When in doubt:
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'nuff said.
You sick puppy you ... I was going to go with
And thanks Savage Screenmonkey, although I do not deserve sole credit for the idea.
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fakey, i wish you good fortune with your STAP game.
that said, ToB makes the Dwarf Warblade nigh unkillable, and capable of devastating damage dealing.
Things i've done to counter that:
1: he killed himself by jumping into an ooze, and rolling a nat 1 on his fort save. thought himself invulnerable, now he knows better.
2: target them with auto-hit-damage...area effect stuff, environmental damage (heat especially), and magic missiles are your friend. any sorcerer in the AP should have mage armor, shield, and magic missile, possibly maximize spell.
3: target them ahead of the lesser-powered dudes. sure, they'll think they're being picked on, if they call you on it, tell them the truth...they're the most dangerous things on the map, they gotta die first.
4: don't adjust XP rewards for no challenge. sure, they can wipe a CR 10 with ease. that means it wasn't really a CR 10 (or they're a higher ECL than you'd typically figure). this'll slow em down a bit.
5: finally, be patient. don't invest lots of time and energy into making up encounters/changing things for the badass dudes, just run things as they are. good opportunities for slaying them: assassin vines + entangle + vine horrors = can't do too much about it. and when they drop the vines, the horrors can just make another one that round.
half-fiendish koprus and stagger-cast unholy blights. 5d8 damage, will for half, x 5-9 should do em in
you can't hit hurricanes, volcanoes, or clinging breath weapons, after all.
finally...you've got a whispergnome swordsage/rogue optimized to deal melee damage. that's the problem, plain and simple...hes too twinked out not to modify encounters around. if he wont change, he's gonna have to be deceased soon, for the sake of the game.
(i recommend the assassin vines in the sargasso)
-the hamster
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I'd cut the Magic Item Compendium, too, for the most part. A lot of that stuff seems broken (and IMO, waaaaay too Diablo-esque).
I definitely agree.
I also think that when players are allowed to go into a shop and start rhyming off what they want to buy; (oh I'm looking for a +1 greatsword with undead bane and some boots of striding.....)this can really unbalance things if they are allowed to buy exactly what they need to power game their character.
IMO a barbarian should NOT be walking into a shop and buying loads of magic item unless he has , say....ranks in knowledge arcana.
I really do not care for the magic item compendium.
Funny, you seem to be in the same predicament that I am in, Fake Healer. One player of mine (luckily only one) is a powergamer that often plays swordsages, and now in my Savage Tide game (we're in the Bullywug Gambit) he's playing a Swordsage/Psychic Warrior that has the psionic ability to raise his AC to 27 (which pretty much means nothing can hit him) and he also has the feat "Shadow Blade" from ToB that adds his Dex bonus to weapon damage rolls with the Shadow Hand weapons... Of course, he uses a spiked chain, so his normal attacks do 2d4+10 damage (somehow he ended up with three 18s in his main ability scores... he always rolls really high stats). So anyways, I plan on killing him (courtesy of the Kellani family) with a rooftop sniper's death attack sometime during the Wormfall Festival.
I learned the hard way from the AoWAP that you just cannot allow players to flip through any book they want and purchase magic items.
I don't care if it's "built into the system now" (something I disagree with -- the city info that includes GP value limits is also in the DMG, and that info should never be "player's eyes" stuff). In the core books, magic items are in the DMG. They are the exclusive domain of the DM. Yes, there are magic items in most of the available splat books, but there is nothing about the splat books that says everything in them is for players, and since magic items are DMG only for core, I consider the magic item chapters of splat books to be DMs only, too.
I'm not totally heartless -- there are occasionally magic item shoppes in towns, but they have what I say they have in stock. These shops have limited stock, and I usually randomize what's available, but most importantly, these shops take time to restock, so that unless you're waiting two months or more between visits, day to day these shops are still carrying the same items they were carrying the day before, minus what your PCs purchased already. I'm sorry, but unless you're playing in Ebooron, there just aren't a bunch of magic item factories churning out magic items in such large quantities that every "magic shop" can stock every magic item in every book all the time.
Also, since I'm not playing in Ebooron, no magic shop ever carries major magic items. What person would ever create such an item and then sell it? No person, that's who. Major magic items can only come into the player's hands if a) they find it in a treasure hoard, b) they (or someone in the party) makes it themselves, or c) they pay someone else to make it for them.
