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So about two years ago I picked up Necromancers of the Northwest's Book of Martial Action and later its sequel Book of Martial Action II. Its a product that presents a 'martial pool' of points based on BAB. There are a large number of feats called technique feats that spend these points to do some martial action. The martial points refresh between combats. If this sounds familiar I'll explain why, it feels like a amalgamation between Book of 9 Swords/Path of War maneuvers and the stamina system from Pathfinder Unchained. Since I got the product the fighter class, the class more likely to pick up extra feats has been performing a lot better. In conjunction with other feats, weapons and abilities I've found a number of favorable combinations that allow martials to handle situations that they couldn't previously. Even before Pathfinder Unchained came out the rumors about stamina made me think of The Book of Martial Action so when I got the book I immediately made Stamina synonymous with the Martial Pool so that it can do double duty of improving feats and getting access to Techniques and gave Stamina to the Fighter for free.
While Martial Action techniques are not as far-reaching and powerful as Path of War maneuvers I saw it as something of an alternative to Path of War to help non-Path of War martials keep up and fit more with sensibilities of normal martials. Particularly because I found that normal martials aren't too keen on taking the Maneuver feats from Path of War because the rest of their abilities fit on a different paradigm.
But here is where I run into sort of a problem. I've discussed and semi promoted the product alongside of Path of War whenever the topic of Martials Getting Nice Things comes up but I'm mostly relying on my own gameplay and theorycrafting, something that's limited because I have a lot of competing options in my games, because I have not communicated wit anyone else that has gotten the product and used it. As a result I don't know exactly how much of a martial boost it is aside from my own anecdotal evidence and theorycrafting when I really need someone else's theorycrafting and experience to really polish it and advise players who are having trouble with their martials keeping up want to use it as a solution.
So I wanted to ask if anyone else is using this product, if anyone else is linking it to Stamina, how it has helped martials in other people's games, if it failed at being helpful, or just any kind of theorycrafting that has gone into it that isn't my own.
Thoughts?
Hey there Malwing! I have an idea indeed, as I both use the stamina system (extensively-man I love it!) and the Books of Martial action in my games, and blend them together to do so.
In my games I introduced the concepts of exercises- free martial techniques people earn as their BAB gets higher, starting with one and earning another for every +3 to a character's BAB. I had exercises in place just before Unchained but once I read the stamina system in that particular book I couldn't stop myself from tying them together.
And those exercises? Well why I have had some home-brewed up, I count the content in the Books of Martial actions as exercises. And so far it's been a blast.
While I can't say for sure such an action is balanced in a standard Pathfinder game I know you and I tend to feature 'all the content' in our games. Furthermore, as long as everyone learns exercises it's not much of an unfair advantage.
As for needing to change the material in the BoMA to fit with stamina, well they actually run well enough as is, so it should be fine just using them with stamina costs. I do suggest though either making a series of 'recover stamina' spells or allowing cure spells to restore stamina (I say at a rate of minimum dice roll plus level; so if a cure light wounds would heal 1d8+4, it instead could restore 5 stamina. Potions too), and let fighters opt to replace bravery with a bonus to their stamina pool.
Hey there Malwing! I have an idea indeed, as I both use the stamina system (extensively-man I love it!) and the Books of Martial action in my games, and blend them together to do so.
In my games I introduced the concepts of exercises- free martial techniques people earn as their BAB gets higher, starting with one and earning another for every +3 to a character's BAB. I had exercises in place just before Unchained but once I read the stamina system in that particular book I couldn't stop myself from tying them together.
And those exercises? Well why I have had some home-brewed up, I count the content in the Books of Martial actions as exercises. And so far it's been a blast.
While I can't say for sure such an action is balanced in a standard Pathfinder game I know you and I tend to feature 'all the content' in our games. Furthermore, as long as everyone learns exercises it's not much of an unfair advantage.
As for needing to change the material in the BoMA to fit with stamina, well they actually run well enough as is, so it should be fine just using them with stamina costs. I do suggest though either making a series of 'recover stamina' spells or allowing cure spells to restore stamina (I say at a rate of minimum dice roll plus level; so if a cure light wounds would heal 1d8+4, it instead could restore 5 stamina. Potions too), and let fighters opt to replace bravery with a bonus to their stamina pool.
In regards to keeping stamina costs, I have been mentally toying with the idea of halving the costs rounded up. In a lot of cases they are pretty expensive ammounting to being able to do two good ones per fight but some of the lower BAB ones are potentially overpowered at half cost. Especially ones like the one that automatically threatens a critical. Combined with some weapons this gets nasty.
In regards to keeping stamina costs, I have been mentally toying with the idea of halving the costs rounded up. In a lot of cases they are pretty expensive ammounting to being able to do two good ones per fight but some of the lower BAB ones are potentially overpowered at half cost. Especially ones like the one that automatically threatens a critical. Combined with some weapons this gets nasty.Hey there Malwing! I have an idea indeed, as I both use the stamina system (extensively-man I love it!) and the Books of Martial action in my games, and blend them together to do so.
In my games I introduced the concepts of exercises- free martial techniques people earn as their BAB gets higher, starting with one and earning another for every +3 to a character's BAB. I had exercises in place just before Unchained but once I read the stamina system in that particular book I couldn't stop myself from tying them together.
And those exercises? Well why I have had some home-brewed up, I count the content in the Books of Martial actions as exercises. And so far it's been a blast.
While I can't say for sure such an action is balanced in a standard Pathfinder game I know you and I tend to feature 'all the content' in our games. Furthermore, as long as everyone learns exercises it's not much of an unfair advantage.
As for needing to change the material in the BoMA to fit with stamina, well they actually run well enough as is, so it should be fine just using them with stamina costs. I do suggest though either making a series of 'recover stamina' spells or allowing cure spells to restore stamina (I say at a rate of minimum dice roll plus level; so if a cure light wounds would heal 1d8+4, it instead could restore 5 stamina. Potions too), and let fighters opt to replace bravery with a bonus to their stamina pool.
Well maybe- my current party that has really gotten into them is only level six, so most of the ones they took are dirt cheap. Yet to have any real expensive stamina costs above five.