D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5, Tome of Battle] Need Balance & Build Advice on Swordsage

[StreamOfTheSky]

Keep in mind, stances count as maneuvers for the purposes of "must know X maneuvers of Y discipline," also.

And yeah, that's one of the worst parts about ToB, planing out your maneuvers over 20 levels is a pain in the ass.

To answer your earlier question about Diamond Mind, either 1st level maneuver can work as a pre-req if you want. You can't ready ALL your maneuvers known, so some are going to not get used anyway. Ideally the ones you don't normally ready are "utility" stuff to break out for special situations, but more than likely some of them are just going to be garbage that's sitting around because you haven't had a chance to swap it out yet. I do think MoPM isn't good for a swordsage, though. It'll be a few points better than your actual will save, though it will surpass it further later on. I just don't like wasting my immediate on something so small, it means you can't use a swift the next round. I do heavily recommend Mind Over Body to protect your weak fort save when you get higher level. So I'd take Saph NM Blade. Sometimes you may run into something with awful AC and may end up wanting to switch it in for one more extra damage strike. I have a martial rogue ("feat rogue") 2 / swordsage 2 right now, I keep Saph NM Blade unreadied most times and when I find a situation where the enemy has terrible AC and I don't need some of my other maneuvers (like something too big to Mighty Throw), switch it in when I run out of readied maneuvers. Which happens every combat. Adaptive Style is awesome.

 

[cjosephs1s]

You don't have to dip into Warblade for the Dragon Heart discipline. You have access to it from the Swordsage along with: Desert Wind, Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, and Tiger Claw. So knock yourself (and your foes)out with some Mountain Strikes!

 

[kitcik]

You don't have to dip into Warblade for the Dragon Heart discipline. You have access to it from the Swordsage along with: Desert Wind, Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, and Tiger Claw. So knock yourself (and your foes)out with some Mountain Strikes!

There is no Dragon Heart discipline. There is Stone Dragon, which you get, and Iron Heart, which only goes to Warblades.

 

[Zarrok]

S.o.t.S. Do you think the swordsage would be better balanced if his natural recovery mrchanic were changed so that the swordsage would recover all his maneuvers instead of one? This way Adaptive Style wouldn't be required.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, yes. I never understood why Swordsage's had a much larger action time AND was the only recovery mechanic to only give one. Making it give all readies back would make Adaptive Style into a nice feat, but not required.

In any case, Swordsage does end up with a sizable "library" of known maneuvers, most likely having many more situationally useful ones than a Warblade or Crusader would, so regardless of the recovery mechanic they get, I'd say it's a great feat for them. But again, it's just plain required for the class to work using the RAW recovery rules.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Well, yes. I never understood why Swordsage's had a much larger action time AND was the only recovery mechanic to only give one.

It's mostly because ToB was a sort of test bed for 4e encounter-centric mechanics, I think. You have the class with random maneuvers, the class with a lot known and about half readied, and the class with fewer known but more readied, to determine whether players value number of maneuvers or selection of maneuvers more; then you have the class that automatically refreshes its maneuvers, the class that refreshes all of them at once, and the class that refreshes one at once, to see what sort of refresh mechanic players will put up with.

 

[Shadow_Tickle]

Hi guys,

Thank's to all your help, I finally managed to get the level 20 version of my guy statted out or at least went through his maneuvre selection.

Here's a list of his final maneuvres & stances at Swordsage 20:

Desert Wind: Inferno Blade, Wyrm's Flame. Stances: Flame's Blessing, Fiery Assault.
Diamond Mind: Time Stand's Still, Diamond Nightmare Blade, Quicksilver Motion, Greater Insightful Strike Moment of Alacrity, Mind Over Body, Action Before Thought, Moment of Perfect Mind. Stances: Hearing the Air
Setting Sun: Comet Throw, Baffling Defense,
Shadow Hand: Shadow Blink, Strike in the Night, Shadow Blade Technique. Stances: Child of Shadows, Dance of the Spider, Balance on the Sky or Step of the Dancing Moth.
Stone Dragon: Mountain Tombstone Strike, Irresistable Mountain Strike, Bone Crusher.
Tiger's Claw: Feral Death Blow, Swooping Dragon Strike, Rabid Bear Strike, Death from Above, Sudden Leap.

Please take a look and tell me what you think.

