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Dungeons & Dragons Edition 3.5
Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords
Tome of Battle introduces a new combat subsystem for the D&D game. Tome of Battle introduces new rules for players who want new and interesting combat options for their characters. The nine martial disciplines presented within allow a character with the proper knowledge and focus to perform special combat maneuvers and nearly magical effects. Three new martial adept base classes are presented that allow a character to develop their discipline even further. Also included are new feats and prestige classes that build on the disciplines, new magic items and spells, and new monster and organizations.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published August 8, 2006
2 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Richard Baker
84 books226 followersA best-selling author and award-winning game designer, Richard Baker is known for his novels in the Forgotten Realms setting and his work on the Dungeons & Dragons game. His Realms novels include Condemnation (book 3 of the War of the Spider Queen), the Last Mythal trilogy, and the Blades of the Moonsea trilogy. He is currently working on a new military-themed science fiction series centered on the character Sikander North; Valiant Dust, the first book in the new series, debuts in November 2017 from Tor Books.
A native of Ocean City, New Jersey, Rich graduated from Virginia Tech in 1988 and went on to serve as a surface warfare officer in the United States Navy. When he's not writing fantasy or science fiction, he works in game publishing. He's the founder of Sasquatch Game Studio, a small game company based in Auburn, Washington.
Rich currently resides in the Seattle area with his wife, Kim, and their daughters Alex and Hannah. His interests include gaming (naturally), history, hiking, racquetball, and the Philadelphia Phillies.
A native of Ocean City, New Jersey, Rich graduated from Virginia Tech in 1988 and went on to serve as a surface warfare officer in the United States Navy. When he's not writing fantasy or science fiction, he works in game publishing. He's the founder of Sasquatch Game Studio, a small game company based in Auburn, Washington.
Rich currently resides in the Seattle area with his wife, Kim, and their daughters Alex and Hannah. His interests include gaming (naturally), history, hiking, racquetball, and the Philadelphia Phillies.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 27, 2017
Powergamers rejoice!
This late addition to D&D's 3rd edition is a quirky, slightly overpowered expansion, which finally allows fighting-class characters of high level to stack up to wizards and sorcerers, who famously go nuclear around Level 14 or so. The classes contained in this book are some of my favourites, both as classes unto themselves, and as side classes to take a one- or two-level dip into.
Be advised, if you play with powergamers, these classes are very easy to unbalance. Things can go sideways real fast if you're not careful. But for power-heavy games, or games where you want to duplicate the feel of more mystic battles with wild thematic sword-saint abilities, it's a great resource for breathing some new life back into your familiar 3.5 edition world. Definitely not a "necessary" book, and for advanced players only, but a lot of fun in the right hands with the right attitude.
This late addition to D&D's 3rd edition is a quirky, slightly overpowered expansion, which finally allows fighting-class characters of high level to stack up to wizards and sorcerers, who famously go nuclear around Level 14 or so. The classes contained in this book are some of my favourites, both as classes unto themselves, and as side classes to take a one- or two-level dip into.
Be advised, if you play with powergamers, these classes are very easy to unbalance. Things can go sideways real fast if you're not careful. But for power-heavy games, or games where you want to duplicate the feel of more mystic battles with wild thematic sword-saint abilities, it's a great resource for breathing some new life back into your familiar 3.5 edition world. Definitely not a "necessary" book, and for advanced players only, but a lot of fun in the right hands with the right attitude.
May 15, 2019
I had a lot more fun with this one, back in the day, than I probably should have. It's cheesy and over-the-top and all-around ridiculous, but a lot of this edition of D&D was to begin with, and these classes still aren't as strong as clerics or druids.
Well, save maybe if your DM lets you get away with all the Iron Heart Surge stuff.
Well, save maybe if your DM lets you get away with all the Iron Heart Surge stuff.
September 9, 2019
The idea was interesting, but I felt that the implementation was really bad. It could just be cultural thing for me. The source material was basically inspired by Oriental martial arts, fighting styles, movies, and anime. I found the whole implementation to be really cheesy and mostly nonsensical.