And with c), I strictly enforce item creation times.
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When in doubt:
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'nuff said.You sick puppy you ... I was going to go with ** spoiler omitted **, but then I have a fetish or two ...twitch, drool, slobber.
And thanks Savage Screenmonkey, although I do not deserve sole credit for the idea.
No prob man.
All this talk of Alienists and Psudo Rhagos makes me want to add a little side adventure on the Isle. But that deserves its own thread.
As to the original topic, Fakey, you have my sympathies. When I ran the AoW in my RL game, I was overly generous with stat generation, and unrestrictive with splatbooks. And I allowed open magic item purchase and enhancement as the game went on.
My players pretty much walked through just about every encounter they faced, through Kings of the Rift, and chunks of Into the Wormcrawl Fissure (neither Brazzemal nor Dragotha stood a chance).
They did start to feel it for Dawn of a New Age, though. I made it clear that they were on a clock once they hit Alhaster, so there was no stopping and resting for a day once they entered the city. The broodfiends really gave them a tough time, and while they were able to walk through
Sure, if the team had been facing any one of those creatures individually, they would have gone down like chumps. But this fight was pretty spectacular, several PCs went down at one point or another, and even with all the resources they had at their disposal, until the very end it was not at all clear that they were going to pull that one out and save the world.
Also, you-know-who was much badder than either Brazzemal or Dragotha. Or even Kyuss, really.
A few years back (has it been that long?), I decided I'd run the Age of Worms Adventure Path. I ran with three gamers (one my own bro), who two of which are a couple of the most die-hard min-maxing munchkin-ey powergamers (and I mean that with love, bro) I've ever met. As time went on, I started spending more and more time trying to keep up, and they still had an edge. Not that I minded, but it's true, the threat of failure becomes diminished with "broken material".
I'm currently running STAP, with the same three, and three more (another two, arguably, are power gamers). This group includes a human warlock, half-orc crusader, aventi druid/master of many forms, human artificer, human fighter/master thrower, and tiefling ranger/totemic demonslayer. The knife thrower two-weapon palm throws ten daggers at 9th-level, the crusader has the record damage of 112pts, done to a creature with 18hp, and the human artificer (my bro) has requested a "wish list" of equipment to maximize the equipment of every party member at all times. (He estimates that he could be able to provide each character with around 250% of their character wealth in hand-crafted equipment by 20th-level.)
What to do?
In my experience, I've learned that if 3.5 D&D has any three books that I'd consider "broken" they would be--in this order--Tome of Battle, Magic Item Compendium, and Spell Compendium. Does this mean that the players shouldn't have access to these books, even if they spent their hard-earned cash to buy them? Well...that's the question.
I found in AoW that certain characters shined at different levels of play. In that campaign, the fighter was the anchor at low-level, the bard at mid, the wizard at high. Most characters are built with one of these three in mind, and sometimes aren't able to compensate at other levels of play.
Take a ToB character. Short of that blade-hurling PrC (I can't remember the name), they're sans range. Take advantage of that by adjusting terrain in some areas, so that those wicked nasty melee guys can't reach the monsters. (Snipers with cover twenty feet up is one of my favorite scenarios.) Take note of their favored saves. If they lack a good Will save, adjust the encounter with a proximity-based trap of suggestion. And, of course, my favorite is the addition of a monster with a breath weapon. STAPs a little shy on dragons, so throw one or two in as a substitution for other monsters, such as a black dragon instead of the aquatic hydra.
Better still, add abilities to the preexisting monsters that help curtail the power of the unbalancing characters. In SWW, I gave the vine horrors the ability to avoid a ranged attack with a DC 12 Ref save as an immediate action. Consider giving more enemies amorphous forms, thus negating potential sneak attacks/critical hits, or if the warlock is problematic, give a baddie SR, equal to 10 or 12+CR.
I guess what I'm saying is that I can appreciate that sometimes, you go out of your way, spend hours coming up with a sweet, flavorful NPC villain, and it gets ripped a new one in one or--if you're lucky--two rounds. It's disheartening. Instead, consider what you can do to adjust the playing field. I know that this does take extra time and effort, but consider that if your players are spending time figuring out how to build a winning character, it might be fair to spend some time coming up with a "winning" encounter. I'm not saying to do this all the time, but take the important fights and spice them up. The "Scaling the Adventure" section at the back of (most of) the adventures is a good place to look for extra help.