Two points in Particular regarding level 20: At 20, I am planning on trading one of either Rabid Bear Strike, Death from Above or Moment of Perfect Mind for another technique. Just need some help as to which one . I would like a good boost, to make use of duel boost feature at level 20. Also I am not completely sold as to whether I should take the Stance: Balance on the Sky here or something else like Step of the Dancing Moth or any other stance like the one that increases your size in regards to damage. (Needed to take Fiery Assault at Level 14 to meet pre-reqs.) Any Advice?

Random Notes:
1) I liked the idea of being able to Counter/Save anything that I was prepered for but I am still thinking a bit on Moment of Perfect Mind.
2) Tiger's Claw came in a sudden landslide near the end.
3) Mountain Tombstone Strike has no Pre-reqs? A level 9 maneuvre?

 

[Shadow_Tickle]

New List:

Sorry all, I took a second look after coming back from work and I noticed that I had made a few errors in my list. So I had to recalculate from level 10. On the plus side I did figure out some of the answers to my own questions, Mongoose series of boosts rock and I think I like the idea of being a Diamond Minded / Tiger's Claw Master.



Desert Wind: Inferno Blade, Wyrm's Flame. Stances: Flame's Blessing, Fiery Assault.

Diamond Mind: Time Stand's Still, Diamond Nightmare Blade, Quicksilver Motion, Greater Insightful Strike, Moment of Alacrity, Mind Over Body, Action Before Thought, Moment of Perfect Mind. Stances: Hearing the Air.

Setting Sun: Comet Throw, Baffling Defense,

Shadow Hand: Shadow Blink, Strike in the Night, Shadow Stride, Shadow Jaunt. Stances: Child of Shadows, Dance of the Spider, Balance on the Sky or Step of the Dancing Moth.

Stone Dragon: Mountain Tombstone Strike, Irresistable Mountain Strike.

Tiger's Claw: Feral Death Blow, Raging Mongoose, Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip, Swooping Dragon Strike,Death from Above, Sudden Leap.

Had to give up Bone Crusher from the Stone Dragon set for Dancing Mongoose which allowed me to qualify (and trade) for Raging Mongoose and GW Flesh Rip. Think I came out ahead on the deal.

I think I ended up mastering three disciplines without properly trying to be honest although to be fair I think that was partly because Mountain Tombstone Strike had no pre-reqs.



A Few Comments for Discussion:

1) Desert Wind: Went for the boost and high level cone. Both seemed useable while the 9 level version might hurt my own party.

2) Diamond Mind: I like the idea of being able to save versus anything on the fly or with proper preparation. I am thinking however of trading in MoPM and ABT for others but I can't think of anything else at level one that I would need and my trade list is already adequate.

3) Setting Sun: A few of their later moves I did like, just didn't have the space. Those parry options sounded great.

4) Shadow Hand: I mainly ended up taking for Mobility Options, I would have liked a couple of extra stances Step of the Dancing Moth, Assasin's Stance or that Death in the Dark Strike but didn't have the space for them. I didn't like that five fingered mastery strike of the discipline so didn't work towards it. Also do you guys think all Shadow Teleport is too much or not enough ? Not to mention possible synergy with Swooping Dragon Strike, If I can convince my GM to let me teleport instead of make a jump check, What's the jump check for 50 feet in the Air again?

5) Stone Dragon: Had to drop Bone Crusher to make room for Mongoose series. I already had a number of nice strikes to be honest and only went for Mountain Tombstone Strike as it had no pre-reqs. Other wise it might have gone to Setting Sun.

6) Tiger's Claw: Man the high level stuff of this is good. nuff said.


7) Oh, yeah my initial level 1 build :

Burning Blade
Moment of Perfect Mind
Counter Charge (& Mighty Throw at Level 2)
Shadow Blade Technique
Sudden Leap
Wolf Fang Strike


Finally a Few Questions:
1) I realised that I could trade Irresistible Mountain Strike for another level 7 or below manoeuvre. Do you think I should keep it for it's immobility bit or take Collosus Strike or even Scorpion Parry from Setting Sun or the Death in the Dark Strike from Shadow Hand?

2) Still have a question on the level 20 stance, Walk on Air or Walk on Liquids or the Jump stance from Tiger's Claw or the Assassin's stance from Shadow Hand? If ever there was a reason to go for Mo9 this is it.

3) Master of Nine, I didn't use it in this build due to your advice but I am seriously thinking of a two level dip just for the extra maneuvres/stance and Duel Stance. The rest I agree is pretty much a miss.