It seems that there are really two ways to go about playing Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and similar d20 games: you can be a spellcaster, and have all kinds of crazy options to choose from, or you can be a more mundane, martial character, and, well…not. Sure, barbarians get rage powers and paladins can smite evil, and if you devote a bunch of feats to it you might get a couple of nifty tricks like two-weapon fighting or spring attacking, but at the end of the day most mundane characters spend their combat rounds doing full attack after full attack, and eventually that gets a little stale.
There have been attempts in the past to make fighters and their ilk more interesting to play, but all too often these rely on giving these characters magical (or at least supernatural) powers, and if you just want your character to be able to do cool things with a sword that demonstrate that he’s well-trained and knows a lot of useful techniques, that’s too bad, because your only options are using your sword to shoot laser beams and fly, or else falling back on the good old-fashioned full attack. Plus, they often require taking a special class, or using complex rules that are difficult to integrate into your game.
This book aims to provide a way for martially-inclined characters of any class to be more interesting without falling back on the supernatural. Through over 50 feats and seven very detailed archetypes, A Necromancer’s Grimoire: The Book of Martial Action will introduce you to the world of martial action points, a renewable resource that can be spent on a wide variety of martial techniques that allow your character to perform extraordinary—but decidedly non-magical—maneuvers, making combat wildly more dynamic and ensuring that you can always do something more interesting than a full attack.
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Out of all the third party products I've picked up this is the first I'd have to penalize for simply not being enough.
The product contains a series of feats that allow you to generate a pool of points based on your BAB that you can spend on martial techniques. Each technique is it's own feat and the martial pool can be regained during the day.
Its a bit similar to Book of 9 Swords but dispenses with the whole 'vancian' techniques, however its is very sparse and shallow leaving me preferring this system but wishing it were longer. The product comes with martial pool archetypes for a number of classes but while that's nice I was left with a hankering for more techniqes especially the 2-4 point ones so that I can do more with the pool.
A+ product but gets a C+ for just not being enough.
I recently bought this book,and I'm loving a lot of the concepts in it. On my first read through, I did note a flaw in the Kung Fu Artist archetype. How is this archetype supposed to use Stunning Fist before 5th level? It takes 5 points to use the ability and it's gained at first level. The rules state that one can only spend 1 martial action point per point of Base Attack. Thanks for the help!
Looks like Pathfinder Unchained is doing something that by description is almost identical to martial actions. Not saying that they're ripping you guys off but that you guys have a huge headstart in content if it is at all similar.
Also I recommend this to anyone curious about how such a martial pool system might run.
So, since before Pathfinder Unchained came out I noted that the rumored stamina system sounded like this system. Now that it's out its pretty similar but there's still a unique angle here so lately I made the martial pool and stamina pool the same thing. So far it's worked pretty well. Any chance of revising this and the second book to match language with the Stamina System?
