ToB Campaign Idea

[Garryl]

I've had a notion for a Tome of Battle-focused campaign floating around my head for a few years that I never really worked out. The idea would be to make heavy use of Tome of Battle's lore and mechanics by having the players be some of the last students of the Temple of the Nine Swords who are away from it for whatever reason, having left as the discord was rising but before the Shadow Master and Tiger Lord were banished, returning long enough after the Shadow Tiger Horde's invasion and the temple's fall for the horde and the temple's survivors to have dispersed and for the immediate aftermath to finish settling down. Maybe they were on an extended "graduating exam" mission/journey to prove their skill and worth to be considered masters? The idea is that it would be long enough for the battles to be long over, but also for new, less formalized martial schools to start forming without the omnipresent Temple of the Nine Swords looming over them.

Plotwise, I'm not sure where it would go, specifically. The beginning is clear to me, the players returning to the ransacked temple, finding it occupied not by their teachers and fellow students but by bandits, many of whom are remnants of the Shadow Tiger Horde, but some of whom are also disillusioned former fellows from the Temple. Clearing out the remains of the Temple would lead the players to a plot hook. Perhaps they would seek revenge on the Shadow Tiger Horde that destroyed their former home or on the students that betrayed their fellows to join it. Perhaps they would find some clue that some of their friends or teachers from the Temple are still alive somewhere and would decide to track them down. Either of those would result in a need for more information, which should push the players into seeking out the House of the Fallen Sun, a former minor player in the local criminal underworld focusing on information brokerage and subterfuge for hire, but which aided the Shadow Tiger Horde in their assault on the Temple of the Nine Swords and subsequently took in a number of their martial adepts after the Horde's dissolution. Ideally, this would then lead the players further out into the world, tracking down their target but also leading them into crossing paths with some of the other newly-forming martial disciplines along the way.

Mechanically, I want everyone to have a bit of ToB to their characters, even if they're not playing that archetype. I'm thinking of giving everyone gestalt at levels 1 and 4, as long as one side is a ToB class. For martial adept characters, this would represent skills learned from before they started studying the Sublime Way (a martial adept class and a non-martial adept class), cross-training learned in the Temple (2 martial adept classes), or perhaps the development of new, esoteric techniques from that long journey (mixing in a homebrew martial adept class). For non-martial adept characters who were not students of the Sublime Way, these two martial adept gestalt levels would represent skills picked up from hanging around the Temple and/or its students for several years.

While I want the campaign to start simple with mostly just the use of ToB material, I'd like it to expand as it continues to include the wide range of interesting ToB homebrew that's out there. Martial adept levels would be extremely common among NPCs and monsters throughout the campaign. However, the initial encounters would have them be exclusively from ToB. Later sections would include more and more homebrew classes and disciplines.

Some character background elements for the players to think about:
- Why did your character study the Sublime Way, or find themselves working with students of it so frequently?
- Who was someone your character had connection with from the temple? Where they a friend, a rival, a mentor?

Anyways, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. It's mostly just to plop out notes and get the ideas out of my head and recorded somewhere.

Edit: What ToB homebrew do you think would work well in this era and should be included? I'm familiar with my own work, but it's been so long since I've really been part of the homebrew scene that I don't remember even a small fraction of the myriad homebrew disciplines, let alone the additional classes people have made.

[MrPurple]

that's a nice premice.
you could also look into Path of War for Pathfinder, more classes and archetypes for base clases adding maneuvers for everyone gets easier, and you can have you npc fighter with a few tricks.

For inspiration you could go for manhwas (Korean manga) about martial arts and so on, rivalities between schools, usually multiple factions (light, dark, demonic etc...)
with more schools, you could also reserve a few for secret or special organisation, allowing your npc to be identified by the schools they use instead of a uniform for exemple.

What place does Magic takes in your setting?

[Stratovarius]

Maybe it's me going down the obvious path, but the ending could be forming their own school/reforming the temple of nine swords + founding their own legacy weapons/collecting the nine swords. Basically to restore the honour of the martial adepts, even if it's not exactly the same thing as the original temple.

