The Gaming Den

I really like the tome soldiers stance and maneuver mechanic. How could one adjust it to create a classic fighter?

Basically I am asking how could you convert the tome soldier into a full bab strength focused class, that has a less magicky feel and uses stances and manuevers?

Any ideas are welcome.

The difference between Full BAB and 3/4 BAB is pretty close to nothing. It's a +2 to-hit at 8th level and you could seriously forget you have that. The "big" issue is that it pushes back your Full Attack extra attacks, but for a class whose signature ability is based on Standard Attacks, that hardly matters. For most practical purposes, you could just declare the class to be Full BAB and it wouldn't make a lot of difference.

As for being less "supernatural", my suggestion would be to play at low level. 10th level adventures are pretty intense, and not having access to planar travel and illusion piercing basically means you can't play without DM pity when the battle moves to the Abyss.

-Username17

Bab has a slightly higher importance in tomes. It also affects edge, AoO and ofcourse combat feats.

But yes, since maneuvers use standard action attacks full attacking and consequently bab becomes kinda useless.
Maybe a solution would be that some or even all of the maneuvers function only with a full attack action?

When I say "less magicky" I don't mean "not useful" or "inconsequential at high levels". I am well aware that a core srd fighter above level 6 is kinda unreal just due to the fact of his hp(yey I can survive a 100 feet free fall!). So stances that cause you to have super acute senses or cut open a portal to another plane with your magic sword are ok.
That said tome barbarian, fighter, samurai don't have access to planar travel (right?), so its not like its absolutely necessary.

Lets try and keep the magicky stuff at a minimum.

Okay, here's what I recommend. This is the Gaming Den and we thrive on acerbic criticism, so if you want to get the attention of the forums you need to give them something to throw tomatos at. Hack together a first draft of how you'd do it and we'll tell you what parts stink, and more importantly, we'll tell you why they stink and how to clean it up.

This also convinces the rest of us that you care enough to actually make this happen, which tends to shake us out of our default apathy.

I recommend checking this class out. It has the idea of "choose different stunts to pull off", which might be part of the flavor you're looking for, but it's not maneuver-based; it makes use of feats. Maybe one could engineer a fighter v2 with access to a list of tome feats, changeable like readied maneuvers from ToB?

I might post my own version of this put it will take quite some time to come up with sth post-worthy.

I suppose low level stances might be able to give you access to feats, for example a stance to fight bigger opponents might give you the giant slayer feat.

I don't really like the readied maneuvers mechanic from ToB.

VladtheLad wrote:I might post my own version of this put it will take quite some time to come up with sth post-worthy.

I suppose low level stances might be able to give you access to feats, for example a stance to fight bigger opponents might give you the giant slayer feat.

I don't really like the readied maneuvers mechanic from ToB.

Then just let them use their maneuvers at-will. Since they're all standard actions, the class' raw power isn't increasing, just it's versatility. That's usually a good thing since it means there's less of a chance that they'll have nothing to contribute in any given encounter. That keeps players more focused on the game and less likely to wander off and start up a game of Smash Brothers.

This is all predicated on you writing good maneuvers, but that's pretty much a given regardless.

...You Lost Me wrote:I recommend checking this class out. It has the idea of "choose different stunts to pull off", which might be part of the flavor you're looking for, but it's not maneuver-based; it makes use of feats. Maybe one could engineer a fighter v2 with access to a list of tome feats, changeable like readied maneuvers from ToB?

This is pretty irrelevant but this is a real blast from the past, I remember using these guys before I went full-on 100% into Tome games. Unfortunately they don't synergize well with Tome play (especially Tome feats) and aren't as well designed (the Warlord is heavily front-loaded for instance) so I basically forgot about them. There are some nifty and salvageable mechanics in there, though, maybe.

Basically I am asking how could you convert the tome soldier into a full bab strength focused class, that has a less magicky feel and uses stances and manuevers?

1. Give it full BAB.

2. Have the stance basic bonuses become Str based instead of Int based.
In this case you probably don't want to let the class have a stance that adds Str modifier to weapon damage, since they are already doing that with melee, thrown as well as slings and Strength Bows - So that can become something else - I'm gonna suggest something that lets you add one square of movement speed per Str bonus as a replacement. Also, they are already adding their Strength bonus to Strength-based skill checks, so that will double up on such checks unless you swap it for another stat.

So we start with something like:
Basic Bonuses:
Add Strength Modifier to Armor Class.
Add Strength Modifier to Saving Throws.
Add Strength Modifier to Str and Dexterity based Skill Checks. (yes this means you add your Str modifier to Climb Swim and Jump an additional time)
Gain Spell Resistance of 5 + Level + Strength Modifier
Add 5" per point of Strength Bonus to your movement speed.

