Swordsage build

[Klaude dOrien]

My DM has kindly allowed me to test a Swordsage in a new campaign starting at 2nd level

This is our first Bo9S character and I don't want to get the book banned so I'm looking for a generalist with a range of options rather than a maxed out character. but any comments on critical mistakes or things I've overlooked welcome

Str 16 Dex 16 Con 15 Int 11 Wis 13 Cha 8

Human Feats: Improved Initiative, Toughness (house ruled to be 2 +1/level hp)

Skills
Concentration 5 ranks
Jump 5 ranks
Listen 5 ranks
Martial Lore 5 ranks
Sense Motive 5 ranks
Spot cc 2.5 ranks
Tumble 5 ranks
Speaks: Common

Class abilities: Proficient in Light Armour, Simple Weapons and Martial melee weapons; Quick to Act (+1 Initiative); Discipline Focus (Weapon Focus in "Stone Dragon" weapons); Wis to AC (in light armour, no shield and unencumbered)

Stances: Child of Shadow, Flame Blessing

Maneuvers: Burning Blade, Moment of Perfect Mind, Mighty Throw, Shadow Blade Technique,
Stone Bones, Sudden leap, Wolf Fang Strike

Normally ready Burning Blade, Mighty Throw, Shadow Blade Technique, Sudden leap

Progression

3rd level: feat: extra readied maneuver. maneuver: emerald razor

4th level: shadow jaunt and swap Wolf Fang Strike for fire riposte


counter charge as a 1st level maneuver looks tactically interesting but how often is it likely to see use (bearing in mind you can't use it if you lose initiative and get charged)?

wondering about stone vise (but will save DC ever be that great for a fort save) or rabid wolf strike instead of fire riposte.

 

[BASHMAN]

Counter charge is nigh-useless. If your character has anything that benefits vs. charging, the DM will almost never have things charge you. They just move and attack. Since they never used the word charge in that sentence, it gains no -2 AC penalty and you cannot use your feat/maneuver/spell/item/whatever. I guess the only benefit is it deters enemies from charging you, but in my experience, anytime I readied Counter Charge, I was never charged.

 

[Mort]

you might want to go with adaptive style instead of one of the other feats, especially if your DM will use the official Wizards interpretation (which lets you reasign and refresh all manuevers as a full round action).

This may be too "twinky" but you might consider swapping WIS and STR - then take shadow blade (the feat that allows dex to damage). This keeps damage output the same (I'm not sure but I beleive the Dex damage is in addition to STR so actually it's 1 higher) while giving you +2 to your AC.

 

[Someone]

As Mort said, you can make Str a dump stat with Weapon finesse and Shadow blade, though it uses two feats and you must wait until level 3 (as weapon finesse has a +1 bab requirement), and makes some maneuvers (like diamond nightmare blade) much less attractive. Even if you don't use those feats I'd go for a better Wis at the expense of Str, as maneuvers will help with the extra damage and swordsages aren't short in ways to get a bonus to hit (like Shadow blade technique, cloak of shadows, island of blades...) but AC is more difficult to come by.

About the maneuvers chosen, I'd say Mighty throw is difficult to use in practice, so I'd abandon it for Stone bones, which offers excellent protection at low levels. Sudden leap is an excellent maneuver when you have a good Jump check, but at low levels the payoff is not so good, specially because you still don't have iterative attacks, so I'd choose something instead. Also IMO island of blades is in practice much better than child of shadows (if you work with another character in melee you have almost guaranteed a flanking bonus, and thats' very important at low levels), so I'd choose it instead.

 

[castro3nw]

Well, I dunno if it counts as a critical mistake, or anything overlooked... But I'll still chip in my 2cp.

First off.. Good call on Bo9S. It's lots of fun.

Otherwise, with swordsage, you might want to look at the feat Adaptive Style. But first, discuss it with your DM. General consensus is that when you change your readied maneuvers, all the new ones coming in are unexpended. ie. you can use it to refresh all of your maneuvers with a full-round action instead of refreshing just one. This isn't really horribly abusive, but is pretty strong. Some DM's don't really like that though, and just say it'll change what's readied and whatever was expended is still expended.

