Yes, but a wizard has limited uses of this at 5'th level. You get a per encounter or more uses at 3'rd.
However just like the bardic music, there's a massive diference between affecting 1 target for 1 round and buffing your whole party for multiple rounds.
My version would remove one specific class of effects, a stupidly wide class, but not just any one effect. Of course since the entire school is supernatural you do need something to knock down anti-magic fields.
And that's one of the main reasons I wanted to keep it as an higher level IHS.
Wings of Cover is considered broken for a reason...
That's why I made it two levels higher. But as DavidWL pointed out disapearing for 1 full round may be a bit too much so I made it so you return instantly. There, now you can defeat it simply with multiple attacks.
I'll grant the image is cool, and army fighting probably doesn't come up that often, and the combo covers an absurdly large area. By 11'th level having a ground speed of 60 or so shouldn't be a problem, and if you have a reach weapon or you have enlarge person on your reach is 80ft. this means that you can roughly cover a rectangle of 160 ft wide by 400 ft long using God's Flashing Slash as Karma Gust, just missing the corners on that. With a bit of optimization those can be improved quite a bit, I mostly picked the numbers for convenience. Anyway the huge area is only a minor problem, threatening everything with a 80 ft radius is a far bigger concern, because of all the AoOs that enemies will provoke if they try anything. Most throwing weapons don't have that kind of range and it will only grow.
And here I point out that you have a limited number of Aoos per round, so even if you threaten a massive area, you still cannot afford to Aoo everything that causes it.
Magic missile has several effects that defend against it, it is stopped by spell resistance, it has limited uses per day, it's widely acknowledged to be stupidly good for it's level, it has built in damage caps.
Eeerrr, last time I checked, most people on this very forums were claiming magic missile would be worthwile if it was either at-will or a cantrip.
This auto-targets the worst save, it deals damage based on an easily boosted value, and you get two shots at it. This is an exalted style perfect attack, and to top it of you get to replicate a fairly useful spell as an alternate option. Granted the spell is level appropriate, but this much flexibility and power in a single maneuver?
Unlike Exalted however, characters aren't squishy. At 13th level you're facing stuff like a Storm giant, which has 199 HP.
So assuming 16 ranks, +10 skill bonus from random stuff, average 5 damage from a single-handed weapon, +10 damage from other random stuff, you deal 2x41=82 damage, not even half the Storm Giant's HP.
The Storm Giant will then counter attack with +26/+21/+16 melee (4d6+21/19-20) for an average 105 damage whitout any optimization on its part.
So basically, it may be basically auto-damage, but it's still just damage, and not even that high when compared to brute monsters and dedicated power attackers. Its main advantage is the ability to say "screw you" to casters covered in miss chances and dirty tricks, but against other melees it's a fair deal.
If there is too many to list as permissible there are also too many to list to ban.
Now don't be so negative, there's some that clearly stand out (like bane) that they're worthwile banning.
Meh never liked that spell very much anyway. Still prefer to base it out of Ressurection unless you have a good reason revivify would be a better base.
But balefull polymorph is stopped by SR, so that is like an attack roll. And Immunity to Polymorph is not that uncommon. Anyone specializing in the Ancient Temple School will have high wisdom due to the saves, I'm thinking most users will be rangers or swordsages
However, you cannot afford to invest just in Wisdom. You still need Str or Dex to hit and damage. It's no good to have high saves if you can't hit your oponent to force them to make said saves.
Statistic wise, there's a big diference between needing three rolls to go your way to insta-big someone (two attacks, one save,
and then any possible combat miss chances that don't affect spells) but just one or two rolls with a lot of spells. Did I mention casters can afford to have a dozen diferent save or dies prepared at the same time so they're sure they can at least bypass one weakness? So even if they find something immune to polymorph and with SR, they probably have some spell prepared that will defeat the enemy with a single well placed roll.
(or when using my houserules swordsage/Ranger multiclass. Depending on how you read you alternate ranger rules that might also be built into your ranger.)
Very cool - quite powerful, but possibly balanced vs. tier 2, with a few exceptions
I would say more of high t3. Beguiller and Dread necro are T3 after all despite already geting some very powerful effects like time stop.
Some Overall Notes:- I like it a lot. Super cool. What ToB should have been
- Some of the abilities are available before a comparable wizard ... not quite overpowered, but strong
- Not being able to enchant weapons is really quite a large hindrance ...
- I would specify that untyped bonuses from different manuevers from Ancient Temple do not stack
- I have looked at all manuevers, and anything I didn't comment on looks good. I like that you give a variety of abilities (healing, teleport, a few buffs)
- 2 abilities seem potentially dangerously powerful: Floral Nirvana (very cool), Ghostly Wheel of Pain (very cool). More detail for my reasoning below. I'd do something to make these less.
