Hello. I'm currently in the beginnings of a Forgotten Realms campaign with a friend, and my father as the DM. I started out an elf monk focused on grappling, but soon learned to my dismay that the vanilla 3.0/3.5 monk...well, it sucks. Badly. So, I did some looking and found the Tome of Battle. I was instantly hooked onto the Swordsage class. It fit my character concept and story perfectly. Decided to try the unarmed variant, and this is what I came up with. Keep in mind, I'm still a relative newcomer to D&D/Pathfinders, and don't have any experience past level 5 in tabletop games. Got plenty in RPGs in general though. Any foresight, tips or recommended options that I haven't considered would be greatly appreciated.
Sources: Any WotC 3.0/3.5 official material, except Psionics. DM isn't fond of them.
Elf Monk/Swordsage
Monk 2/Swordsage 18
Initial Stats:
16 STR
16 DEX
14 CON
12 INT
17 WIS
12 CHA
Currently DEX > STR > WIS > CON > INT > CHA.
Unfortunately I chose a high WIS when I first made this character (first D&D character ever made), so that can't change. Still useful though.
I'm focusing on utilizing my semi-accidental pick of Improved Grapple, Flurry of Blows and monk's higher iterative unarmed attacks to form a makeshift TWF build with added combat utility. I'm really keen on giving my character as many viable options in combat as possible, so he can adapt to any situation. Shadow Hand, Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw are my main disciplines, with the Mighty Throw chain from Setting Sun thrown in for battlefield control. Damage will be primarily from boosts/maneuvers allowing mobile full attacks, along with potential SA damage from Assassin's Stance. Build will lean towards AoO heavy once I get Robilar's at lvl 15. Insightful Strike and other standard action maneuvers for when full attacks aren't the best option. Assassin's Stance combined with 3 shuriken attacks is sure to come in handy as well. Out of combat, my party role will be a stealthy scout and level-headed advisor, with firm principles. Many a wise conversation will be had with the NPC cleric with 20 WIS!
Levels 1 and 2 are set in stone. I'd rather not multiclass any more than this, due to the XP penalty.
Feats and Class Abilities:
Monk 1) Feat: Improved Grapple, Flurry of Blows, Stunning Blow, WIS to AC,
Monk 2) Bonus Feat: Combat Reflexes, Evasion
SS 1) Feat: Scorpion's Grasp, Quick to Act +1 initiative, Discipline Focus: Shadow Hand (unarmed)
SS 4) Feat: Improved Natural Attack, Insightful Strike: Tiger Claw
SS 5) Quick to Act +2
SS 7) Feat: Snap Kick, Sense Magic
SS 8) Defensive Stance: Shadow Hand
SS 9) Evasion (again)
SS 10) Feat: Extra Readied Maneuver OR Improved Initiative OR Steady Concentration OR Deft Opportunist OR Weapon Finesse, Quick to Act +3
SS 12) Insightful Strike: Setting Sun
SS 13) Feat: Robilar's Gambit
SS 15) Quick to Act +4
SS 16) Feat: Undetermined at this point, Defensive Stance: Diamond Mind
SS 17) Improved Evasion
Maneuvers and Stances:
1) Stance: Child of Shadows, Wolf Fang Strike, Sudden Leap, Shadow Blade Technique, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, Mighty Throw, Charging Minotaur
2) Stance: Island of Blades, Cloak of Deception
3) Mountain Hammer
4) Mind Over Body, Emerald Razor (swap with Charging Minotaur)
5) Stance: Assassin's Stance, Insightful Strike
6) Bounding Assault, Comet Throw (swap with Mighty Throw)
7) Death From Above
8) Dancing Mongoose, Pouncing Charge (swap with Shadow Blade Technique)
9) Stance: Shifting Defense, Shadow Stride
10) Ballista Throw, Greater Insightful Strike (swap with Sapphire Nightmare Blade)
11) Strike of the Broken Shield
12) Shadow Blink, Swooping Dragon Strike (swap with Wolf Fang Strike)
13) Mirrored Pursuit
14) Stance: Stance of Alacrity, Raging Mongoose, Diamond Defense (swap with Mind Over Body)
15) Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip
16) Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike, DM: Time Stands Still (swap with Insightful Strike)
17) Tornado Throw
18) Feral Death Blow, Mountain Tombstone Strike (swap with Mountain Hammer)
Potential Skill Trick picks:
Acrobatic Backstab - flatfooted attack after successful tumble. Could technically tumble into their square, stop the tumble on the next square and draw an AoO, and then trigger Robilar's Gambit on the way out, gaining SA dice and making it easier to hit.