Personally I'd also encourage people to look at martial monstrous races (gnolls, hobgoblins, etc.) because of the strong lore role those play in ToB. And it's a little more interesting than the normal array of humans and dwarves you'd get in a martial campaign.

Either way, I'd certainly be interested in this.

[dman]

I'm interested primarily because I have not played with ToB very much and would like to try it. Sprinkling in some marshal would be fun for gestalt.

[Eldritch_Lord]

I'm actually running a ToB-focused PbP campaign (well, kinda running, it's been on life support during the pandemic) with a fairly similar premise and outline.  The out-of-character thread is here if you want to take a look at the setting and houserule information, but the gist of it is thus:

The campaign started roughly two years after the fall of the Temple of the Nine Swords, and a bunch of successor temples have popped up, the two largest being the Temple of the Four Seasons (the PCs' temple, which teaches Desert Wind, Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, and Stone Dragon, and has a general philosophy of "stick with the original Temple's teachings and focus exclusively on the Sublime Way as much as possible") and the Temple of the Unconquered Sun (a rival temple, which teaches Devoted Spirit, Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, and Tiger Claw, and has a general philosophy of "the Temple fell because it was too rigid and dogmatic, mix and match the Sublime Way with other paths to form something greater").  All the PCs were students at the original Temple who survived in various ways and are now Masters teaching new students at their new temple.

The general setting is the "implicit setting" of ToB, in that everything mentioned in the ToB flavor text definitely exists in the world and nothing else does unless it's specifically brought in, so the world map is based entirely on nations and landmarks mentioned in the text, the minor temples and NPCs take their names from the book, and so on.  There are also some houserules and flavor changes to lower the magic level a bit and justify why the ToB classes are worth pursuing (TL;DR: flavor-wise magic has a basis in ki and you have to train your body and mind in unison, so mechanically every caster has to be a gish and thus pure-ToB characters can compete with multiclassed casters at high levels).

The main plot is based on this bit of fluff:

The blade known as Supernal Clarity was brought to the Temple of the Nine Swords by Reshar, the first true master of the Sublime Way. Though some martial adepts curse the sword’s name, claiming that lust for this blade initiated the downfall of the temple, all know in their hearts that a weapon is merely the extension of its wielder and can never be blamed for its use—or its misuse. (DC 15)

Kaziir-Thet’s theft of Supernal Clarity proved to be the beginning of the end of the golden age for the Temple of the Nine Swords. Why the rakshasa prince stole that particular sword was widely discussed, but the truth was never really known because the thief was never brought to justice.

If stealing one of the Nine Swords led to the Temple's downfall, then obviously bringing them all back together would allow the Temple to be reforged, kind of like Stratovarius suggested, so the party has been going around to various smaller temples, making alliances, recovering the Nine Swords, and so on, and as their home temple has expanded beyond its four original disciplines it's started to resemble the original Temple more and more.  Once all of the Swords are reclaimed (and the party figures out why not a single temple on the entire continent seems to be teaching White Raven....), then [REDACTED] is going to [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] will finally [REDACTED].

Obviously things don't line up exactly with what you're thinking of (I avoided use of homebrew disciplines to keep the plot tightly focused on the original nine, only one of my PCs dipped into non-ToB stuff, etc.), but you're free to borrow things from my game if you'd like and I'd be happy to help you bounce ideas around.

[Garryl]

What place does Magic takes in your setting?

Still present, but less than your typical D&D game. I had some notes originally that the ToB gestalting would continue every 3 levels, but full caster classes can't be taken at those levels (aside from level 1), which would implicitly drop spellcasting down to about Bard level. That exact implementation doesn't make that much sense, but the idea of full casters being forced to spend a level in a different class every 3 levels or so has some merit.

Maybe it's me going down the obvious path, but the ending could be forming their own school/reforming the temple of nine swords + founding their own legacy weapons/collecting the nine swords. Basically to restore the honour of the martial adepts, even if it's not exactly the same thing as the original temple.