And, if you're looking for some more vicious versions of some of the BBEGs, I'm making some adjustments to some of them, myself. Here's a link to one thread I started with this intention in part.
So, good luck with it, and remember that even if you disagree on how to play the game, you all get together every week because you love it, and you're all (likely) still friends before and after.
I am actually playing a swordsage/barbarian in STAP. Although I did suboptimal choices as testified by the people on the CharOp board, there are some points I want to mention.
First, which point buy did you use? Our DM gave us obscenely high stats out of whichever reason (I did the same method in my AoW and am not that happy with it). The swordsage however is a class (like the Paladin) who depends on several stats. Your Swordsage obviously has 18 Wis (damage bonus to maneuvers of one school) and AC Bonus, but with a normal point buy, he then does not have much left for Str (reduced Dmg output), Dex (Attk if Weapon Finessed or additional AC), Con (for a Swordsage Rogue thats a big problem: no hitpoints as frontclass fighter and a really miserable Fort Save, which should be a problem against the Lotus Dragons...how I hated this poison, and the Basilisk). So if you give hime too good stats to begin with...he can be a real pain as he could also excel in his weak areas (same is true for Will Saves for the Warblade Barbarian).
For the Warblade there will be another problem, beginning with BAB +6, because maneuvers are Standard Actions, so no Full Attack, the swordsage on the other hand has only Rogue Progression, which will be very tough later on especially if he is lacking high Str/Dex.
Island of Blade, imo, only works on yourself and ONE ally, but as the SS is the sneak, that does not change much (but with no-sneak monsters his damage will go down to almost 0).
Mountain Hammer Strike is nice, but the Warblade can only do it every second round (while doing full attacks in between I have to admit) and the Swordsage has to spend a full round action doing nothing at all to recharge it.
Baring all this, I do not know what your players optimized, but if one of these points strikes you as being true in your game, maybe there is the root of your problems.
Well, might be best to just scrap the game since your not that far along and do a restart having peeps generate new characters and just give a list of books your going to use in the campaign setting; just explain that things are working out from a gm standpoint and you cannot track all the books so are limiting the game to whatever books you choose; my players would just roll with it as I have done this before as several books people have brought from the generic d20 ruleset are to over the top such as the book of feats. A start over would allow people to not loose any of the work they built toward a prestige class as most require specific skill and feats and not starting over could possibly really mess up a players overall plan for that characters development.
in his weak areas (same is true for Will Saves for the Warblade Barbarian).
For the Warblade there will be another problem, beginning with BAB +6, because maneuvers are Standard Actions, so no Full Attack, the swordsage on the other hand has only Rogue Progression, which will be very tough later on especially if he is lacking high Str/Dex.
Island of Blade, imo, only works on yourself and ONE ally, but as the SS is the sneak, that does not change much (but with no-sneak monsters his damage will go down to almost 0).
Mountain Hammer Strike is nice, but the Warblade can only do it every second round (while doing full attacks in between I have to admit) and the Swordsage has to spend a full round action doing nothing at all to recharge it.
Baring all this, I do not know what your players optimized, but if one of these points strikes you as being true in your game, maybe there is the root of your problems.
Sorry, was a crusade, but he gets his maneuvers randomly assigned...should reduce the problem doesn't it?
And what is the feat which makes him draw all the punches? Maybe I overlooked it in ToB, but the only thing I can find is: Dfensive Rebuke, which is a boost, lasts only for 1 round and only for 1 enemy and draws AoO from you if the guy hit attacks anyone else than you. And it is a swift action, so no immediate action for a counter left!!
One more thing, if the Swordsage wants to use Island of blade against several enemies, all these enemies can also attack him, so with low HP and ligth armor he should be gone quite quickly.
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My swordsage has really high burst damage (I can get a 7d6 strike, a 4d6 strike and a 1d20+9 strike with an appropriately chosen grouping of maneuver), but in terms of sustainable damage over a reasonably lengthy fight, I'm not really doing all that much more than a sneak attacking rogue or a power attacking fighter would do in the same amount of time.