Twisted Charge - Combined with Pouncing Charge and Dancing/Raging Mongoose, makes a fast, deadly combo. Debatably stacks with Bounding Assault for a 3rd turn in the charge.
Escape Attack - Potentially handy for if I get in over my head when grappling, and want to do some damage on my way out. Procs SA.
Corner Perch - Flavor purposes. It's just really really cool!
Party members include a Sorcerer (friend's PC), Cleric NPC, and Fighter/Cleric NPC. Subject to change as we go on.
- Scorpion's Grasp allows me to choose to either grapple or not whenever I hit, and lets me damage them on a successful opposed check. I can attempt to keep holding them or try to let go. Basically free melee damage if I succeed on an opposed grapple check. Handy to activate on my last attack, for an extra minimum 1d6+STR damage and the guy's grappled on his next turn. From that point, you can pin, trip, throw, kncck unconscious, a whole boatload of options.
- Improved Nat Attack for added damage to almost all maneuvers.
- Snap Kick triggers on any melee attack, goes well with SA and single strike maneuvers.
- More readied maneuvers or being able to take 10 on a Conc. check for Mind Over Body/Diamond Defense is always nice. Improved Initiative for the added chance of getting SA dice on first rounds, combined with shurikens. Deft Opportunist to work in tandem with Robilar's. Or Weapon Finesse so that I can focus on DEX for my attack rolls, and boost my AoO potential later down the road.
- Robilar's Gambit triggers well with my high mobility and Snap Kick/Scorpion's Grasp. Child of Shadows stance mitigates the -4 AC if you move 10ft or more. And it gets a bit silly when you throw in things like Tornado Throw later on. Could also use with Shifting Defense stance to take a 5ft step if they miss, and attack at the same time, using up an AoO.
The level 12 feat, I have 5 choices. Which would work best? Any other suggestions besides those?
The level 18 feat. I have no idea what to take for this. Any ideas?
Diluted build. I can do quite a few things fairly well, but nothing exceedingly well. Not sure how it's going to play out in higher levels. Should I keep this concept intact or abandon a few handy options for a more focused build? It's also a bit MAD, but that comes inherent in the monk/ToB classes. I'm relying on STR for the grapple checks or trip checks (more of a secondary damage source/utility), DEX for AC, AoO's, and trip checks with Setting Sun maneuvers. WIS to AC. CON to make myself a little less squishy. INT slightly for skill points, though the 6 points per level should manage it okay. Any suggestions on this?
You've probably noticed the lack of Adaptive Style. The DM is a bit unsure about how strong I'll be compared to the challenges we'll face as well as my friend's PC, and the NPCs. He has no experience with ToB, but plenty of experience with highly optimized builds and loopholes. He's a bit apprehensive of new materials, but says he's more than willing to talk and make tweaks as we go. But for now I'm limited to just the 1 maneuver/full round action recovery method.
An idea I had was to add a concentration check to any additional maneuvers gained per full round. In the middle of a fight, I could choose to gain 2 maneuvers at a base DC 20 concentration check, +5 per added maneuver. Which equals a DC 25 to gain three maneuvers back, DC 30 for four, etc. If I failed this DC when trying to regain maneuvers, I'd only recover the base one, as well as suffering a -2 AC to DEX per extra maneuver attempted until my next turn. Which means a -2 AC if I fail a DC 20, -4 AC for a failed DC 25, etc. This would be the result of trying to focus on too many things at once in a chaotic environment. Adds a risk vs reward element to it. It would scale nicely with level, so I wouldn't be guaranteed more maneuvers recovered until much later on.
