True.

If I may, I'd like to elaborate on my previous example to point something out:
a Scout4/SwordsageX is IL X+2, but he will be able to swap its first maneuver only at L8 (Scout4/Swardsage4, IL6)
Yet, using CC rules I see that the swap is "unlocked" by the IL. This makes sense given there is no class-level anymore, but is significantly different from the other system... I understand that the system they introduced in ToB to smooth the pain fo multiclassing is difficult to translate to CC!

And one last thing about all this: if you want to enforce the "organic" progression of the maneuver learning (that I already stated I understood the logic and agreed), why did you disowned the maneuver known purchase from the IL purchase (making it different from the ML purchase) ?
Come to think of it, CC doesn't price the "readied maneuvers #", is that derived from your IL?
Or have I gotten it all wrong and maneuvers known are automatic with the IL (like ML), and you pay for readying maneuvers?

=A=

A large part of the problem is as you suggest in that ToB introduced mechanics to the game that was not part of the CC balance. So, it is going to feel like a "patch." Because, well, it is.

But, let's be clear that we understand what the rules say. First, you have to buy Martial Adept Levels. So, for your character, you would need to buy X levels. {There is no longer any bonus for Non-Martial classes ... because there is no longer any classes} So let's say you buy X levels of a Martial Adept progression as a level-variable. That gives you a "Martial Class Ability" level of X ... but nothing else. Kind of like buying levels in bardic music without buying any uses. They doesn't actually get you anything.

Now you buy access to the actual maneuvers that you want access to (at an incremental cost of 90 XP per) or stances (at an incremental cost of 180 XP per). In order to buy a maneuver/stance you have to have bought enough levels in the Martial Ability (Crusader, Swordsage, etc) for which the stance is a part. Maneuvers and stances refresh as they would for a class character of X level, where X is the amount of levels you have purchased for the character. Maneuvers may be swapped following the rules, but only upon the purchase of the particular martial adept level at which the swapping is allowed for a classed character. {For the record, your question about significance is only precipitated by a character who is multiclassed ... at which point the multiclassed character is probably weaker and could actually benefit from the ability to swap earlier. So I don't see the difference as being all that significant. But you are correct, it is a difference.}

As long as you followed that, then we have the same understanding of the rules. Now, as to your second question. Maneuver purchase was seperated away from Martial Ability Level so that the class could be totally customizable. This way you can have a character who is really good at one maneuver (High IL with only 1 or 2 maneuvers) with little XP spent. Or you can have a character who dabbles in many maneuvers without being great at any of them (Low IL with far more maneuvers than normal) for some XP but not as much as a character who is great at them all. If maneuvers known is tied to Martial Ability Level, the game is far less customizable.

You might be saying at this point that this is different from magic/psionics. And I would agree with you whole heartedly. But there is another difference. In Magic/Psionics you not only have to buy spellcaster levels but you have to buy access to the actual spell/power level as well as slots/power points. So to compare the systems is really not fair. About the only thing they have in common is that you need to buy a level-variable progression to begin the process. The better comparison would be to compare it to a character ability that has a level variable ability as well as uses. A great example is Bardic Music. The mechanics for ToB characters have much more in common with how Bardic Music is priced than with spellcasting/power manifesting classes. Just for your frame of reference.

The reason abilities like Bardic Music have uses based of of a progression of 30 XP while maneuvers are based of of 90 XP is that maneuvers are significantly more powerful that uses of Bardic Music. And even more so for stances, which are based off of progressions of 180 XP.

OK, I think I understand where my problem is: ToB defines 5 new things:
1/ Initiator level
2/ Maneuvers known
3/ Maneuvers readied
4/ "Refresh method" (3 different flavors)
5/ Stances known

Your CC article gives pricing for 1/, 2/, and 5/, but not for 3/. (4/ is free with the purchase of 1/)
I think the balancing factor is in the readied # (and the refresh-method).
Now it can be wrapped in the IL purchase, or priced separately, but I think it's important to state in the article (can you edit these things like a forum post?).
I understand the customising power offered by separate pricing of known maneuvers, but without "readied-slots", you can't actually initiate anything.


