How do you feel Tome of Battle has let you down?

[bhu]

Specifically, what are it's shortcomings?  I wish to do a revamp allowing people to draft their own schools/maneuvers,, but first I'd like to know what you think they did wrong or left out.


Edit: SUGGESTIONS SO FAR

1: lack of support for various fighting styles (ranged, mounted, heavy, multi-weapon, single-weapon [free-hand], shields, unarmed/natural weapon, wrestling/grappling, etc)
2: Elemental styles not restricted to fire or requiring contact with the earth
3: lack of support for using ToB material with non-ToB classes (perhaps alternate class features)
4: lack of versatility with maneuvers/stances
5: needs more out of combat abilities
6: Lack of At Will abilities
7: Lack of enough Passive abilities(one stance is nice, but ...)
8: Lack of enough synergy between maneuvers
9: Lack of PrC's
10: Lack of scaling
11: Poor Save DC's
12: less supernatural abilities
13: more supernatural abilities
14: could be used to replace archaic combat mechanics
15: fix stance progressions
16: move away from wuxia flavor
17: consider allowing maneuvers to bu used multiple times
18: Consider a feat or skill trick to improve the refresh mechanic of Martial Study
19: Consider a feat or skill trick to allow the use of out-of-discipline weapons with the various class features and feats that involve them.
20: Solve the errata issue.
21: Possbly remove maneuver prerequisites
22: More maneuvers that aren't full attacks
23: clarity
24: more Move action type manuevers.
25: Poor synergy with schools
26: Lack of Sequence/ Combos
27: Poor balance of manevuer levels (granting greater invisibility as a second level shadow hand boost outweighs the horrible +1d6 fire damage to weapons stance of a higher level desert wind manuever)
28: Limitation of stances (they did one thing and only one thing, they could be used a utility as well a stance could trigger differently in different situations)
29: More versatiliy.   Actually just plain more of everything.
30: Epic
31: Feat giving option to do non-lethal dmg with maneuvers
32: expand current schools

[wotmaniac]

I haven't had all that much experience with it; but my biggest problem is how restrictive (in general) the Stone Dragon discipline is.  Also, the complete lack of support in future publications (which gives it a "tacked-on" feel).

[Gazzien]

Lack of later support made me sad. Other than that, just the restrictions on Stone Dragon.

[Maelphaxerazz]

I think the biggest problem with it is the fluff. The "wowsoawsum" descriptions of the classes and manoeuvres, as well as the silly names, made the book painful to read. I don't like refluffing, and many others are the same, but with Tome of Battle you have to. Its similar to 4e, in that regard. In my opinion, if a mechanic has a simple effect then it should have a simple down-to-earth description, and let the coolness come from the situation, not from the imaginary special effects.

I understand their reasons for doing it, but I would have preferred if they treated it as "alternative rules for martial classes" right from the start. Some of the Supernatural manoeuvres would have made just as much sense as Extraordinary ones.

Finally, they needed more manoeuvres.

[Maat Mons]

I think they shouldn't have given maneuvers prerequisites.  Some other mechanism could be used to incentivise players to focus on just one or two disciplines.  You might run into a little trouble when a character changes which disciplines he has access to partway through a build, such as by taking a prestige class. 

I really wish lower level maneuvers scaled with level so they could be viable choices even at high level.  I'd go with something like psionics with its augmentation.  More specifically, like psi-like abilities, which are automatically fully augmented.  I'd avoid the multiple options that psionic frequently gives for how to improve it.  The player should be able to update his cards every level and not have to consult the book each time he uses a maneuver. 

I liked the idea of having maneuver use improve somewhat even with classes that have nothing to do with maneuvers.  I don't like the execution though.  I'd aim for something that deemphesizes order.  For example warblade 1 / xxx 19 should be similarly powerful to xxx 19 / warblade 1.  If you go with my idea of having maneuvers scale up in power, I'd have the scaling happen even with non-initiator classes, but make the maximum level of maneuver available depend only on initiator classes. 