In summary, the sourcebook is about providing melee replacements - so goodbye fighter, ranger, and paladin. If you use this sourcebook, there's zero reasons to play with the original core warrior classes, as the three new classes (crusader, swordsage, and warblade) are way more powerful - unless of course, you happen to want to play a blackguard or you like tracking or archery. The three new classes play like front-line wizards - you can generally cast one "spell" (manoeuvre) once per encounter. In fact, as they scale up in power, you probably don't need rogues or wizards much, since some manoeuvres can do sneak attacks and AoE attacks.
The sourcebook requires significant investment as it adds a lot of new rules. The majority of the content aside are all geared towards giving the new classes more options. I dislike the new classes primarily because the more they're described felt more like prestige classes to me - all crusaders fight for a religion, all swordsages are scholarly fighters seeking for a "truth", and all warblades are glory-seekers. There are nine martial disciplines (hence, nine swords), but they are very oddly restricted to certain classes - why? This is one of the nonsensical things. If we're talking about oriental inspiration, this sourcebook serves up a lot of categorisations and restrictions just for the sake of it. Sure, the DM could change it, but I'm reviewing based on what's offered.
Backstory-wise, the Temple of the Nine Swords is fine, I just found the whole internal conflict to be very contrived. The so-called legendary founder? Such a character can't be built using the mechanics presented in this book, due to the limits on the number of manoeuvres you can learn. Throw in how he managed to accumulate nine swords of such varied backgrounds and they just destroyed any plot cohesiveness. And the prestige classes? They're ok within the context of this book, except for the so-called "Master of Nine" - that class is more like taking specialist levels in several schools of magic than being a "master" of several disciplines. The flavouring is just so wrong.
But that's enough ranting. I mainly dislike the sourcebook because I found the flavour and imagery to be really bad. Then I dislike the power level of the new mechanics, they're not just slightly powerful - they're very powerful. I'm probably not the target demographic for this book, seeing how cheesy and over-the-top some of the content are. Perhaps this sourcebook was not meant to be serious, and more a fun thing; but it's not for me.
In summary, the sourcebook is about providing melee replacements - so goodbye fighter, ranger, and paladin. If you use this sourcebook, there's zero reasons to play with the original core warrior classes, as the three new classes (crusader, swordsage, and warblade) are way more powerful - unless of course, you happen to want to play a blackguard or you like tracking or archery. The three new classes play like front-line wizards - you can generally cast one "spell" (manoeuvre) once per encounter. In fact, as they scale up in power, you probably don't need rogues or wizards much, since some manoeuvres can do sneak attacks and AoE attacks.
The sourcebook requires significant investment as it adds a lot of new rules. The majority of the content aside are all geared towards giving the new classes more options. I dislike the new classes primarily because the more they're described felt more like prestige classes to me - all crusaders fight for a religion, all swordsages are scholarly fighters seeking for a "truth", and all warblades are glory-seekers. There are nine martial disciplines (hence, nine swords), but they are very oddly restricted to certain classes - why? This is one of the nonsensical things. If we're talking about oriental inspiration, this sourcebook serves up a lot of categorisations and restrictions just for the sake of it. Sure, the DM could change it, but I'm reviewing based on what's offered.
Backstory-wise, the Temple of the Nine Swords is fine, I just found the whole internal conflict to be very contrived. The so-called legendary founder? Such a character can't be built using the mechanics presented in this book, due to the limits on the number of manoeuvres you can learn. Throw in how he managed to accumulate nine swords of such varied backgrounds and they just destroyed any plot cohesiveness. And the prestige classes? They're ok within the context of this book, except for the so-called "Master of Nine" - that class is more like taking specialist levels in several schools of magic than being a "master" of several disciplines. The flavouring is just so wrong.
But that's enough ranting. I mainly dislike the sourcebook because I found the flavour and imagery to be really bad. Then I dislike the power level of the new mechanics, they're not just slightly powerful - they're very powerful. I'm probably not the target demographic for this book, seeing how cheesy and over-the-top some of the content are. Perhaps this sourcebook was not meant to be serious, and more a fun thing; but it's not for me.
February 24, 2017
This book adds interesting elements to D&D. Unfortunately many of the explanations are ambiguous.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews