Crusader question

[Teacher Man]

I created a 6th level crusader for our club campaign, and while I love the stances and maneuvers that she gets, boy do I love a few of them I am unsure as to how often in an encounter I can use them. Can someone help a teacherman out?

 

[Nagol]

Page 9 of Tome of Battle. You begin an encounter with a set of readied maneuvers. Once used, it is expended until it can be recovered.

Page 10. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended. All stances known are always available for use.

 

[nogray]

As a 6th level Crusader, you have 7 maneuvers known, 5 maneuvers readied, and 2 stances known. Two of the maneuvers that you have readied will be available to you at the start any given encounter. (That last number can change to three if you have the Extra Granted Maneuver feat. Similarly, you can know an extra stance with the Martial Stance feat.)

You should always be in a stance. It takes a swift action to enter a stance, and you stay in the stance until you choose to leave it (another swift action) or switch stances (another, different, swift action).

Of your seven maneuvers that you know, you choose five to be "readied" and available at some point in encounters. You can swap these choices with five minutes of prayer. At the start of the encounter, you have two (or three, with the feat) of your readied maneuvers granted to you and available for immediate use. The remaining chosen readied maneuvers are withheld. At the end of each of your turns, another withheld maneuver becomes granted.

As you use the maneuvers, they become expended. If, at the end of your turn, you have no withheld maneuvers available to be granted, all of your expended maneuvers go into the withheld pile and one of those becomes granted.

Because of the readying/granting/refreshing method used by the crusader, you should be able to use a maneuver just about every round. This is particularly true if you choose mostly strikes to be readied. Only if you have a lot of off-turn counters and swift-action boosts should you ever run out of maneuvers to use.

I hope that helps.

 

[Teacher Man]

It helps quite a bit. This crusader is going to be really ugly... I can't wait for the student in our club who has one to see this information...

 

[Empirate]

One note on doing all of this in actual at-the-table play: use cards. Make (write, print, laminate, whatever) a bunch of cards, one for every maneuver you know. Of these cards, pick the five that represent your maneuvers readied when your character does their five-min-meditation thingy. At the start of combat, shuffle these five cards and draw two of them (or three with the Extra Granted Maneuver feat, which is practically mandatory) at random to see which maneuvers are granted. The rest of your five cards are withheld, and you get to draw another one each round, until all have been drawn. Then, you shuffle all five cards again to draw anew.

Using maneuver cards is really the only way to keep track of the Crusader's complicated maneuvers known-readied-granted mechanism, IMO.

 

[nogray]

Minor Correction

One note on doing all of this in actual at-the-table play: use cards. Make (write, print, laminate, whatever) a bunch of cards, one for every maneuver you know. Of these cards, pick the five that represent your maneuvers readied when your character does their five-min-meditation thingy. At the start of combat, shuffle these five cards and draw two of them (or three with the Extra Granted Maneuver feat, which is practically mandatory) at random to see which maneuvers are granted. The rest of your five cards are withheld, and you get to draw another one each round, until all have been drawn. Then, you shuffle all five cards again to draw anew.

Using maneuver cards is really the only way to keep track of the Crusader's complicated maneuvers known-readied-granted mechanism, IMO.

(Emphasis added)

I agree with everything [MENTION=78958]Empirate[/MENTION] says, with one caveat. By the rules-as-written in the Book of Nine Swords Crusader section, only the expended maneuvers get shuffled and drawn. That being said, I just came off a long campaign where we had decided that the way Empirate describes is how the Crusader's mechanic was going to work. It's either a common house rule or a common misinterpretation of the Crusader's recharge mechanic, possibly supported by an example somewhere.

 

[Teacher Man]

One note on doing all of this in actual at-the-table play: use cards. Make (write, print, laminate, whatever) a bunch of cards, one for every maneuver you know. Of these cards, pick the five that represent your maneuvers readied when your character does their five-min-meditation thingy. At the start of combat, shuffle these five cards and draw two of them (or three with the Extra Granted Maneuver feat, which is practically mandatory) at random to see which maneuvers are granted. The rest of your five cards are withheld, and you get to draw another one each round, until all have been drawn. Then, you shuffle all five cards again to draw anew.

Using maneuver cards is really the only way to keep track of the Crusader's complicated maneuvers known-readied-granted mechanism, IMO.

I will have those ready for the restart of the Against the Giants campaign. I turned the 15th paladin into a 9/6 crusader/paladin mix. It should be a lot of fun for the kids to play.

Thanks again for all the help.