One concept I was musing about today is that Reshar unintentionally obstructed his own goals when he founded the Temple of the Nine Swords (T9S). Before he came around, the Sublime Way was stagnant because every group studying it guarded their secrets tightly, refusing to share and let the knowledge spread around. There were a million little sects each innovating their own techniques, but those techniques would be known to only those few members and would frequently be lost as the smaller sects died out for whatever reasons. After he learned from as many of them as he could, codified the best of them as the nine disciplines, and founded the T9S, he flipped the script but inadvertently recreated the original problem with a completely different cause. Now everyone could learn and no knowledge would be lost, but at the same time, these codified disciplines became the de facto, orthodox ways of practicing the Sublime Way. There were (almost) no more little innovators growing the Way in their own unique directions.

Personally I'd also encourage people to look at martial monstrous races (gnolls, hobgoblins, etc.) because of the strong lore role those play in ToB. And it's a little more interesting than the normal array of humans and dwarves you'd get in a martial campaign.

Either way, I'd certainly be interested in this.

Definitely. Hobgoblins had a major influence on Reshar and the T9S, being the founders of the Iron Heart discipline. I suspect he would have been a lot more open-minded about what students to accept, which would have led the T9S to have a tradition of acceptance. What matters would have been a student's passion for the Sublime Way, not their race or background.

On top of that, the Shadow Tiger Horde recruited a large number of traditionally monstrous races for their assault. The survivors would have learned no small amount about the Sublime Way, even if they didn't have any connection to it before, and brought that knowledge back to the communities they returned to after the battle ended and the horde dispersed. That's the general premise for the development of a few of my homebrew disciplines (although not explicitly with monstrous races doing it).

Also, Nimblewrights. If ever there was a printed construct more conceptually suited to an affinity for the Sublime Way, I have yet to see it.

I'm interested primarily because I have not played with ToB very much and would like to try it. Sprinkling in some marshal would be fun for gestalt.

I'm not planning to even think about running this or any other game any time soon. That said, anyone who wants to take this idea and run with it is more than welcome.

I'm actually running a ToB-focused PbP campaign (well, kinda running, it's been on life support during the pandemic) with a fairly similar premise and outline.  The out-of-character thread is here if you want to take a look at the setting and houserule information, but the gist of it is thus:

Neat. I will take a look at that for inspiration. Thank you for sharing it.

I don't suppose you kept the references around (which pages/sections the different schools and setting elements are mentioned in)? Most of those little fluff pieces are tiny things that don't go into any real detail, scattered around all over the book, but you've piqued my curiosity about them now.

Tracking down some of the missing nine swords could be another good plot hook. Although, whether the players want to rebuild the T9S, create a new school of their own, leave the whole thing alone and let the Sublime Way evolve on its own without the ingrained teachings from the T9S that they've learned, or do something else entirely at the end is up to them.

[Eldritch_Lord]

I don't suppose you kept the references around (which pages/sections the different schools and setting elements are mentioned in)? Most of those little fluff pieces are tiny things that don't go into any real detail, scattered around all over the book, but you've piqued my curiosity about them now.

I did, actually, at least for a good chunk of them.  Here are my notes, spoilered for space:

(click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Gods (mostly p11) Crusader Orders (p13)
Boccob
Corellon Larethian
Obad-Hai
Pelor
St. Cuthbert Chapeaux and Stars
Hieroneous Vix Tholm
Moradin
Wee Jas Ruby Knights
Kord
Ehlonna
Nerull
Erythnul
Hextor
Vecna
Olidammara
Gruumsh

Code: [Select]