This goes hand in hand with a couple other house rules. The major one is maneuvers per day. My DM took the sorcerer's base spells per day and multiplied them by 2, then added WIS modifier to give maneuvers per day, as per the chart on the Sorcerer page (PH, 49. Can't post links yet, sorry!)
Example: Monk 2/Swordsage 4. I'd get 6(2)+4 WIS = 16 1st lvl maneuvers per day. 3(2)+4 = 10 2nd lvl maneuvers, and 1(2)+4 = 6 3rd lvl maneuvers per day.
We did this so that for both combat and non-combat situations, I couldn't just keep using maneuvers encounter after encounter when the sorcerer/cleric had long run out of decent spells. Imagine being able to Shadow Stride 50ft as a move action every 12 seconds while out of combat, or Cloak of Deception on and off like a darned strobe light, or smash through dungeon walls with Mountain Hammer over and over and over again. Kind of odd when you think about it, bordering on disconcerting.
Also, a houserule that I actually suggested was to add penalties to the automatic benefits one gets from a stance. Having experience in martial arts myself, it doesn't make much sense for a stance to have no downsides. A deep rooted, stabilized stance wouldn't let you move as fast as if you were on the balls of your feet. But being in a higher, more mobile stance leaves you more vulnerable to sweeps and takedowns. Takes but a split second to switch them (swift action), but when you're in that stance, you take the good and the bad.
Example: Child of Shadows, +20% concealment after 10ft movement. Penalty: -4 to AC and Hide checks when you do not move 10ft. Lasts until next turn.
As a sidenote, would 20% concealment essentially mean a +4 to AC and Hide checks? (d20*0.2=4) Would help simplify things.
All these houserules are just temporary until we can get a handle on just how powerful my character will be. Could end up being completely unnecessary, but we'll see.
Well, that about wraps it up. Please, if you have any suggestions, I'm more than willing to change things up, though I've grown fond of the build I've made. I have at least a few days until I'd have to make the first Swordsage level final.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this far.
I can post the back story on my character and the campaign up till this point for anyone interested.
Cheers!
Sources: Any WotC 3.0/3.5 official material, except Psionics. DM isn't fond of them.
Elf Monk/Swordsage
Monk 2/Swordsage 18
Initial Stats:
16 STR
16 DEX
14 CON
12 INT
17 WIS
12 CHA
Currently DEX > STR > WIS > CON > INT > CHA.
Unfortunately I chose a high WIS when I first made this character (first D&D character ever made), so that can't change. Still useful though.
I'm focusing on utilizing my semi-accidental pick of Improved Grapple, Flurry of Blows and monk's higher iterative unarmed attacks to form a makeshift TWF build with added combat utility. I'm really keen on giving my character as many viable options in combat as possible, so he can adapt to any situation. Shadow Hand, Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw are my main disciplines, with the Mighty Throw chain from Setting Sun thrown in for battlefield control. Damage will be primarily from boosts/maneuvers allowing mobile full attacks, along with potential SA damage from Assassin's Stance. Build will lean towards AoO heavy once I get Robilar's at lvl 15. Insightful Strike and other standard action maneuvers for when full attacks aren't the best option. Assassin's Stance combined with 3 shuriken attacks is sure to come in handy as well. Out of combat, my party role will be a stealthy scout and level-headed advisor, with firm principles. Many a wise conversation will be had with the NPC cleric with 20 WIS!
Levels 1 and 2 are set in stone. I'd rather not multiclass any more than this, due to the XP penalty.
Feats and Class Abilities:
Monk 1) Feat: Improved Grapple, Flurry of Blows, Stunning Blow, WIS to AC,
Monk 2) Bonus Feat: Combat Reflexes, Evasion
SS 1) Feat: Scorpion's Grasp, Quick to Act +1 initiative, Discipline Focus: Shadow Hand (unarmed)
SS 4) Feat: Improved Natural Attack, Insightful Strike: Tiger Claw
SS 5) Quick to Act +2
SS 7) Feat: Snap Kick, Sense Magic
SS 8) Defensive Stance: Shadow Hand
SS 9) Evasion (again)
SS 10) Feat: Extra Readied Maneuver OR Improved Initiative OR Steady Concentration OR Deft Opportunist OR Weapon Finesse, Quick to Act +3
SS 12) Insightful Strike: Setting Sun
SS 13) Feat: Robilar's Gambit
SS 15) Quick to Act +4
SS 16) Feat: Undetermined at this point, Defensive Stance: Diamond Mind
SS 17) Improved Evasion
Maneuvers and Stances:
1) Stance: Child of Shadows, Wolf Fang Strike, Sudden Leap, Shadow Blade Technique, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, Mighty Throw, Charging Minotaur
2) Stance: Island of Blades, Cloak of Deception
3) Mountain Hammer
4) Mind Over Body, Emerald Razor (swap with Charging Minotaur)
5) Stance: Assassin's Stance, Insightful Strike
6) Bounding Assault, Comet Throw (swap with Mighty Throw)
7) Death From Above
8) Dancing Mongoose, Pouncing Charge (swap with Shadow Blade Technique)
9) Stance: Shifting Defense, Shadow Stride
10) Ballista Throw, Greater Insightful Strike (swap with Sapphire Nightmare Blade)
11) Strike of the Broken Shield
12) Shadow Blink, Swooping Dragon Strike (swap with Wolf Fang Strike)
13) Mirrored Pursuit
14) Stance: Stance of Alacrity, Raging Mongoose, Diamond Defense (swap with Mind Over Body)
15) Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip
16) Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike, DM: Time Stands Still (swap with Insightful Strike)
17) Tornado Throw
18) Feral Death Blow, Mountain Tombstone Strike (swap with Mountain Hammer)
Potential Skill Trick picks:
Acrobatic Backstab - flatfooted attack after successful tumble. Could technically tumble into their square, stop the tumble on the next square and draw an AoO, and then trigger Robilar's Gambit on the way out, gaining SA dice and making it easier to hit.
Twisted Charge - Combined with Pouncing Charge and Dancing/Raging Mongoose, makes a fast, deadly combo. Debatably stacks with Bounding Assault for a 3rd turn in the charge.
Escape Attack - Potentially handy for if I get in over my head when grappling, and want to do some damage on my way out. Procs SA.
Corner Perch - Flavor purposes. It's just really really cool!
Party members include a Sorcerer (friend's PC), Cleric NPC, and Fighter/Cleric NPC. Subject to change as we go on.
- Scorpion's Grasp allows me to choose to either grapple or not whenever I hit, and lets me damage them on a successful opposed check. I can attempt to keep holding them or try to let go. Basically free melee damage if I succeed on an opposed grapple check. Handy to activate on my last attack, for an extra minimum 1d6+STR damage and the guy's grappled on his next turn. From that point, you can pin, trip, throw, kncck unconscious, a whole boatload of options.
- Improved Nat Attack for added damage to almost all maneuvers.
- Snap Kick triggers on any melee attack, goes well with SA and single strike maneuvers.
- More readied maneuvers or being able to take 10 on a Conc. check for Mind Over Body/Diamond Defense is always nice. Improved Initiative for the added chance of getting SA dice on first rounds, combined with shurikens. Deft Opportunist to work in tandem with Robilar's. Or Weapon Finesse so that I can focus on DEX for my attack rolls, and boost my AoO potential later down the road.
- Robilar's Gambit triggers well with my high mobility and Snap Kick/Scorpion's Grasp. Child of Shadows stance mitigates the -4 AC if you move 10ft or more. And it gets a bit silly when you throw in things like Tornado Throw later on. Could also use with Shifting Defense stance to take a 5ft step if they miss, and attack at the same time, using up an AoO.
