Ancedotes do not make for useful data. If necessary, suggest a psychic warrior to your swordsage. It's pure SRD, and has "impressive moves" without rendering the sorcerer moot, but there are no prima facie power imbalances here.
Looking at this well reviewed ranking system We see that all of the ToB classes are neatly within Tier 3:
Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.
Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior
The sorcerer you mentioned is Tier 2: with the spells offered by all of the splatbooks and spell compendium, they should be able to beat or equal a ToB character most of the time, depending on what realms they want to specialize in.
Clerics and Wizards are off in Tier 1, as they can compete against a tome of Battle character whenever they choose.
I would say: There is no power creep in Tome of Battle that is not exceeded by spell choices. ToB finally grants stabby types the chance to approach (but not equal) the genuine caster classes.
Looking at rate of power recharge is a mistake when not accounting for all other factors. The way to deal with power inflation is to get a group of characters that are clustered around one of the tiers, such that no one character can "win" at everything where the rest cannot. You also need to consider relative levels of optimization and system mastery between players, of course.
The easiest way to "balance" is to forbid the book. Nerfing the classes is severely contraindicated when looking at their relative power and choices. The most effective way to balance is to consider your specific party makeup, the requirements of your players, and asking for different power or class choices from some of the players.
At the end of the day, if you're worried about balance between classes, 3.5 may not be the system for you.
Some resources:
First, there is a broken combo in ToB when combined with cleric and extra turns: the Ruby Knight Vindicator. But that requires a fairly specific build and already has turning cheese in it.
Now, to take a look at your specific point of recharging and timing. The closest equivalent to "fireball" that I can find is Ring of Fire:
As part of this maneuver, you can move up to two times your speed
along the ground. All of your movement must be along continuous, solid
ground. You leave a trail of flames in your wake. These flames have no
effect unless they form a closed area. In this case, a raging inferno
erupts within that area. All creatures within the area take 12d6 points of
fire damage, with a Reflex save (DC 16 + your Wis modifier) for half
damage.
Presuming that you have optimized your speed somehow and have a base speed of 50' by 13th level or so this is a 6th level maneuver) you'll be able to create a 12d6 ring of fire.. with a 100' circumference. Or a 15' explosion. At 12th level, a sorcerer who took fireball... can spontaneously cast 6-8 20' radius fireballs in the same combat with 10d6 damage as well as a far longer range chain lightning (taking only from the SRD here).
If a 12th level sorcerer uses all of her fireballs in a day, it's likely she can call it a bad hair day and go home, as that's an incredibly large amount of magical resources to have expended. It's the same boat as the warlock: The "endless uses per day" only looks good in an unrealistically long adventuring day. Instead, the power, damage, range, and versatility of a caster will win out almost every time. Furthermore, this sorcerer could take arcane strike and/or use the 6th level "transformation" spell to be more effective than the swordsage in melee combat, if she so chooses.
Granting these abilities to the people who swing pointy sticks around evens the battlefield slightly... in their direction. Also, the 1 round break recharges 1 maneuver, not all of them, which is a remarkably horrible recharge mechanic.
"How to deal with this class for the rest of the group that is pure PHB?"
This is difficult, honestly. It is quite easy for sorcerers to choose the wrong spells and suchlike. The first thing I would do is allow the other players to "retcon" their characters . One thing that I've found that is somewhat workable is to allow every player to request one and only one extra book, thereby keeping the proliferation of splat somewhat manageable. Of course, your sorcerer should ask for the spell compendium, but that's perfectly within his right.
My recommendation, at the end of the day is "don't try to balance 3.5 splat." Instead, if it ends up that one player is taking too much of the spotlight, ask them to retcon some aspects of their character: perhaps multiclassing into something else or otherwise lowering their tier. At the same time, give other players options to edit their characters or revise past poor decisions.