You mention adding additional disciplines.  I'd suggest adding a mechanic where players can choose several disciplines from a list at the first level of a class.  This would be a little like ardent, but I'd go with a bunch at first level instead of two at first level and more later, and I'd ditch that whole "primary" idea ardent had. 

I don't know how I feel about the whole expending and recovering maneuvers thing.  If you're going to keep some sort of limitation like that, I'd probably just go with a per encounter limit.  I think removing the limitation is the better way to go though.  You might even consider giving bonuses for using the same maneuver multiple times in a row, like those tactical feats in Complete Mage. 

[kitep]

I haven't used it a lot, but I remember my frustration being that maneuvers often were full attack options, ie, you couldn't combine them with iterative attacks.

[oslecamo]

The maneuver items are too damn cheap and it's unclear whetever they add extra readied maneuver slots or add to known maneuvers or whatever.

However now I'll say how it has NOT let me down:

3: lack of support for using ToB material with non-ToB classes (perhaps alternate class features)

You're kidding, right? ToB classes are easily the most multiclass-friendly classes anywhere in 3.5, thanks to the whole "everything else grants half IL".

6: Lack of At Will abilities

I consider that a feature, not a bug. Allowing the spam of the same power and over is boring.

7: Lack of enough Passive abilities(one stance is nice, but ...)

Also consider that a feature, not a bug. One of the main problems with 3.5 is all the crazy stacking of permanent (or almost permanent) effects you can do. ToB having a single permanent passive at a time, then 1-round buffs is great for simplicity and balancing.

[Raineh Daze]

Warblade getting... limited fighter feats. Eugh.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I had (still have) a hard time understanding the system, without the book and total immersion.
They needed to have an intentionally simple class and slightly simplified class.

I say this from the standpoint of someone who finds the whole Psi Is Borkt to be total nonsense.
2n-1 = X ; trade your Move for a Metamagic limit to 1 only ; etc

Clearly ToB isn't as complicated as the Artificer, or say
the Safe Spell Swapping protocol someone figured out just last year.

[bhu]

The maneuver items are too damn cheap and it's unclear whetever they add extra readied maneuver slots or add to known maneuvers or whatever.

However now I'll say how it has NOT let me down:

Most of that is collated from the sister thread at GitP

[zugschef]

It doesn't address the real problems with linear warriors and quadratic wizards. Warblade and co. are still dead weight outside of combat.

[oslecamo]

It doesn't address the real problems with linear warriors and quadratic wizards. Warblade and co. are still dead weight outside of combat.

Not exactly true:
-Crusader can play downtime medic from level 1. Just declare that rock your forsworn enemy, then cure your allies by hitting it! Later on his healing gets better, until the point he can spam Heal, that's always useful.
-Swordage can grab spider climb, flight, teleport, invisibility, and plenty of other nice tricks.
-Warblade can use Iron Heart Surge to clear away fogs and other nasty area effects, including traps and whatnot.
-Diamond Mind grants Tremorsense.
-Tiger Claw grants Scent and some mobility as well.

ToB classes have quite a bit of utility built-in their maneuvers.

[TML]

It wasn't part of the PHB.

[SorO_Lost]

1: lack of support for various fighting styles (ranged, mounted, heavy, multi-weapon, single-weapon [free-hand], shields, unarmed/natural weapon, wrestling/grappling, etc)
You can use any melee weapon mounted or not, Setting Sun is based on tripping/bullrushing throwing people. White Raven makes usage of shields. It only lacks in the bow department but it is called Blade Magic not stabtheirfacein Magic.

2: Elemental styles not restricted to fire or requiring contact with the earth
Refluff it.

3: lack of support for using ToB material with non-ToB classes (perhaps alternate class features)
As someone else brought up, 1/2 IL progression makes everything support ToB.