Location/Organization Page Details
Dragonskull Temple 4 Tiamat temple
Ebon Tower 4 Involved with demons
Darkvale 4
Andrama 6 Northern portion of the Great Golden Desert; Wind Dervishes of Andrama
Ur-Thaldaar 6 Hobgoblin monastery
Isle of Dawn 4 in the East, origin of Setting Sun, surrounded by krakens
Koshtra Amnorn 14 Highest peak in Sunspires
Deluge Jungle 17 needs to be near Sunspires to match Harad Devin anecdote
Acid Swamps 17 South of the Deluge Jungle
Harad Devin Temple 18 Inclement weather, Reth Dekala presence nearby, in southern Sunspires, swordsages with magic tattoos
Incarnadine Empire 18
Eighty Empresses 18 female-only swordsage order
Orlep Tor 18 castle on a hill (has a castellan)
unnamed swordsage organization 19 devoted to slaying umber hulks in the Sunspires
Murient Temple 24 Sunspires, near umber hulk nests
Scourge of the Nine 24-25 leader: Mardilkuthor Pwarna (see below), kills martial adepts, operates in Sunspires and Deluge, lair near Mother Mountain
Free City 20
Bloodstorm Guild 103 order of Bloodstorm Blades, founded by human warblade Treyana di Vrada
Northern Reach 105 where the dwarves live
Hidden Grove 109 Eternal Blade cadre
Blade Deep Grove 112 Eternal Blade cadre
Ten Trees Stand 112 Eternal Blade cadre
The Eternal Redoubt 112 Eternal Blade cadre
Ebon Phoenix Mages 118 evil JPM variant, serves the Souldrake
Thousand-Petal Orchid Temple 120 temple of the Masters of Nine
Sasserine 124 city (in the Deluge Jungle?) with lots of yuan-ti and serpentfolk
Order of the Shadow Sun 128 each enclave led by a Shadowspeaker
Eight Peak Spire 129 sounds like a Stone Dragon/Devoted Spirit Temple
Genie Emirates 132 Southern GGD, genies live there, citizens are all strong casters
The Last Citadel 145 White Raven temple

Code: [Select]

Individuals Page Details
Harran Turiyeshor 4 "the Iron Dragon", swordsage
Miros Xavt 14 crusader of Erythnul
Sage of Snow and Shadow 18 swordsage, lives in Sunspires near Mother Mountain
Skurrgh 18 half-orc swordsage
Dorrom Veshthazrell 24 swordsage, Murient Temple
Bright Annis 24 warblade, merciless teacher, kills lots of students, hates drow, has a Temple in Deluge Jungle
Allek Thrazt 25 warblade, Iron Heart outcast, teaches Iron Heart for gold
Mardilkuthor Pwarna 25 black-skinned dwarf, swordsage, secretly rakshasa
Kaziir-Thet 4 rakshasa lord, precipitated the fall of the Temple of Nine
Rhaskana 96 Bloodclaw Secretkeeper
Varand Thunderhand 100 bloodstorm blade, spy for the githyanki blademasters
Thaku Alzull 103 hobgoblin warblade
Orros the Bloodyhanded 105 sentinel of the Northern Reach
Rurik Axethrower 107 General of the 9th Rockhome Legion
Karthak the Indomitable 108 wandering Deepstone Sentinel
Aedar Windblade 109 eternal blade of the Hidden Grove
Kuthar of Ironhame 113 JPM, guards a crypt with a trapped demon
Souldrake 113 the being the JPMs are guarding/watching against
Arexakarius 117 red dragon
Ninefold Sage of Crimson 119 Mo9
Master Kosukan 120 "Archivist-monk" (presumably Unarmed Swordsage/Mo9)
Vaunred the Walker 121 Mo9
Ereth Nazbek 122 RKV, watches over a necropolis
Jvesskah 124 yuan-ti crimelord
Ardas Runemorn 129 Thane of the Eight Peak Spire
Haqim 133 efreeti weaponsmith
Malaq 133 djinni sorcerer
Glornoth the Maleficent 133 minor devil lord
Black Eagle Baron 134 former wielder of Faithful Avenger, evil baron
Jurrik 134 former wielder of Faithful Avenger, paladin (/crusader?)
Henrikel the Just 134 former wielder of Faithful Avenger, beat Temple of Elemental Evil
Karryn the Stout 134 former wielder of Faithful Avenger, killed liches

[Garryl]

Thanks! That's great!

Now, here's a question that would have been a lot easier to answer years ago when I first had this campaign idea. What ToB homebrew do you think would work well in this era and should be included? I'm familiar with my own work, but it's been so long since I've really been part of the homebrew scene that I don't remember even a small fraction of the myriad homebrew disciplines, let alone the additional classes people have made. The martial discipline compendium is a great resource, and the original Age of Warriors project on GitP had a large list of PrCs, among other things.