Then you need to comb over the racial stance list and either re-flavor abilities to be based on something other than fantastic races and/or edit out the stuff that feels "too magicy" to you. That's kinda subjective, so it's not like other people can help you in detail

3. Then you need to edit/rewrite/reflavor the Maneuver abilities to feel less magic-y to you.

In about 20-30 minutes of looking over the extant soldier manuvers and brainstorming, I have the following as all probably workable as standard-action fightoldier maneuvers that don't feel all that magic-y. If you want options for all 20 levels, you'll need more (and to turn the joke entries into real ones)

Brutal Strike - strike deals extra damage
Defensive Strike - strike deals damage and provides fightoldier AC bonus and/or DR
Disarming Strike - damage and auto-disarm on hit
Unbalancing Strike - damage and makes opponent prone on hit
Assisting Strike - deals damage and provides Aid Another bonus to an ally
Accurate Strike - strike has bonus to hit
Adrenal Strike - fightoldier gains temp HP and makes an attack
Crippling Strike - strike deals damage and reduces target's movement
Rushing Strike - fightoldier may take move action and strike as a standard action
Blinding Strike - strike deals damage and blinds
Positional Strike - strike deals damage and prevents target from making AoOs for a round (possibly this prevents the enemy taking AoOs on the fightoldier even on a miss)
Evasive Strike - attacks against the fightoldier have a miss chance for the next round, fightoldier makes an attack.
Deafening Strike - strike deals damage and deafens
Shattering Strike - strike deals damage, and if used against an objects, constructs or undead the target must save or die
Counter-Strike - deal damage and mod one first person shooter.
Multistrike - fightoldier makes a number of attacks equal to those they would get in a full attack action as a standard action.
Compound Strike - fightoldier uses two other different strike maneuvers as a single standard action. (you could have this scale up with BAB if you want)
Wounding Strike - strike deals damage and cause target to bleed additional damage each round until healed
Shoving Strike - strike deals damage and pushes target back a significant distance (like at least a single move)
Critical Strike - strike is automatically a critical threat
Knockout Strike - strike deals damage and forces target to save or fall unconscious
Terrifying Strike - strike deals damage to one target and allows fightolider to auto-intimidate many nearby enemies
Harrying Strike - strike deals damage and makes casting on the defensive more difficult and allows fightoldier to take out-of-turn 5' step to follow target.
Football Strike - deals damage to fanbase, preserves anti-trust exemption and blackout rights.
Denial Strike - deals damage and deactivates one named (Ex), (Su) or (Sp) ability. Target cannot re-activate that ability for one round. (describe this as pinning the dragon's mouth shut so it can't breath fire, forcing the beholder to close it's eye, or twisting a harpy's wing and it doesn't "feel" magical)
Clinging Strike - deal damage and if target is two or more sizes larger than you, move with it. (Jumping on the Dragon's back, driving your sword in and using your sword hilt to hang on)
Fatal Strike - deal damage and force living target to save or die. This is a death effect. (If it feels less magic-y, call it "beheading strike" and write an ettin/hydra resistance, ooze immunity clause)
Strike beyond Strike - roll first, then choose which strike you were using all along.

Thanks, thats about what I was looking for Josh. It will take some time but I think I will develop my own version.

It is important to note though that the soldier gets a lot of love to make up for the fact that it has medium bab, intelligence as its main stat and is a melee class. The fighter shouldn't need as much.

Some thoughts:
I wouldn't like stance basic bonuses based on strength or any stat for that matter. I am leaning towards making them based on bab. Something like equal to your bab divided by two. That way you can focus on dexterity as your main stat if you want to. ( I know I said in my first post a "strength focused class", but using bab just makes more sense to me now.)

So maybe:
Basic bonuses:
Add half your bab to ac
Add half your bab to saving throws
Add half your bab to str and dexterity skill checks
Gain spell resistance 5+level+half yout bab
Add 5'' per 2 points of bab to your movement speed

Also thinking of adding:
Add half your bab to initiating and resisting bull rush, grapple, trip, trample or disarm attempts.

Also to avoid dipping from other full bab classes: This bonus can never be greater than half your fighter level.

Manuevers could have a dc equal to bab+10, or main stat+1/2 character level+10.
I am also leaning on making maneuvers and stances based on 3 levels, much like the tome monk styles. Mostly cause they are easier to make that way, instead of coming up with manuevers fo all 9 levels.
Lastly maneuvers should be usable as full round action, not just a standard action.

VladtheLad wrote:So maybe:
Basic bonuses:
Add half your bab to ac
Add half your bab to saving throws
Add half your bab to str and dexterity skill checks
Gain spell resistance 5+level+half yout bab
Add 5'' per 2 points of bab to your movement speed

Terribad. These are all useless at level 1, and negligible until level 6.

I wouldn't like stance basic bonuses based on strength

Then you have changed your original goal from that stated.

I am asking how could you convert the tome soldier into a full bab strength focused class

If you still want a Strength focused class, then it needs to have abilities based off of Strength.

Well strength should still be the most usefull stat simply by virtue of it being a melee class.
For example tome barbarian and tome fighter are strength focused, even if they don't have many abilities based off strength.

I am leaning on basing the maneuvers on strength/dexterity and the stances on bab.

Ofcourse you could pick the tome weapon finesse feat and focus on dexterity, which is also just fine.

VladtheLad wrote:Well strength should still be the most usefull stat simply by virtue of it being a melee class.
For example tome barbarian and tome fighter are strength focused, even if they don't have many abilities based off strength.

I am leaning on basing the maneuvers on strength/dexterity and the stances on bab.

Ofcourse you could pick the tome weapon finesse feat and focus on dexterity, which is also just fine.

There's your problem, those classes aren't stat based, because that's stupid. They are tactics- based. The fighter is more like a Swiss Army Knife with always something for the situation and the Barbarian is for throwing a lot of damage on the opponent. They are also play-style based, with the Fighter being more complex and the Barbarian. The Solider is more complex than the Fighter and is for people who like picking their abilities like the casting classes do.

If you can't figure out those purposes then the class will be a mess. Hell, the Solider has Dex and Str as 3rd or 4th priority and it's a melee class.