Author Topic: [ACF] Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features  (Read 196 times)

Offline Garryl

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Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
On a whim (about a decade ago), I jotted up three ACFs for each of the three ToB base classes in the 1001 homebrew ideas thread. I got inspired again and added another three per class this week.



Crusader
(click to show/hide)



Swordsage
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Warblade
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Change Log
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In Progress, Deprecated, and Removed
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« Last Edit: March 23, 2024, 03:28:16 PM by Garryl »

Offline Skyrock

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Re: [ACF] Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2024, 10:40:22 PM »
Minor nitpick:
Crusader => Divine Retribution:
"and can only target an opponent who have dealt damage that was delayed by your delayed damage pool."
(insert part in bold for a complete sentence)

Spells known/prepared are undefined. So Divine Retribution Crusaders can spontaneously pick any Cleric spell as needed?

Offline Garryl

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Re: [ACF] Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2024, 12:36:09 AM »
Minor nitpick:
Crusader => Divine Retribution:
"and can only target an opponent who have dealt damage that was delayed by your delayed damage pool."
(insert part in bold for a complete sentence)

Spells known/prepared are undefined. So Divine Retribution Crusaders can spontaneously pick any Cleric spell as needed?

The original intent was effectively spontaneous from the whole cleric list, albeit with those rather significant restrictions. You're right, though, that it's probably better not to be so wide. I might make it prepared, or rather retrieved like Spirit Shaman where you pick the spells in advance but can freely and repeatedly cast each of them without the spell-by-spell limits of prepared spells and their finite spell slots.

On second thought, I'm probably going to just nix Divine Retribution. The more I think about it, the more loopholes I see with its possible usage vs. my intentions (ex: have you ally punch you in the face so you can cast Restoration on him), and there are fewer offensive spells than I thought that actually do fit the direct concept. I can't see any easy way around that short of writing up a dedicated spell list for it with only the offensive spells and extending it somewhat.

Offline Skyrock

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Re: [ACF] Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2024, 09:51:13 AM »
I think Divine Retribution isn't bad as a general idea, it just needs a curated spell list. The Adept might make for a better starting point, as it has a bigger focus on divine damage spells like Scorching Ray and Lightning Bolt. The Warmage spell list and evocation-heavy cleric domains like the Fire Domain could be used to pad out spells above level 5. Or you could hand out a pseudo-Quicken Spell, so that weak low-level evocations stay relevant and work better with the action economy of mid-levels onward.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: [ACF] Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2024, 01:00:27 PM »
Offhand I don't have any balance input but it's nice to see something else using your Auras overhaul.

Iron Body Training is a little weird.

Offline Garryl

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Re: [ACF] Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2024, 12:11:10 AM »
I think Divine Retribution isn't bad as a general idea, it just needs a curated spell list. The Adept might make for a better starting point, as it has a bigger focus on divine damage spells like Scorching Ray and Lightning Bolt. The Warmage spell list and evocation-heavy cleric domains like the Fire Domain could be used to pad out spells above level 5. Or you could hand out a pseudo-Quicken Spell, so that weak low-level evocations stay relevant and work better with the action economy of mid-levels onward.

I concur. I love the idea of the ability and a curated spell list is exactly what it needs. I just don't feel like searching for spells for it at all right now. Well, actually, that's not quite right. I spent a bit of time looking through the SRD, and came up with the following (in the spoiler). Couldn't find anything at 6th level that fit, 2nd and 4th level were a little light, and I don't love how many of the 5th level spells were just save-or-lose.
(click to show/hide)

The original version in 1001 homebrew ideas actually had the quicken aspect; the spells were cast as a swift action by default.

Iron Body Training is a little weird.

It's a bit of a design-by-committee ability, which is really weird to say given that it was only me working on it. There were a few different thought processes that went into it.
  • 1) Make an ACF that is associated with Iron Heart. At one point, I was trying to do this for all nine disciplines, but Devoted Spirit (Divine Retribution), Desert Wanderer (Desert Wind), Battlefield Commander (White Raven), and Iron Body Training (Iron Heart) were the only ones I could come up with anything decent for.
  • 2) Trade away something that doesn't overlap with the other warblade ACFs. Warblades don't actually have many class features at low levels, and I'd already written two for each of Uncanny Dodge and Battle Clarity, and I don't want an ACF that exchanges Weapon Aptitude, which doesn't give direct combat effects, for an ability that does. That basically leaves skills and proficiencies.
  • 3) How about armor proficiency? And 5E's barbarian has that cool (but impractical) Con-to-AC instead of armor thing. How about something like that? Maybe do a monk's AC bonus-type ability, but based on Int, since it's already a warblade secondary stat? Just switch it to an armor bonus instead of untyped, so it can avoid stacking with armor without needing that pesky no-armor-worn clause explicitly spelled out, fit the barbarian-inspired theme of just blocking hits with your mighty thews rather than dodging them, and match the paradigm I tried out with my pressure strikes monk. And you can still use a shield, as intended, which is why that proficiency wasn't removed.
  • 4) It's got to scale, since it's replacing armor, and I still want to tie it a bit more directly to Iron Heart. How about based on your Iron Heart maneuvers? Scaling with the level of maneuvers known keeps the numbers around the right place in napkin math land, although if it's a little high then the fact that it fluctuates up and down a bit based on whether or not you've actually used an Iron Heart maneuver might balance that out.
  • 5) Uh, oh. It's a 1st-level class feature that gives an attribute to AC. We don't want Int to AC to be overly easily accessible with a 1-level dip for non-warblades. I know! Cap it by Strength, too, so that those wizards and jade phoenix mages can get something but not too much out of it. It won't affect pure warblades, since what kind of melee warblade won't have a higher Strength and Intelligence already?

So, yeah, a little weird. But I kind of like it, you know? If I get to doing another pass on it, I might tweak the numbers a bit, and the bit about needing to initiate Iron Heart maneuvers to keep the full benefit might get axed, no matter how much I appreciate its quirkiness. Even without that, its physical defensiveness fits Iron Heart better than I thought. Despite the aggressiveness associated with the discipline from Punishing Stance at level 1 and Strike of Perfect Clarity at level 9, more than half of its maneuvers and stances are about crowd control, defense, and damage mitigation (11/21). I'm pretty sure only Devoted Spirit and Setting Sun beat it on that front.