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Award less XP to the characters that found the encounter less challenging. They simply were not challenged as much and did not take away as many lessons from the encounter. Like an earlier poster stated, if they walk through a cr 10 encounter, then the challenge rating is off. Keep track of player XP yourself and let them know only when they level. The optimised characters will fall behind and the party balance will restore itself. You have to be patient though, it will take a couple adventures for the true effects to be felt.
Tam
P.S. I would come right out and let my group know that I am changing the way I handle experience. That I am going to be customizing experience earned based upon how challenged I felt each character was by the encounter. I would then assign a scale, awarding 50%xp for no challenge at all, 63%xp for barely challenging, 75%xp for moderately challenging, 87%xp for challenging, and 100%xp for very challenging. Of course I would only apply this scale to the xp earned for the optimized characters.
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Better still, add abilities to the preexisting monsters that help curtail the power of the unbalancing characters. In SWW, I gave the vine horrors the ability to avoid a ranged attack with a DC 12 Ref save as an immediate action. Consider giving more enemies amorphous forms, thus negating potential sneak attacks/critical hits, or if the warlock is problematic, give a baddie SR, equal to 10 or 12+CR.
You know? I really don't like this suggestion. The first two things people always suggest when a DM is having problems with a PC's abilities is to add monsters that shut those abilities down cold, and to take away the books is the second. Both are actually penalizing the player for playing well, and I don't think that's a good idea in any sense. If the monsters have ways to compensate for the PCs' abilities that's one thing, but actually giving them abilities that shut the PCs down? That's a cheap shot, at best, and it ruins the players' trust that you're going to run your game in an impartial way, almost as well as does the grudge monster.
Hell, if you're dealing with PCs that have abilities that seem too good, throw those abilities back at them! Make a swordsage monster.
Okay, I understand the trouble you are dealing with Fake Healer, and I suppose all the other DMs out there. First let me ask, are these the ones you are dealing with?
This is the attack me or take a -4. Note that it only works on foes that the Crusader Threatens. NO one else. I don't know if you saw that part, but if not, here it is. Adjust combat accordingly. It also states that any foe who is affected by this stance becomes aware of its effect. Have some guys attacking back up five feet and start hurling hand axes at him or the rest instead of attacking from within his threatened zone. Or try out some baddies with reach weapons, Short Haft feat, and a lot of five foot steps.
Dev: Iron Guards Glare [Stance]: only works on foes you threaten
This is the flanking one, I would rule that this only applies to the Swordsage and ONE ally (see AN ally). Not everyone in the party, not even a 20th level swordsage can look that many ways at once to give so much benefit.
Sha: Island of Blades [Stance]: If both you and AN ally threaten the same foe you gain the benefit of flanking. If both you and your ally both threaten two creatures, the two of you gain flanking against both creatures.
Bypassing DR/Hardness. There are plenty of ways around this. Its just the same sort of circumstances as involving Adamantine weapons. Whats the problem? Besides, how many of these maneuvers do they typically prepare?
Perhaps you should have them submit their list of perpared manuevers at the beginning of each day, after they practice them. Make certain they are not altering the lists to their advantage.
Stone Dragon DR bypassing powers aren't that dangerous.
Add sneak attack damage, a nasty little boost to sneak attack damage, but this one isn't much different that if a straight Rogue had the feat that increases Sneak Attack by +1d6. And consider if he uses this, he cannot use another stance that round.
Sha: Assassin's Stance [stance]: Grants +2d6 sneak attack, or grant that ability if you don't have it.
The tradeoff for a small damage and a good hit bonus for a -4 AC seems rather balanced to me. What is the issue with this one? Assuming this is the one you spoke of.
Tig: Rabid Wolf Strike [man]: +4 to hit, +2d6 damage, -4 to AC for 1 round.
Okay, my take on this is, you've been a little overwhelmed. I know you said you know the ToB rules, but I am going to guess that this is the first time you run a party with it in your game? The ToB is a bit overwhelming at first, especially with two people in the party having classes from it. Just remember, this book is not totally broken. It is designed, as some others have said, to give players of warrior types more options, especially at higher level. Instead of worrying about how to shut their characters down, try thinking of this as a challenge to your creativity as a DM. Don't see the effort you have put into certain encounters as wasted. Each encounter you learn more and more of what these characters and their players are capable of. Use that knowledge. And much as some other people have said, if a character is showboating in nearly every fight, they are going to be singled out. Not out of DM spite, just because they two are most likely showing themselves to be the most dangerous members of this troupe.
