What supplements work best with Tome of Battle?
Complete Warrior has all kinds of prestige classes and feats that could work with ToB, but what else?
Not playing 3.5e.
Magic of Incarnum or whatever it was called?
>What works best with any 3.P splat book?
A fire.
No, seriously, I wouldn't be able to give you an actual recommendation because there wasn't a whole helluva a lot of melee focused stuff released. Magic related works? Oodles, but the BoNS and ToB and Complete Warrior/Scoundrel/Adventurer is about all I can think of right off the top of my head.
>>46546609
Oh fuck off already
>>46546639
Magic of Incarnum WAS great, but it was hardly a melee focused work. Although it was one of the only magic focused splat books that could have been dropped in any campaign and not been a broken piece of shit which itself is probably the best thing I can say for it.
The whole crafting magical armor and weapons, or using magic to add extra limbs and shit to your body was pretty neat given the way the magic in that book was a lot more solid and way more limited.
>>46546710
>but it was hardly a melee focused work
The thing about "work best with Tome of Battle" is that - what you're looking for is feats, basically. If you're working with Tome of Battle, you're either working with an initiator class or with Martial Study, and lol @ Martial Study, so you're working with an initiator class. What do you add to an initiator class? Magic items (in which case the answer is pretty unambiguously MIC) or feats. And in terms of getting bang from your buck, Shape Soulmeld is a pretty sexy feat.
Complete Champion is also bretty gud
>>46547054
What's wrong with Martial Study?
Mandatory
>>46546533
Complete Warrior can do prestige classes and such, but the combat style feats are also worth a look.
Complete Adventurer's got some stuff that can do well as a martial skill monkey or sneak, combining with Swordsage options for example. Likewise for Complete Scoundrel and Complete Champion.
The Weapons of Legacy splat might help add some more legacy items and campaign options by expanding past the options of the 9 swords of the various disciplines.
Bard, Ranger, and Paladin could do a switch of spells for maneuvers, with Bard working off Swordsage's system, Ranger on the Warblade's and Paladin on the Crusader's.
Pathfinder's Path of War suppliment can give you more disciplines to work with and 3 classes, though there'll be some need to translate from CMB/CMD and the like into 3.5's combat maneuver system. This also provides you with the Solar Wind school for ranged martial maneuvers.
If your campaign has a certain theme or environment to focus on, you can angle toward those; a True Primitive (Frostburn) Warblade with the Tiger Claw school pouncing on prey, or a Desert Wind Dry Lich who used supernatural maneuvers and initiator level rather than caster level for their path to undeath. Stormwrack's a little more difficult, but a White Raven focused Warlbade into Legendary Captain might be fun, especially if you can talk the DM into allowing LC to advance your maneuvers in place of the base class since it's a little lacking on its own.
And if you can't sort out how to make Heroes of Battle do something for a martial adept I don't know what to tell you.
Though Heroes of Horror might be a fun one if you're going for pic related, and if so tag in Lords of Madness and make sure someone takes Diamond Mind for those concentration-for-will-save rolls.
>>46548930
On another note, one of my group's DMs is running a martial-adept based campaign atm, and the way he made sure that everyone was going to have something available to them, in addition to just "fightan types of various flavors" was gestalting the game. Given that you're looking at martial adepts and warrior focus, or so it seems, this might be worth consideration.
>One side of the Gestalt MUST be a martial adept base class, no PrC or multi-classing out of it once started.
>Go wild with the other side.
Past that you might want your own restrictions; no spellcasting classes for example, or niche casters like Incarnum and Tome of Magic only to keep the power spikes to a relative minimum.
Swordsage/Scout makes for a good switch-hitter, and the Desert Wind style feats in ToM work well with the Skirmish mechanics. Warblade/Fighter is pretty much 2xwarrior combo for the folks that are looking for that. Crusader/Paladin or Crusader/Knight can work well for Ye Olde LG Armored Zealot. If you follow up on the Path of War stuff too, Warlord/Marshal or Warlord/Bard can make for a great melee support and party face. A Solar-Wind Stalker going Crag-Top Archer PrC on the other side would be nightmarish to fight against as an adversary, or good for the PC who wants to be able to participate from a mile or three away from the fight until dungeons come up.
Plus if you're cool with PF stuff, Martial Adept Gunslingers become an option and there's always at least One person up for that in the party.
>>46547674
It's not so much "what's wrong with Martial Study" as it is "what's wrong with [insert non-ToB martial class you're taking Martial Study with]".
Honestly I think it's a mistake to stretch past Tome of Battle. ToB + PH + DMG + MM1 + House Rules/Expansion is the best experience I've had with 3.5, and I've been playing and DMing it for years.
>>46546609
>>46546645
>Do I fit in yet?
>>46549495
Got it.
For DM purposes, would it be a good idea to put Martial Study on NPC's? Like 1st level warriors?
I really wish there were NPC classes for ToB (and XPH and MoI, as well). I understand that Paizo might have some stuff for that, but I would really rather not touch anything associated with Paizo. (Yeah, I like late 3.5 stuff, but hate Pathfinder. Go figure?)
