Author Topic: Tome of Battle conversion to 5E on DM's Guild  (Read 2966 times)

Offline Libertad

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Tome of Battle conversion to 5E on DM's Guild
« on: June 07, 2016, 06:07:34 PM »
It's Pay What You Want.

I downloaded it. I'm not that familiar with 5E spells and such, so I can't say one way or another how balanced it is, but at 11 pages it's going to have a lot less content than its 3rd Edition counterpart.

For those savvier with the newest Edition, can anyone say if it's good?

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: Tome of Battle conversion to 5E on DM's Guild
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2016, 10:22:06 PM »
The core of the class is solid other than some stuff specific to the martial school rules.  The archetypes are decent.

I'll have to do more analysis on the adept point system.  At first glance, it's heavy on bonus action stuff, which is hindered by the bonus action to assume a stance.  Also the need to concentrate on a stance is a bit iffy without support.  Concentration can be broken by damage, the class doesn't have support for Constitution saving throws to help that out, and 2 of the 3 archetypes encourage a melee fighting style.  There's a lot of abilities you can potentially never use just because you might not be able to keep concentration on them long enough to get an available bonus action.  It almost requires Resilient: Constitution or multiclassing.  Anecdotally, that's not an issue but those are technically optional rules.

After reading the specifics of the schools, I'd say the idea is ruined by a poor grasp of 5e mechanics when designing the actual maneuvers.  IMO it loses the feel of the original martial adepts by going to a daily maneuver system instead of one that has a refresh mechanic.  The whole thing would work a lot better if the resource mechanic was modeled after the Battle Master Fighter or Monk.  The abilities are quite powerful in a vacuum, and the stance restriction and variable costs would balance that out if not for the bonus action needed to assume a stance and the "casting" times of the abilities clashing.  Most of the bonus action school abilities are just trying to preserve the use of Extra Attack, which the Battle Master Fighter and Paladin do just fine with their maneuver mechanics and smite spells respectively.  The Paladin does fine with bonus actions that add riders to the next attack because the Paladin doesn't have to concentrate on something else before being able to cast a smite spell.

It's playable but I wouldn't call it necessarily good.  It ultimately reads like a Way of the Four Elements Monk with a long rest resource pool instead of a short rest resource pool, a counter-productive stance mechanic, and without the mobility a Monk would have to stay out of trouble.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2016, 10:57:08 PM by TenaciousJ »
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Offline Libertad

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Re: Tome of Battle conversion to 5E on DM's Guild
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2016, 12:59:32 AM »
I feel letdown. Thanks for your analysis, Rock Nappa!

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Tome of Battle conversion to 5E on DM's Guild
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2016, 06:19:03 PM »
(tangent) ... aww Libertad I thought your last avatar was cute.   


 nothing worng with this one
Your codpiece is a mimic.