The level 12 feat, I have 5 choices. Which would work best? Any other suggestions besides those?
The level 18 feat. I have no idea what to take for this. Any ideas?
Diluted build. I can do quite a few things fairly well, but nothing exceedingly well. Not sure how it's going to play out in higher levels. Should I keep this concept intact or abandon a few handy options for a more focused build? It's also a bit MAD, but that comes inherent in the monk/ToB classes. I'm relying on STR for the grapple checks or trip checks (more of a secondary damage source/utility), DEX for AC, AoO's, and trip checks with Setting Sun maneuvers. WIS to AC. CON to make myself a little less squishy. INT slightly for skill points, though the 6 points per level should manage it okay. Any suggestions on this?
You've probably noticed the lack of Adaptive Style. The DM is a bit unsure about how strong I'll be compared to the challenges we'll face as well as my friend's PC, and the NPCs. He has no experience with ToB, but plenty of experience with highly optimized builds and loopholes. He's a bit apprehensive of new materials, but says he's more than willing to talk and make tweaks as we go. But for now I'm limited to just the 1 maneuver/full round action recovery method.
An idea I had was to add a concentration check to any additional maneuvers gained per full round. In the middle of a fight, I could choose to gain 2 maneuvers at a base DC 20 concentration check, +5 per added maneuver. Which equals a DC 25 to gain three maneuvers back, DC 30 for four, etc. If I failed this DC when trying to regain maneuvers, I'd only recover the base one, as well as suffering a -2 AC to DEX per extra maneuver attempted until my next turn. Which means a -2 AC if I fail a DC 20, -4 AC for a failed DC 25, etc. This would be the result of trying to focus on too many things at once in a chaotic environment. Adds a risk vs reward element to it. It would scale nicely with level, so I wouldn't be guaranteed more maneuvers recovered until much later on.
This goes hand in hand with a couple other house rules. The major one is maneuvers per day. My DM took the sorcerer's base spells per day and multiplied them by 2, then added WIS modifier to give maneuvers per day, as per the chart on the Sorcerer page (PH, 49. Can't post links yet, sorry!)
Example: Monk 2/Swordsage 4. I'd get 6(2)+4 WIS = 16 1st lvl maneuvers per day. 3(2)+4 = 10 2nd lvl maneuvers, and 1(2)+4 = 6 3rd lvl maneuvers per day.
We did this so that for both combat and non-combat situations, I couldn't just keep using maneuvers encounter after encounter when the sorcerer/cleric had long run out of decent spells. Imagine being able to Shadow Stride 50ft as a move action every 12 seconds while out of combat, or Cloak of Deception on and off like a darned strobe light, or smash through dungeon walls with Mountain Hammer over and over and over again. Kind of odd when you think about it, bordering on disconcerting.
Also, a houserule that I actually suggested was to add penalties to the automatic benefits one gets from a stance. Having experience in martial arts myself, it doesn't make much sense for a stance to have no downsides. A deep rooted, stabilized stance wouldn't let you move as fast as if you were on the balls of your feet. But being in a higher, more mobile stance leaves you more vulnerable to sweeps and takedowns. Takes but a split second to switch them (swift action), but when you're in that stance, you take the good and the bad.
Example: Child of Shadows, +20% concealment after 10ft movement. Penalty: -4 to AC and Hide checks when you do not move 10ft. Lasts until next turn.
As a sidenote, would 20% concealment essentially mean a +4 to AC and Hide checks? (d20*0.2=4) Would help simplify things.
All these houserules are just temporary until we can get a handle on just how powerful my character will be. Could end up being completely unnecessary, but we'll see.
Well, that about wraps it up. Please, if you have any suggestions, I'm more than willing to change things up, though I've grown fond of the build I've made. I have at least a few days until I'd have to make the first Swordsage level final.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this far.
I can post the back story on my character and the campaign up till this point for anyone interested.
Cheers!
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