Talk:Tome Styles (3.5e Variant Rule)

Tome/Martial
Well, see, Races of War came out a few months before Tome of Battle, so Frank and K had already done their big melee power up, and the rest of the Tome contributors on the Den and elsewhere took their cues from them. Personally, I've never cared enough about it to want to really learn how it all interacts and works. From my time taking a lookover, though...Well, forgive me if I get a point wrong here or there, but you have three base classes, each with a different recharge scheme, who have separate schools of this sublime power (with some overlap), and there's stances, maneuvers, and strikes, which are three different categories of powers, and each power has its own individual effects which scale to your level in the appropriate classes. Right?

Problem is, that strikes me as a huge helping of "I Can't Believe It's Not Magic!" slathered onto swords, shields, and armor. Maybe I'm lazy from being able to grab the Tome Barbarian and look over the feats with how they help my character's concept and then go around bashing things for multiple d6s of bonus damage, contribute to the party and have a good time, but the payoff for the effort involved doesn't seem worth it. I'm sure there's neat ideas in there, but I'd feel like I'm learning to play a wizard, AGAIN, while I'm going through it, and the Tome of Battle likely has as many trap options which seem cool but aren't that effective, as the PHB's spells section. So, yeah. That's my reason for never writing anything for the Tome of Battle--just can't make myself care enough to learn it. --Genowhirl 06:26, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Expansion
I wouldn't mind playing with this. My first thought is that it shouldn't simply grant maneuvers - that's far too boring, given what Spheres give you. Instead, you should get other cool abilities, like uncanny dodge, evasion and so forth. Secondly, prerequisites on martial maneuvers are insane - simply put, spells lack prereqs, so maneuvers should too. Lastly, the 'one disciple per style' idea is patently insane as well - there's certainly no rule mandating any similar limitation on spheres.

Basically, this is 'Martial Spheres'. In my view, it should be more like them. - MisterSinister 06:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)