Tome of Battle
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| Author | Richard Baker, Matt Sernett, Frank Brunner |
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| Genre | Role-playing game |
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast |
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Publication date
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August 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 160 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 70896662 |
| LC Class | GV1469.62.D84 D836 2000 |
Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords is an official supplement for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, published by Wizards of the Coast in 2006. The book chronicles the rise and fall of the fictional Temple of Nine Swords within the D&D universe and introduces an entirely new "initiator" subsystem that gives greater flexibility.
Tome of Battle was written to give players a chance to play characters "[blending] the genres of Far East action games and the 'typical' D&D game world," in contrast to the standard "knights and castles and dragons" that most of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e was focused on. The book notes the success and acceptance of Eastern fantasy in the west - characterized by the acceptance of games like Final Fantasy and movies like Kill Bill - and attempts to capture this by incorporating elements of martial arts into a D&D campaign. The book summarized this concept as: "Tome of Battle isn't your parents' D&D - it's bigger, bolder, and more fantastic than ever before."
Mechanically, the purpose of the book is to increase the viability of melee combatants in the game to be comparable to magic user characters in high-level play. The book accomplishes this via three revised melee classes, each equipped with versatile combat maneuvers and stances that can be expended in the same way that magic users expend spells.
Tome of Battle has eight chapters and an introduction. The chapters are named "Disciples of the Sword", "Skills & Feats", "Blade Magic", "Maneuvers & Stances", "Prestige Classes", "The Nine Swords", "Magic Items", and "Monsters".
Martial Adepts are the base classes introduced in Tome of Battle. Two of the three classes parallel existing classes, but gain different class features, as well as access to the powerful techniques of the Sublime Way: Crusader, which parallels the religious strictures of the Paladin (but unlike the Paladin, the Crusader class can be used to make a character of any alignment), and Warblade, which parallels the pure martial prowess of the Fighter. The third, the Swordsage, is most like a Monk in nature, but has more customizable features. Swordsages are best compared to the philosopher-swordsmen of the Wuxia film genre.
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