- Because it has so many very cool immediate/swift actions, I see a Cleric 9/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10 as a very dangerous entrant. Some of the abilities (most notably Floral Nirvana) are fine on a non-caster, but on something like the above are probably too much. Remember, ToB <> non-caster.
-Thanks!
-Well I'm aiming for strong so that's good.
-Well they have the basic "must have" enchantment of ghost-touch, and as already mentioned it's kinda of a balance point that you get stronger-than-average maneuvers for using slightly inferior weapons.
-Hmm, I believe only Moment of Eternity and Floral Nirvana give them. Changed Floral Nirvana to enanchment bonus like I had aready did for the other.
-Ok let's see about that.
-After yours and Catty's arguments I ended up weakening them a bit, check below for details.
-To be honest RKV is kinda dangerous either way since it can also pick White Raven Tactics and go to town. Also I don't get what you're meaning with "ToB<> non-caster"
2nd level
Insightful Swords - at character level 3, this does ~20 Damage to a 15' cone. This is more comparable to a fireball cast by a 6th level sorcerer. Once again, quite powerful ... maybe not too powerful, but strong.
Well most people around here would claim fireball doesn't deal enough damage, plus fireball has a much bigger range.
3rd level
Flashing Slash Formation as Karma Gust - *thinking* .... if you have a movement speed of 50, and you run by 8 opponents, you attack each twice ... damage is ~2D8 + 10 +other ... ~20 ... something like a shapeable fireball, and this scales very well. Once again, powerful, but not quite overpowered. FYI - you should define "pass by". (Within 5'? Within range melee reach? Etc.)
Clarified.
5th level
Floral Nirvana - too powerful. Basically, this means you are gone, except on your turn, AND you get +3-+6 to (for example) saves. People can't attack you except on your turn ... Its very cool, but too much. It might fit as a 7th - 9th level ability. The only balancing factor is that it would be hard to do every round, but I'm sure with some finagaling this could be managed. Wings of cover is weaker than this, effects only a single attack, and can be cast only a finite number of times. And even then, it is on the verge of broken.
Well changed it so that you reform right away the attack misses, so people can still hit you with full attacks or simply by ganking on you.
Ghostly Wheel of Pain - amazingly powerful and cool. I like it. I even like that it is available at this level. I think I would specify that all expendable powers all come from one pool. (Example: Cleric 9/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10 - divides in 2, and then the copy casts Miracle ... inside of timestop ... this should cost resources).
Good point on the "single pool" of resources, added that.
7th level
Slash Clearing the Six Senses - cool and powerful. Possibly too powerful. 2*(Melee Damage + Rank) vs. opponents weakest save is a lot. If you buff Melee damage, this can be a ton of damage, and targeting the weakest save is more powerful yet, and using the attack roll instead of a normal DC is even yet more powerful. This is basically an instant death effect when used with a good build.
Well if you're boosting your melee damage that much, you probably don't deal this maneuver to insta-gib, specially because it would be more productive to unleash some kind of pounce/full attack for massive damage.
Not to mention if you're plaing high optimization, chaances are your oponents have ways to massively boost saves like the Diamond Mind maneuvers and certain discharge spells.
8th level
Deva Realm's God Swords - at 20th level, with 23 ranks, this grants +16 ... it is a bit much...
It gives +15 as 2/3 of 23 is 15,333 but again, what's the worst that could happen with that extra enanchment?
Slash of The Eternity - cool. Observation - this can probably let you buff your whole party with +6 to AC and saves as you go into battle.
They probably need it. AC and reflex saves are usually quite low by this level compared to the attack and DCs your oponents can throw at you.
Anyway added a clause that you can't use it on yourself.
9th level
Six Realms Ageless Obsession - probably too powerful, but very cool. "use any Ancient Temple maneuvers you know regardless of them being readied or expended" -> Floral Nirvana & Ghostly Wheel of Pain probably become too powerful. Note that with a little optimization, having a will save of 12 (base) + 5 (cloak of resistance) + 10 (wis) + 5 (spell "mass conviction" from SpC) -> make a save of 32 without trying. And this is without very much optimization at all. You can be in this stance the first 6 rounds of ever combat (by which time, virtually all combats will be over).
I would disagree that pulling obscure stuff out of SpC counts as little optimization, and again good luck with being able to afford 10 Wis when you still need good Str or Dex and can't dump Con. But you're right the DC is somewhat too easy to pass.
Changed it to 30+3 for each extra round. So with a Will save or 12(base)+5 Cloak of resistance + 6 Wis passes on a 7, then on a 10, so 67% chance you're gone by the 3rd round. Even with your +32 now you have a 40% chance of vanishing on the 3rd round and 67% chance of vanishing on the 4th round.