Might look into some Dreamscarred Press stuff, but... even that is a little too close to Paizo for my liking.
>>46549624
Martial Study on a 1st level warrior means they have a trick they can use, Once, in a fight; depends on what the trick is, but at a glance I think it'd be a little lacking in comparison to a normal combat maneuver feat unless they're Human NPC warriors who can also take Martial Stance at 1st level to work in synergy with each other; a team of warriors with Crusader Strike and Martial Spirit, for example, healing each other up effectively or Child of Shadow Stance for concealment of a high-mobility stealthy squad.
>>46549840
Yeah, stances would be cool on human warriors.
Hmmm... Do you think it would be fine, in an all T3 campaign, to make fighters and monks into NPC classes?
>>46549903
Fighter and monk already are NPC classes in 3.x. Casters actually do everything, everybody else is just around to clean up after them.
>>46550151
>I don't know what ToB is and have also never played 3.5
>>46550173
> What is reading comprehension
I didn't say a thing about ToB or martial adepts, I specifically referenced only fighters and monks, illiterate
>>46546533
It came out late in 3.5's lifecycle so nobody really built on it. Finding character options that pair well with it is an exercise in extreme cherrypicking, since most melee stuff is awful in 3.5.
But it's fairly well self-contained, the main thing I'd look for is the rest of the classes with similar power levels. Tier 3 on JaronK's list. The next best book for finding those is PHB2, which has both the Beguiler and Duskblade.
I'm also rather fond of "Slow XYZ spellcaster to Bard progression" as a patch rule, if you want to still have wizards and stuff in your game.
>>46546639
>>46546533
Would 3.pf work better with ToB for martials and Incarnum replacing magic entirely?
>>46549903
Should be fine. Fighters are the better part of tier 5, and even the good feat chains (AOO and Dungeoncrasher) are just going to be interesting speedbumps combat-wise.
The best thing to go with Tome of Battle is Path of War, the 3rd party Pathfinder expansion. You'll have to adapt it a bit to 3.5, and its worth it to do so, as it is a nice martial adept expansion.
>>46552516
I ran a short campaign with ToB, Incarnum, and Expanded Psionics Handbook. Worked just fine. Was a little weird for the players since they were more accustomed to PHB 3.5 though.
>>46546639
>>46546710
Incarnum needed work to not be shit. Overpowered at low levels and nearly useless afterward unless it was a low magic campaign or you houseruled chakra binds to not prevent use of magic items. 2/3 of the classes introduced were weak and saddled with alignment issues tied to their abilties. PF has a reboot of Incarnum called Akasha written by the same people who translated psionics to PF. Unfortunately I can't tell you much about Akasha since it popped up so late that my group never used it or Path of War. But we played the shit out of PF psionics and loved it.
>>46546533
Tome of Battle+Psionics+Incarmum, with basically ALL of core taken out makes a decent game.
>>46546533
Well, ToB classes are still a little bit underwhelming compared to full casters, so maybe something to replace those? XPH is a good replacement for caster classes; the powers are versatile without being too powerful, they have to pay for every bit of extra power they get out of them, with a, somewhat flexible, cap on the amount of extra power they can get out of each one, and, with the exception of one class, they're all pretty much on par with ToB classes.
The exception being the Soulknife. Fuck the Soulknife. It is garbage, barely above the level of power that the baseline Fighter has. Not even the prestige class you have to be a Soulknife to become a member of makes it worth it.
>>46553522
>>46557748
>>46559870
So...
Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum, and maybe Tome of Magic. PHB banned.
What does that setting look like to you guys?
>>46559925
Psionic in its mechanics is just magic with mana points instead of psi points. ToB is just codified fighting styles (with a bit of magic thrown in for some for good measure). So basically, not that different. Everyone is a bit more extraordianry than what is expected of D&D even at low levels, so maybe somewhat Eberron like.
>>46559948
Now that I think about it, are there any cleric/druid replacements? I don't think any of the books has any.
>>46559925
I'd say to maybe read through MoI first. I've heard that, at low levels, the classes are very, very good, but at later levels, they tend to fall behind because they can't have soulmelds bound if they have a magic item whose slot falls in the same area as the meld does. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, though.
Also, kinda like popular shonen anime/manga.
>>46559963
Shapeshifting is covered by psionics, but costs Xp. The closest XPH has to healing is Vigor, which is temporary hp. CPsi has an actual healing power that's pretty good, considering it's low level, that wouldn't be out of place for one of the Psychometabolism Psion discipline. The Crusader from ToB has healing maneuvers as well.
>>46559963
If you want cleric/druid replacements, you want the warlock and dragon shaman for clericing (just reflavour the warlock as divine themed) and the wildshape-variant ranger for druiding.
Bam,
>>46559989
What's the name of that healing power?
>>46560136
Touch of Health. Heals 2 points of damage, plus 2 points for every additional power point spent to manifest it. Can also be used to damage undead.
It's the 1st level power of the Life Mantle(weird little gimmick of one of the classes in CPsi). The rest are also healing, or otherwise cleric-themed, powers. Might look into those too.
http://files.meetup.com/1619590/Complete%20Psionic.pdf
Page 70.