When considering Death Mark and sorcerers:
The specific power identified is Death Mark:
When you use the strike, you channel overwhelming fiery energy into
the body of your foe. In addition to dealing normal melee damage with
your attack, you cause fire to erupt from your enemy’s body in a spread.
The radius of the spread is determined by the size of the target creature,
as indicated on the table below. All creatures in the area, including your
enemy, take 6d6 points of fire damage, with a Reflex save (DC 13 +
your Wis modifier) for half. This radius is centered on the creature’s
position.
You have immunity to the fire damage from your own death mark.
This maneuver is a supernatural ability.
As a 10' party-unfriendly "fireball" it seems like an interesting choice. However, this isn't even mentioned in the "stuff to care about" on the optimization threads Given that the choice is between this and stuff from shadow hand, be far more concerned about shadow hand. Still, a sorcerer has far greater range at far less risk, though they should not be evocation "focused" Looking at the other choices, deep slumber is a fantastic save-or-win, and explosive runes is incomparable in damage. (Mmm, explosive rune grenades. Horrible horrible horrible carnage).
Still, console the sorcerer that he has not yet come into his "power." And note when the sorcerer runs out of spells in play. I am also happy to help refine her spell selections to completely overshadow the swordsage. (With or without extra splat).
Use the NPC Gear table and compare to the listed gear actual value
“NPC gear” indicates the monster has treasure as normal for an NPC of a level equal to the monster's CR.
A Goblin is CR 1/3. The NPC Gear table has no entry for levels lower than 1 but it's easy to take the amount for level 1 (260gp for a Basic NPC, which most monsters should be) and divide by 3 (about 86gp)
The Goblin entry lists its NPC Gear as:
Treasure: NPC gear (leather armor, light wooden shield, short sword, short bow with 20 arrows, other treasure)
Totalling up everything (except "other treasure" of course) gives a value of 54gp. You could thus assume you have 32gp (86-54) of wiggling room. Either give them about 30gp or an item worth about that much.
Budget treasure based on total XP
But better yet, I'd suggest budgeting treasure based on the total CR of an encounter, or even of all the encounters of your adventure (or sections of it if it's really long).
If you plan to have the following encounters:
- 3 Goblins (135 XP each, 405 total)
- 2 Goblins (270 XP) and 1 Goblin Dog (400 XP) (670 total)
- 1 Hobgoblin (200 XP), 2 Goblins (270 XP) and 2 Goblin Dogs (800 XP) (boss battle?) (1270 total)
This totals up 2345 XP. If you look at the Experience Point Awards table, you will see that this is equivalent to a CR of 6 if it was one big encounter.
To aid in placing treasure, the amount of treasure and magic items the PCs receive for their adventures is tied to the Challenge Rating of the encounters they face
Table: Treasure Values per Encounter lists the amount of treasure each encounter should award based on the average level of the PCs and the speed of the campaign's XP progression (slow, medium, or fast). Easy encounters should award treasure one level lower than the PCs' average level. Challenging, hard, and epic encounters should award treasure one, two, or three levels higher than the PCs' average level, respectively.
Admittedly, I do not follow this perfectly. I prefer to align the CR of an encounter with the Average Party Level listed in the Treasure Values Per Encounter table. I'm pretty sure "challenging, hard and epic" mostly corresponds to CR = APL+1, +2 and +3 anyway.
So, our total XP equivalent to a CR 6 encounter ? Look up the APL 6 line in the table and check the treasure amount for your desired track speed. Let's say you go with Medium progression speed, that's 2000gp.
Once done with all these encounters, the party is expected to have earned, somehow, 2000gp. That's your treasure budget for all these encounters. Now you try to spread this value across all of them. You can split evenly, or make one big treasure hoard the PCs get to after all these encounters, only earning meager or no treasure along the way.