Personally I hope you don't scrap the books out. That is essentially telling the players that they beat you. And then they will also be mad that you aren't letting them play the characters you previously approved. Stay firm on your ruling, make them fast and decisive. If a rule does sound broken, make a ruling.
Also, I would personally be a lot more worried if I saw a player making a Divine Mind for one of my games.
A class that can concievably by 10th level, give a +3 morale bonus on all AC and to Hit rolls of all allies within 25 feet. That scares me a whole lot more. Not to mention they are better warriors that a Marshal, and get some low level Psionic powers to boot. Personally I think it is a great class, but it can catch an unprepared DM totally off guard.
I know I am posting a lot, Fake Healer, but I am just trying to help.
Another thing is the issue of the tactics these characters are using. If the swordsage is using this maneuver to gain flanking bonuses, so be it. But if the characters aren't the ones maxmizing these tactics, then be sure to call the players on it. Don't let them say things OOC to each other as far as tactical suggestions go. If their character says " [Rogue, insert name here] get over here and attack this monster while I have him distracted" well, the monster/NPC is going to hear that. They can then act accordingly.
Does this mean that the players shouldn't have access to these books, even if they spent their hard-earned cash to buy them? Well...that's the question.
This is another house rule I'm very fond of:
I don't care how much money you spent on a splat book, if I as the DM don't have a copy, you can't use it, plain and simple. If you want to spend your hard earned cash on books I don't have (as the DM), and you want to use them at the table, buy a copy for me too. Also, even if I do have a copy, if I think a rule or even a whole book is broken, it's not allowed. I don't care if you spent your life savings on it.
On this I completely agree with Sean. Never NEVER allow a player to use a book or resource that you have not had a chance to review first. It really doesn't matter whether it is official or not.
Fake Healer, this is my take on it. I spend too much time between sessions trying to build a good campaign to have the power-gamer come along and wreck everything. This goes for everyone from the player who likes to kill the captain of the town guard, to the player who's always plotting to murder another party member, to the player who's fudging dice rolls.
My solution: Mark them for death!
Eradicate them from your game as swiftly as possible, whether you engineer a particularly nasty encounter geared to kill just the problem character, or simply have Warduke spring from the foilage like FREAKIN' Jason Vorhees - after all it is your responsiblity to make your game fun for everyone, and if someone is detacting from that (especially through power-gaming), I find it best to just put them down. I like to remind them that their is no character that they can make, that I cant find a solution to.
After making a good example of someone, I find that problematic players realize that you won't tolerate distractions in your campaign.
Award less XP to the characters that found the encounter less challenging. They simply were not challenged as much and did not take away as many lessons from the encounter. Like an earlier poster stated, if they walk through a cr 10 encounter, then the challenge rating is off. Keep track of player XP yourself and let them know only when they level. The optimised characters will fall behind and the party balance will restore itself. You have to be patient though, it will take a couple adventures for the true effects to be felt.
Tam
P.S. I would come right out and let my group know that I am changing the way I handle experience. That I am going to be customizing experience earned based upon how challenged I felt each character was by the encounter. I would then assign a scale, awarding 50%xp for no challenge at all, 63%xp for barely challenging, 75%xp for moderately challenging, 87%xp for challenging, and 100%xp for very challenging. Of course I would only apply this scale to the xp earned for the optimized characters.
A better idea might be just to award less XP. If your trying to decide after every combat if it was challenging or not thats pretty subjective. Especially if you have players that are into the rules and know the game. Certainly when I'm a player, I like to know where I stand - the problem with this is that it essentially turns into the DM ripping you off again and again every session - while a system that just reduces the XP at a flat rate or by a known method (i.e. a level adjustment) just becomes a known house rule after the DM twisted my arm and forced me to agree to it.
In my experience, I've learned that if 3.5 D&D has any three books that I'd consider "broken" they would be--in this order--Tome of Battle, Magic Item Compendium, and Spell Compendium. Does this mean that the players shouldn't have access to these books, even if they spent their hard-earned cash to buy them? Well...that's the question.
Well I seem to have designated myself as defender of MIC. I agree with you that this book is a bit too powerful in your players hands if you don't use it yourself. That said its full of interesting stuff and I'm of the opinion that its basically balanced when compared to the usual standard PC fair of on going stat and armour boosts, and that holy sword.