4: lack of versatility with maneuvers/stances
Ols brought this up, without even mentioning Iron Heart's ability to disable Spells

5: needs more out of combat abilities
This was already brought up too.

6: Lack of At Will abilities
Every Maneuver out of Combat is essentially At-Will.

7: Lack of enough Passive abilities(one stance is nice, but ...)
That "one stance" is your choice from a large list of stance-like effects, the Classes them selves also grant passive abilities and the Arcane Swordsage does nothing but use them.

8: Lack of enough synergy between maneuvers
Oh I don't know about that. See the tactical feats.

9: Lack of PrC's
So lack of supplement supplements?

10: Lack of scaling
Intended Feature, reduces spamming and negates running at full-power during the entire counter as a balance between being able to reuse them thousands of times.

11: Poor Save DC's
Every single one of them is 10+Maneuver Level+Modifier and many of them are Strength based which is the easier Ability to get triple digits in.

12: less supernatural abilities
Why?

13: more supernatural abilities
So lack of supplement supplements?

14: could be used to replace archaic combat mechanics
Yes, yes it could. Is this a complaint of an observance of awesome?

15: fix stance progressions
Huh?

16: move away from wuxia flavor
Flavor is what you make of it.

17: consider allowing maneuvers to bu used multiple times
You can, spend a Full-Round Action, or a Swift, or nothing because reset is free to Crusaders.

18: Consider a feat or skill trick to improve the refresh mechanic of Martial Study
And create the question of why even take levels in Warblade?

19: Consider a feat or skill trick to allow the use of out-of-discipline weapons with the various class features and feats that involve them.
Your weapon is also flavor. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but with Strike of Alacrity a Dagger deals 95% of the damage a Greatsword does.

20: Solve the errata issue.
God I wish...
[/quote]

[wotmaniac]

@ SorO:
The lack of future support in supplements is mainly an issue when contrasted with the fact that other supplement-based classes did get further support.  From where I'm sitting, I wouldn't even have needed more toys -- just a concerted effort to try to further integrate the classes in to the rest of the game (as opposed to just leaving it as nothing but a stand-alone).

Otherwise I'm pretty much in agreement with everything else.

[Garryl]

Using strikes feels kinda awkward from about 6th to 8th level. You've just gotten your 2nd attack in a full attack, so just hitting things straight up is pretty strong, and the power and utility of many 2nd- to 4th-level strikes doesn't quite catch up. I can't say anything about higher levels because I only ever played a ToB character up to that level range.

[snakeman830]

15: fix stance progressions
Huh?

When you learn new stances.  It seems very odd to me that a single-classed Crusader never can learn Immortal Fortitude without blowing a feat on it, for example.  Especially when Devoted Spirit is only available naturally to Crusaders (and some PrC's).  Having 8th level stances when you last learn a stance at level 14 (max maneuver level of 7) seems like a design flaw.

[Jackinthegreen]

15: fix stance progressions
Huh?

When you learn new stances.  It seems very odd to me that a single-classed Crusader never can learn Immortal Fortitude without blowing a feat on it, for example.  Especially when Devoted Spirit is only available naturally to Crusaders (and some PrC's).  Having 8th level stances when you last learn a stance at level 14 (max maneuver level of 7) seems like a design flaw.

Likewise, getting a stance at 2nd level instead of 3rd when more stances would be available is a bit off.

[SorO_Lost]

Likewise, getting a stance at 2nd level instead of 3rd when more stances would be available is a bit off.

You do realize there are no 2nd level Stances right?

I get your point, but there are no 2nd, 4th, or 9th level Stances then there is only one 6th (desert wind) & one 7th (tiger claw). A vast majority of them are 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 8th. Swordsages can learn a 3rd & 5th at the same time they can access them but are delayed on 8ths. Crusaders & Warblades delayed on 3rd and a level off from the rest (or so). I can't help but think it's bad editing.

[bhu]

Updated the list via Gitp.