Do take into account NPC Gear value if your players usually pick it up and sell it. In our case, if we expect the PCs to sell every piece of gear they find, we should remove 54gp per Goblin (their NPC Gear value we calculated earlier), 125gp per Hobgoblin and nothing for Goblin Dogs as they have no default treasure at all. That's 54 x 7 Goblins + 125 x 1 Hobgoblin = 503gp of NPC Gear, leaving us with 2000 - 503 = 1497gp as actual treasure besides NPC Gear.
Again, how you "use up" this budget is up to you. You can spend it on upgrading NPC Gear, turning a regular weapon into a Masterwork version (usually +300gp value), or adding various treasures such as potions, gems or simply gold to a treasure chest or some loot bag lying in the goblinoids' lair.
If you add to NPC Gear beyond their Bestiary entries, keep in mind the NPC Gear table. Your Hobgoblin, at CR 1/2, isn't expected to be carrying much more than 130gp (260/2) in gear. If you go way beyond, things might get tough for the party.
Best Answer
This doesn’t have to be a problem. This is the game they seemed to want, and you seemed to be OK giving it to them: now you just need to understand what the ramifications of this kind of game are. Their wealth pushes them past a lot of mundane problems—like travel—so challenge them with greater, more supernatural threats. Magic is fantastically expensive, after all.
Because if you have been giving out levels like candy, then yes, they are supposed to be able to buy a boat on a moment’s notice with some spare change. That’s part of what it means to be high-level (or really, even mid-level) adventurers.
The expected wealth of a 5th-level character is 9,000 gp (or 10,500 gp, in Pathfinder), each. A 10,000-gp boat is quite an investment for a party of four 5th-level characters. The expected wealth of a 10th-level character is 49,000 gp (62,000 gp, Pathfinder): for a party of four, with somewhere around 200,000 gp between them, that’s not much. By 15th-level, they instead have 200,000 gp (240,000 gp, PF) each, so four of them have nearly a million gold pieces’ worth of funds. A 10,000-gp boat is not a serious expenditure.
You know those scenes in TV shows and movies where someone walks in and just buys things no one thought was even for sale, by just casually writing a check for fantastic sums of money? Bruce Wayne just buying the hotel so his lady friends could play in the fountain, Mr. Saito purchasing an entire airline rather than trying to bribe all the appropriate personnel because “it seemed neater.” Those things: D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder characters can be those characters by mid levels.
More importantly, powerful options for transportation, such as teleport, greater teleport, and plane shift become available at high levels. A 10,000-gp boat might be cheap, but a high-level character wouldn’t buy one anyway: they can move much, much faster than merely sailing anyway.
And that’s normal. If you have been offering more wealth than this, then you are going beyond recommended values, so the cost of a boat becomes trivial sooner than this. But it’s really not anything new, just early. By giving more wealth than normal, you are suggesting that something like a boat is not supposed to be a significant cost to the party. And that’s OK.
The reason that this happens is because wealth is directly tied into character power. In order for characters to keep up in power, in addition to levels and class features and so on, they also need magic items. And magic items are, compared to any and all mundane expenses, fantastically expensive. An entire boat costs 10,000 gp: a +2 adamantine dagger costs more than that. A +5 longsword costs much, much more than that. Basic ability-enhancement items (gloves of dexterity and so on) cost 60% more than a boat in the +4 version, and in the +6 version, cost three-and-a-half times what a boat does. A single mid-level magic item is worth enough to hire a score of fantastically-skilled laborers to work non-stop on something for most of a year.
Such are the rewards of adventuring. Considering their life expectancy, plus the need to invest so much of their money in preposterously expensive magic items just to have any hope of survival, maybe that’s not so ridiculous.
But ultimately, you don’t really need to have a problem here. Mundane concerns are now beneath them in all but the most ludicrous amounts and qualities. They can have the fastest, most luxurious mundane boat in existence, they can even afford to pay premiums to get it now and so on. That’s because they are adventurers, with serious, magical problems to thwart, and magic problems require magic gear and magic gear costs several fortunes.