Furthermore if the DM is using this book as well then I think it actually balances pretty well - not perfectly because magic items are something that PCs use in every combat while the DM only uses them maybe every 3rd combat at most. Still the book is crawling with good items to give your comparatively poor NPCs. 1 use and 1 use per day items are a little more powerful in the DMs hands then they are in the players. The DM that gives his NPC a ring of freedom of movement has to deal with the fact that this extremely powerful ring will know fall into the hands of the players. Third eye freedom does the same thing - but once per day - thats good enough for the DMs bad guy because he probably won't need to use it more then once in the combat but for the players its neat enough the first time its found - the 5th time its found they just sell it, same deal with something like quick strike bracers maybe the players keep it and its OK for them but its 1 use ability makes using it for your arm slot iffy, for the bad guys its just perfect. Essentially I find this book a great way to make the NPCs tougher - i.e. more comparable to their actual CR without worry to much about what magic the players are going to snag, they'll tend to get a lot of knick nacks that helped the NPC to be more challenging but are not comparable to the really powerful stuff like big ability boosters that the PCs are usually angling for with their vast amounts of wealth. The fact that you only have so many slots usually means that the weaker stuff is not of too much interest to the PCs as they are looking for better stuff for each slot - something that helps them all the time or that works many times a day.
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I have seen a campaign or two go the way of yours Fakey and seen how futile it is to try and keep up with min/maxers when you are in the DM chair relying on premade APs. I strongly disagree that you should feel obligated to mod encounters or strive to kill off the offending players.
The only approach I have used (and it works!) is an out-of-game session that rewrites the offending characters from the ground up. I explain the situation to the players, tell them that things as they stand are unacceptable; the APs you are running do not make use of the books in question and thus the foes are no longer on an even playing field. Ratcheting up the difficulty will kill the other players and place you in a bind to customize the game to address this power gap. At first the players may be hostile to losing their munchkined characters, but if they are mature, they will see that you are right. This is especially effective if you can get the other players to realize that their characters are at risk if things go on the way they are; they will apply peer pressure to help convince anyone that balks at your decision.
I allow the offending players to create new characters from scratch and allow nothing from their old characters to carry forward (if they held any arc-critical items, these are re-distributed to the remaining party members). The new characters are introduced at the soonest possible time and that is that. Once you do this once and then establish a set of character creation guidelines you can live with, you will not have to rebalance the game again.
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I've been giving thought to this, beyond my initial, knee-jerk, "just cut it all" response.
I'm thinking that reduced exp for a while will probably correct the problem. The threats will advance faster than the party, and sooner or later, the encounters will start to be challenging. The downside is it'll hurt the characters who aren't munchkin'd.
When the complaints start from that quarter, explain the situation. Let peer pressure do the rest.
Initially, it will still be somewhat unsatisfying, since the munchkins will pretty much trash most of the set encounters, but time will start to tell.
Suggestions if you take this route:
Let them know it's happening, and why.
Don't run extra encounters to try to challenge them. Extra encounters will just feed the XP monkey you're trying to put on their backs.
By all that's holy, stop letting them buy custom gear that counters a particular threat (like ability drain) for all time. Or, if you feel you have to, don't make it readily accessible - no "Ye Olde Corner Magic Shoppe" where a dozen wizards and their uncountable aprentices sit around just waiting for people to come in and order magic items.
Treat it more like a single craftsman - "I can make that... not a problem. I've got about three projects ahead of you, and yours will take about... hmmmm..... a month, once I get to it. I'll need a 20% deposit up front. Great! come back in about 3 months. Wait! You need it when?!?!!? That'll cost 3 times as much, with a 75% deposit. Hey... you came to me. I have plenty of work to keep me busy. No... you're not paying for extra stuff. You're paying me for the inconvenience of having to irritate other customers by bumping you to the front of the queue."
I've been giving thought to this, beyond my initial, knee-jerk, "just cut it all" response.
I'm thinking that reduced exp for a while will probably correct the problem. The threats will advance faster than the party, and sooner or later, the encounters will start to be challenging. The downside is it'll hurt the characters who aren't munchkin'd.
This is why I was thinking level adjustments. In theory you could actually tailor level adjustments to each of the players if that was required. If you feel TOB is to powerful then using stuff from it automatically adds a +1 level adjustment for example.