I hear what you're saying about not being like manifesting, but this looks very similar to me:
IL ≈ ML
maneuvers known ≈ powers known
maneuvers level ≈ powers level
maneuvers readied ≈ PP (only rejuvenating)

From here, what does it look to apply the same pricing as manifesting? (I bet you've tried it when you worked on ToB)
IL as a level-variable
maneuver's level access as a constant
maneuvers readied # as an incrementing number (the kind of which you introduced in the CC article)
This would enforce the "organic" touch of the system, as the "know slots" you get for free are level-locked, therefore preventing powergaming.

Stances are indeed not fitting in this comparison, so maybe making people pay for it on top of everything else (so for a L3 stance you'd have to have IL5, 3rd level access, and a stance slot)


What do you think about it? (or the feasibility of it as an "alternate")

=A=

Asurya wrote:

I think the balancing factor is in the readied # (and the refresh-method).

Oh, I nevergave a thought to the maneuvers readied. Or, I should saythat I did ... and thought it to berather silly than to haveit beanything other than as a part of IL purchase. So, for refresh method and #readied, assumeit is a part of the IL purchase.

Asurya wrote:

I hear what you're saying about not being like manifesting, but this looks very similar to me: IL ≈ ML maneuvers known ≈ powers known maneuvers level ≈ powers level maneuvers readied ≈ PP (only rejuvenating)

While an alright analogy, it will only lead you down the path of confusion. For one thing, maneuver level is not a purchased category in CC, power level is. Same with maneuvers readied. Continuing to compare ToB and spell/powerpoint systems will only continue to lead into confusion.

Quote::

From here, what does it look to apply the same pricing as manifesting? (I bet you've tried it when you worked on ToB)

Actually, it leads down the path of being horribly broken. This is one ofthe bigdifferences between CC and Buy the Numbers. Buy the Numbers took spell casting and added an extra dimension into the purchasing. Butthe problem is that the more things that need to be purchased, the more a charactercan be broken by ignoring one of the elements. An analogy will help.

Think of an ability with multiple components as a pie. If I want to divide a pie into three pieces, I have pretty big pieces. Chances are that a character will need all the pieces to make their concept work. Now I divide that pie into four pieces. Still pretty big, but each individual piece is smaller. Thus, the progression is less steep. Now divide it into five pieces. Each piece is about half the size of the 3 piece pie, which means each progression is incrementally smaller. Not only that, but with this kind of specialization in purchases, you might finda character who may not need one of the pieces. So now they can ignore one of the progressions completely, throwing balance out the window.

Let's go back to ToB. Let's say you buy Martial Level, Maneuvers, Stances, Maneuvers Readied, and the refresh rate. That's 5 parts. Say you can come up with a character design that doesn't need stances to work ... and come to think of it you really just want to only specialize in about 3 maneuvers. So you now have all the XP that is expected to be spread out over 5 categories going into 3 categories (which remember, are cheaper to begin with because there were 5 total pieces). Tis leads to broken very quickly.

By only dividing into 3 pieces (and forcing maneuvers readied and the refresh rate into the IL category) you really force people to pay the XP that the system expects to be paid. Sure, you can still develop a character who doesn't use stances and only has a few maneuvers known ... but even then they are focusing on IL which is a big piece of the pie.

I found in my research that the most amount of categories you want to break an ability into is three ... maybe four if they are all very necessary. That's why at most you have class abilities with three parts (most have either one or two). And spell casting/manifesting is broken into four (manifester level, power level, powers known, PP) but powers known is really dependant upon level, so you can't very well opt out of buy level. And that's the other three are not ones that players are going to opt out of ... so it works at being broken into 4. Making ToB classes broken into more than 3 categories would leave it open to abuse much more than spellcasting or manifesting. In my opinion, of course.

I'm confused.
I get what you're saying about the "more you divide things into independant bits, more munchkinery you will get", but I was just suggesting another organisation of what you get for a given price. I must have been misunderstood.

