Talk:Chthonic Serpent (3.5e Martial Discipline)

Author's Note

First, big thanks to The Demented One and Krimm Blackleaf for their excellent homebrewed disciplines; they inspired this. Also, many thanks to The Demented One for the "replace a discipline you have or go find training" mechanic for gaining access to the discipline - that's brilliant, and I've nicked that here. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? Certainly intended to be, here.

Anyway - I'm pretty newb with Tome of Battle and sort of newish with melee in general. Plus, ya know, Grapple rules. So this definitely needs serious review, and I'd really appreciate it if I could get any. --DragoonWraith † 18:08, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Haven't actually taken that close of a look at this yet, but from what I can see it's pretty darn epic. Finally a reason to use a whip!--ThirdEmperor 18:20, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Though, ultimately... you probably still don't want a whip. Crack of the Whip negates most of the stupid penalties, but that means not using any other stance, ever, which is a bit rough. Use any other associated weapon, most of which are better even despite that, and you avoid that requirement.

Maybe a feat is in order to allow you to just keep Crack of the Whip all the time... hmm.

DragoonWraith † 22:39, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

There's also the whip-dagger from various books, which is a whip minus the stupid. Surgo 23:41, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

True, but I'd treat that as effectively a Whip for just about everything, since it shares a proficiency and focus and such. Unfortunately, AFAIK it's only been published in 3.0 material or in Dragon Magazine, both of which may have difficulty getting into games.

DragoonWraith † 01:56, December 14, 2009 (UTC)

Editing

Thanks for uploading this. I'm going to edit the way this is displayed, to make it similar to spells. Surgo 18:53, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Cool, sounds good. Also, I've answered your PM on GitP.

DragoonWraith † 22:39, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Actually, when I said this, I was wrong - I hadn't. I thought I had, but in fact it was one of many tabs sitting open, just waiting for me to hit Send, and I didn't notice it. I've sent it now.

DragoonWraith † 01:57, December 14, 2009 (UTC)

hmmm

i'm not really a fan of 9 swords, and my gaming groups have all banned that book except for a few feats from it, deeming it out of the power level of our gaming styles. that said I really like this style. IT uses a 3 of my absolute favorite weapons (flind bar, kasuri-gama, whip). i wanna make a swordsage using this now, possibly using a tentaccle whip from ebberon. the only thing i'm not a fan of personally is the name, but thats always changable fluff. this class lets you do all the cool tie-you-up stuff seen in movies and such, and i really like that.

Are there any plans for more 9th level maneuvers? maybe another 1 or 2 could be awesome.--NameViolation 22:56, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Do you ban Artificers, Beguilers, Binders, Clerics, Dragonfire Adepts, Dread Necromancers, Duskblades, Factotums, Favored Souls, Erudites, Psions, Sorcerers, Wilders, and Wizards, too? Those are all at least as powerful as the martial adepts; most of them are much more powerful (especially Cleric, Druid, and Wizard). Or is simply that melee cannot have nice things? I'm sorry, but people who ban ToB kind of peeve me, because it's probably the best balanced book in 3.5. It's also the only one to do anything significant about the massive gap between melee and casters, for which it is amazing. If you have actual play experience with ToB, then I guess I can't really argue with you, but if this decision is based on your perceptions of its balance, I strongly suggest that you try it. The only real "issue" with ToB, from a balance perspective, is that it is "self-optimizing" - you can choose just whatever sounds cool at the time for your maneuvers, and you'll be quite competent. Try doing that with Fighter feats, and you'll quickly find yourself useless. Same with Sorcerer spells, though less so because its magic and magic is always better (especially from the Sor/Wiz list). In a very underoptimized game, ToB might be overpowered - but this, I think, is the fault of the rest of 3.5 for putting so much emphasis on "rules mastery" - always a dumb concept. At any rate, even in such a game, the casters are very likely to leave the melee feeling useless in higher levels, if you're not careful. ToB fixes that.

Anyway, all of the Disciplines in ToB have exactly one 9th level maneuver. This is intentional, for balance reasons. In fact, this Discipline has about as many maneuvers total as any Discipline that isn't Swordsage-only should - if I add any new maneuvers, I'll be removing some of these. Finally... why don't you like the name? I really like it, personally.

DragoonWraith † 01:54, December 14, 2009 (UTC)

i was just tryin to give a little praise, not defend my grops gaming decisions. to each their own. we also try and limit caster to spells from th PH and 1 book (not spell compendium) of their choosing. we run games at what people apparantly believe is "fighter" or low "rogue" level so things are actually challenging. alot of games end up with no casters to maintain a challenge. Its by player choice that we ban powerful classes and yes we do ban Artificers (most of the time), Binders, Dragonfire Adepts (no one wants to play one), Factotums, and Erudites, and a bunch of other stuff. also the name just doesn't flow off the tongue IMHO. Chthonic sounds like I'm praying to Cthulhu. but to each his own. no need to get defensive and jump down my throat.

also one of my groups plays gestalt, and book of 9 was deemed a game break at that point. its too good with gestalting, and since thats the groups playstyle, so be it. I'm not here to defend my playstyle, or bash other peoples. its my fuckin opinion and I'm entitled to it. --NameViolation 02:52, December 14, 2009 (UTC)

You word your praise oddly, then. My apologies for getting defensive, but your praise seemed rather back-handed to me. Whatever, my misunderstanding. Sorry. "I like this but" followed by bash bash bash doesn't really strike me as praise.

DragoonWraith † 03:27, December 14, 2009 (UTC)

yeah, i totally dig this. its similar t osetting sun, but more awesome. also i love the weapons, like i said. so dispite the fact i'm never gonna get to play this, i might use it for some great npc's (or a fun pc if i find a new gaming group). I would totally make a swordsage "ninja" with this. --NameViolation 03:59, December 14, 2009 (UTC)

OK, that wasn't clear to me before. Though, rereading, I suppose it should have been. Sorry. Anyway, if your group really does avoid casters and sticks with the truly mundane melee (Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, etc), that can work for balance - not a popular balance point for a variety of reasons, but a workable one. It's just that most people who single out ToB as overpowered don't actually do that. As a commentary - "limiting" a Wizard or Sorcerer to the Player's Handbook is not a terribly effective way to balance them, unless you nerf/ban quite a few spells from it. Most of the most easily abused spells in the game were printed in the Player's Handbook (the Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange line, Planar Binding/Gate, Solid Fog et al., Enervation, Time Stop, Mind Blank, Contingency, etc etc) - the only non-PH spells of similar power that I can think of off the top of my head are Shivering Touch (SpC, IIRC) and Celerity (PHB2). Just a thought if you find that playing casters tends to be "EZ mode" - you might consider banning the PHB entirely, and using splatbook casters and spells. Most of them are quite a bit weaker. Though even the weakest (War Mage) probably is still about as good as the ToB crowd... Well, barring the Healer.

Anyway, as a player, I dunno, it sort of saddens me to hear about a game where you are so limited in character build options. I realize playstyles vary greatly and for many this is unimportant or even a hassle, but I'm not ashamed to say I'm an optimizer, and mostly that I just crave options. ToB has some great options.

DragoonWraith † 07:24, December 14, 2009 (UTC)