded and are available within the Player Resource Consortium's PRC Pack v3.5

I gotta say, I want to play a Swordsage in the. worst. way. (The wiki description "Swordsages are best compared to the philosopher-swordsmen of the Wuxia film genre." really had me, as a lover of wuxia films (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, etc.))

Could this be added in so I can play the monk I've always wanted? 

[Not Batman]

These classes were pretty unstoppable in P&P with some of the combinations I've seen, I can only imagine how OP they would be in NWN, haha.

[Kymus]

I have no experience with it personally. There seems to be mixed feelings on it. I tried reading up on it, and some people say it's OP, and others feel that Tome of Battle is essential D&D reading (saw it listed a lot when I was looking for suggested books)

[Not Batman]

I have the books and have several players in my P&P group either swear by the book or hate it. There are negative opinions about it among some gaming communities because it was among the last 3.5 books printed and was seen by these parties as "What inspired 4th edition". 4Chan gave it the name "the big book of weeaboo fightan magic" given the style of the classes themselves which players were pretty divided on. There are also certainly game breaking class combinations such as Swordsage/duelist/wizard that you could very easily recreate on CD.

In my honest opinion, the book has some excellent ideas, and the premise of these classes is great in theory. The book and it's companion book (Weapons of Legacy) were meant to help close the gap in terms of power between melee and mage characters, but sadly Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic were just so vastly powerful it made all other classes in other books useless.

Tome of Magic had the same problem Tome of Battle had, but with the Binder class which essentially allowed you to play a wide variety of classes and characters every time you rest. The worse combo in that book was the Paimon and Savnok vestiges that gave you really powerful armor with high mobility.

[Deleted]

As a rule, we don't use the Player's Resource Compendium.  Vincent would need to chime in on the specifics, but iirc it's a nightmare mess for implementation since it breaks as many things as it "fixes."

[Not Batman]

There is also the fact that upon making your character with the PRC, you need to remake them immediately upon entry.

[Kymus]

Oct 5, 2015 22:33:43 GMT -5  @belladonna said:

As a rule, we don't use the Player's Resource Compendium.  Vincent would need to chime in on the specifics, but iirc it's a nightmare mess for implementation since it breaks as many things as it "fixes."

Fark. Here I thought that since it was already coded, it could be implemented without issue. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the backend/modding/etc. of NWN. 

[Kymus]

Oct 5, 2015 22:25:28 GMT -5 Not Batman said:

I have the books and have several players in my P&P group either swear by the book or hate it. There are negative opinions about it among some gaming communities because it was among the last 3.5 books printed and was seen by these parties as "What inspired 4th edition". 4Chan gave it the name "the big book of weeaboo fightan magic" given the style of the classes themselves which players were pretty divided on. There are also certainly game breaking class combinations such as Swordsage/duelist/wizard that you could very easily recreate on CD. 

Yeah, looking through google, it seems like opinions really are split between "ban it!" and "why is this banned??"

[Not Batman]

Yeah, it's been a big wedge between 3.5 fans since the book came out. Personally, I think it did give us one cool thing that was done well, and that was legacy items. Legacy items are effectively items which have usage requirements like feats, skill ranks, and special plot based requirements and as your character level progresses, the weapon gets stronger and gains more abilities as well as negatives.

[Vincent07]

We do not use PRC, nor will I put in anything from them.  Usually it's horridly unbalanced.

I do have 2 PrCs in development, Swordmage and Warlock, both base classes that are more caster-based, though swordmage has solid melee capabilities.

In general, melee based class additions are not going to happen, as modifying anything involving the combat engine can't really be done without NWNX plugins that we do not use.

[Edge]

I'm just amused at the idea of anyone considering the Binder overpowered. I've never once heard anyone say that except the people who think any unlimited-use magical ability is overpowered, and wet their pants at the thought of the Warlock.

[Kymus]

Oct 6, 2015 1:02:24 GMT -5 Vincent07 said:

We do not use PRC, nor will I put in anything from them.  Usually it's horridly unbalanced.

I do have 2 PrCs in development, Swordmage and Warlock, both base classes that are more caster-based, though swordmage has solid melee capabilities.

In general, melee based class additions are not going to happen, as modifying anything involving the combat engine can't really be done without NWNX plugins that we do not use.

Thanks for the input, Vincent!

Is Tempest still under development, btw?

[Vincent07]

Tempest is shelved for now, as I'd really like to do it properly (extra attacks), which requires the aforementioned NWNX plugins.

I may look at it again later.