[Eldritch_Lord]

That part I can't help with, unfortunately, since I haven't used any of that homebrew in my games since the Gleemax days and don't really have an opinion on any stuff aside from my own contributions (which are of course uniformly awesome and flawless).

[Stratovarius]

In terms of homebrew, use your own, and maybe one or two other homebrewers content. Otherwise you'll just be overwhelmed and can't fit it all into the story. There'll be enough to be getting on with with just what you've written.

[Nanshork]

Or do what I prefer and use the PF Path of War instead.   

[Nunkuruji]

Chosen Undead - Dark Pyromancer

Monk/UA Swordsage/SSN/Mo9

As many Desert Wind Su nukes as possible, and a handful of "Dark Pyromancies" from Shadow Hand

[Garryl]

I'm trying to figure out how to run a "hall of mirrors" type encounter. I would love for the House of the Fallen Sun to have one in their compound, since they're developing the mirror image-focused Phantom Battlefield discipline. Some thoughts so far:
- The hall of mirrors is a maze that the House uses for training. The hall itself is a maze of mirrors. Every wall is covered in a mirrored surface, making it extremely difficult to keep track of one's position or the location and number of enemies.
- Mirrors are breakable. Some are thinner, double-sided panes that open up new passages once broken. Some are set into solid walls. Some hide secret doors into other sections of the maze or into unlit hidden chambers that can see out but not be seen into, or even lead into crawlspaces above/below the maze that lead to different sections.
- Many mirrors have small, nonlethal traps behind them that trigger when broken. For example, a steam pipe that ruptures when the mirror is smashed, dealing 1d6 nonlethal fire damage and filling the nearby space with fog.
- Unless the PCs have some sort of nonvisual senses they can work from fully (ex: blindsight, maybe as little as blindsense), or they go around smashing every mirror they can see, the encounter will be run without showing them a grid/minis (theater of the mind). There still will be a grid, but I won't show it to them.
- The House's operatives will be fighting the PCs in the mirror maze. They've trained with it, so whatever penalties fighting in the maze imposes, they have slightly lesser versions. Also, they're throwing around their own mirror images and illusions, so it'll just be nasty to figure out what's going on.

What sorts of issues would arise for the PCs for this?
- In terms of actually fighting in the maze, I would expect them to have trouble determining which direction anything they observe is actually coming from. DC 20 Spot check to correctly identify the direction of anything within line of sight? Something similar to identify whether what they see is actually within line of sight and not just being reflected off a few mirrors around corners or something?
- Failure to locate an enemy might lead to an attack intended to target them actually hitting a mirror instead, breaking it. See notes above about what could be behind the mirrors (ie: possibly small traps).

I'm not sure if this encounter would be worth the effort of setting up and figuring out, but it was an interesting idea to think about.

[Stratovarius]

Question one is what happens if the PCs just go AoE on everything and smash all the mirrors right away? Because at some levels, that's absolutely possible.

[Garryl]

A largely viable option. Breaking all the mirrors still triggers a number of non-lethal and low lethality traps, some of which will provide alternative means of obscuring the battlefield (such as the steam pipe trap I mentioned).

The players might also not want to destroy the maze. If they're in a friendly training exercise, they might not want to cause so much property damage. The House is used to some breakage during training exercises and they have a few glass-makers to make replacements and clerics able to cast Make Whole to repair the damage, but they would prefer not to deal with wanton destruction.

On the other hand, if the players come at the House as enemies, they might find themselves on a soft time crunch so taking the time to systematically destroy large swaths of mirrors before advancing will have a cost. The House aren't soldiers or even really direct combatants. They're spies and assassins. Once it becomes apparent that the PCs can defeat them handily in a fight, they'd rather give up their base than fight to the last. Some members will run delaying actions while the rest collect any important documents and items  and evacuate the premises, coming back later on once the PCs have left, preparing to assassinate the PCs and/or push them out via guerilla warfare, or just move on and set up shop elsewhere. The PCs will still be able to scrounge up enough information to serve their purposes, but not as much or as clear as if they'd made a deal with the House or managed to chase down and capture some of its leadership.

[Endarire]

I like my Tome of Battle total mechanics overhaul.

In terms of playing, that depends on what rules and interpretations were used.