Your article say:
- IL is a level-variable ability and gives you refresh method and readied maneuvers and swap
- Known maneuvers cost (90*N*(N+1)/2) XP for the Nth
- Known stances cost (180*N*(N+1)/2) XP for the Nth

I was suggesting (changes in orange):
- IL is a level-variable ability and gives you refresh method and known maneuvers (provided you have access to the level, see below) and swap
- Maneuvers level access cost (25+120*(N-1)²) XP for the Nth
- Readied maneuvers cost <to be determined, your pricing is nice> XP
- Known stances are <to be determined, your pricing is nice> XP for the Nth (provided you have access to the level, see above)

So, yes, I added a 4th slice to your pie , but I made it impossible to ignore. Other than that, I just swapped readied for known.
Balance-wise, my suggestion is worse for the player, as he has to pay more for the same thing. (I suppose this can be discussed, as the initiators get more known maneuvers than readied, so what you save from this delta can be used to buy the level access...)

Am-I clearer?

=A=

I'll be honest an say that I really don't have enough experience with ToB to know meaningfully whether that would be more or less effective. [This is why the rules were offered up as a free web-enhancement rather than make people pay for something that makes paper sense but weren't ever playtested]

Your ideas logically (and mathematically) make sense and should work. There isn't any reason why it couldn't work. But it will add another layer of purchase and book-keeping to an already heavy system. But honestly I simply don't have enough ideas about ToB to know what's best. I personally don't use ToB material in any games I have played (except for the one we tried here on the forums).

Sorry if that last reply was a little harsh in tone, Asurya. Saturday/Sunday was a bad day for me... and I was in an irritable mood all day long. If it spilled out into the post, I apologize.

no problem, I just took it as a final word on the (discussed at length) issue.

I think that's the beauty of dialogues between geeks (math/rules-geek here): you never have to watch your manners, nobody cares !
Note that troubles arises as soon as a 3rd party gets into the mix (like what happened when DSP started to broadcast "We do teh Pathfinder!!1!" and a bunch of new guys arrived and needed some time to accommodate... or maybe we needed it. )

=A=

Hi, I recently initiated one of my friend to CC and he has some questions [EDIT] (I've got this impression that it's explained somewhere but I couldn't find it):

how do you price the "upgrade" abilities?
e.g. the Channel terror is priced at 180XP under the Terror (level/use-variable) ability. Comparing it to the various "upgrades" of the Bardic music ability, it seems that the cost is <optaining level>*30.
Am-I right?
Found it! (page 20 in the 2nd version of CC), and it's indeed <optaining level>*30.[/EDIT]

Also, just to be sure, the "upgrade" is purchase once and for all, and this purchase is separate from the afferent ability (i.e. the XP spent on the upgrade do not count toward the level (or use #) of the ability)

In any case, how/where do you list these "upgrades" in your spreadsheet (v1.6)?

=A=

Congrats on finding it before I could tell you. And, congrats on backwards engineering the price (which is not difficult, but still an acccomplishment to be celebrated!)

Yes, the "upgrade" is a seperate purchase and does not count towards improving the ability in any other direction except for buying that specific upgrade.

As for the spreadsheet, us the "level variable" part of the "Feats-Abilities" tab. For example, say I have a level variable ability at 5th level. I am eligible to buy a 5th level "upgrade" that is totally sperate. What I would type into the spreadsheet would be 5 (under level, for the level variable part), 1 (under uses, for the upgrade) and 5 (under begin, for the level of upgrade). That should price out to 495 XP {45 + 30 + 60 + 90 + 120 + 150 (upgrade) = 495 XP}

I can see that I may be coming out with a version 1.7 shortly to allow a user to type in 0 - 1 - 5 to account for the purchase of an upgrade for a non-level variable ability or for an upgrade to a level-variable ability that either already purchases uses or has more than one upgrade.

EDIT: Scratch that. I just made up a new column for subordinate abilities so the name can be listed as well. It just made more sense to do it that way. /EDIT

Thanks for the product critique, Asurya!

Well, that's interesting. I tried uploading the new version 1.7 and I got an extension error. Apparently something has changed in the site to no longer allow .xls uploads. Until that changes, Asurya ... I can't post a character sheet upgrade.

And the bad news is that I deleted the old version before uploading a new file ... so currently there is no character sheet available at all. ;( Not the best morning so far...

EDIT: Asurya, check your gmail. For the time being, I direct E-mailed you a copy of v. 1.7. Feel free to put it through its paces to make sure that the addition does what it is supposed to do in reference to subordinate abilities.