This would really come into play with Moment of Perfect Mind. Alot of people seem really upset about this one, and being able to make loads of will saves w/a fighter type guy. Adaptive Style would make it to where you could re-use it a couple times a fight. Not really a big deal... You'll have spent a whole turn doing next to nothing to be able to reuse it, but some people see it and freak out. Otherwise... Moment of Perfect Mind is one of those maneuvers that when you use it, you'll be glad you have it.. And the rest of the time, you'll wish you had something useful in its slot. At least in my experience.. (but I play w/a Warblade, and thus have fewer readied maneuvers)

I like most all of your set of maneuvers, they're either good ones, fun looking ones, or both. Not as big a fan of Stone Bones, or Wolf Fang Strike... The former, I'd at least consider Charging Minotaur instead, since it gives a weird form of mobility since the charge doesn't provoke people as you go by. Wolf Fang, I understand... Guessing you don't really plan on using it, but wanted a prereq for the Sudden Leap.

As for the Fire Riposte, I don't think I'd consider the Stone Vise worth-while. Of Rabid Wolf and Fire Riposte, both likely will trade you getting hit for someone in front of you being dead. Rabid Wolf lets you proactively pick who gets dead, but everyone hits you.. Fire Riposte you don't get to pick who gets dead, but only one person hits you... I'ts sort of a toss up. Of the two, I think I'd pick Mountain Hammer. Getting around DR is pretty nice.

Finally, Stance wise... Child of Shadows looks cool and fun. I've never tried it (warblade) but it looks fun. I think I'd pick Island of Blades over the Flame's Blessing though. Flanking with everybody is pretty sweet. If you expect alot of fire, all the time, you might stick with the Blessing though.

Over all, the real trick is figuring out about what level you expect to end up at, seeing what maneuvers/stances you want to have then, and making sure you pick your maneuvers/stances each level so that you have the prereq's met as you want the new/cool stuff. Don't forget that stances count as a maneuver when figuring prereq's for later maneuvers and such.

ps. You're the only Bo9S char. with any proficiency in ranged (non-throwing) weapons. Don't forget your light crossbow.

pps. If you get a chance to pick up an item that boosts concentration... Mechanically, it's great for you. Psychologically, it's really scary for the DM when he realizes what it means to you mechanically. It boosts most of the maneuvers in Diamond Mind, the conc./save ones and several damaging ones. ie. Its a good idea on paper, but will likely leave a sour taste in your dm's mouth... Likely best to avoid the issue

 

[Klaude dOrien]

Interested in what you say about Swordsages not having a problem hitting things. That is one of my worries with the class. The higher level maneuvers look powerful but as a medium bab class how often will they be wasted.

Why is Mighty Throw difficult to use in practice?

I was hoping to be able to use sudden leap to fake spring attack - move, attack and jump away - at least out of the reach of monsters with multiple attacks. or to use it to move into a position I could charge from.

I agree Island of Blades looks v potent. Incredibly so for an 1st level ability.

 

[SadisticFishing]

Well, you're not making iterative attacks or using power attack, so 3/4 bab is definately good enough.

Can you actually do that with jump? -Edit: Oh, yeah, Sudden Leap. Duh.

 

[Mort]

I was hoping to be able to use sudden leap to fake spring attack - move, attack and jump away - at least out of the reach of monsters with multiple attacks. or to use it to move into a position I could charge from.

The problem, of course, is that you don't avoid any AoO's with sudden leap. On the other hand with a good jump check, sudden leap is great for getting a full attack after a decent move (heck at high level a swordsage can teleport 50 ft jump 50 ft and then full attack).

 

[Arkhandus]

Eh, I'd recommend sticking with the stances you've got; Flame's Blessing will help when you encounter mages or druids throwing around Burning Hands, Flaming Spheres, Scorching Rays, Fireballs, Flame Blades, Produce Flames, and other such stuff. And you don't wanna cheese off the DM with Island of Blades if it turns out to be really useful (and anyway, depending on your group's composition and tactics, it could either be really useful, really worthless, or just decent).


I would swap out Moment of Perfect Mind and Stone Bones. Take Charging Minotaur instead of Stone Bones, it's handy. Sapphire Nightmare Blade is a less cheesy and still decent use of your Concentration skill. I would stay away from the other Nightmare Blades and the Insightful strikes, though, later on; SNB is fine, but some of the others can be abused and make DMs spiteful towards the Bo9S, even though not everyone who uses them will abuse them.

MoPM is less useful since you're a Swordsage and thus already have good Will saves, and even though it's not totally awesome itself, it is good, and many DMs think it to be too great; however, that's generally when it's taken in combination with one or two other maneuvers as a Warblade, not a Swordsage (Iron Heart Surge and one or two others; IHS and one other I think are both in Iron Heart, the more-or-less Warblade-only discipline).


Emerald Razor is a fine choice of 2nd-level maneuver, but Mountain Hammer is also good, and you may want to base your decision on how much ease or difficulty you seem to have with hitting things, through actual play.

You shouldn't have too much trouble hitting things; your Str and Dex are both good, you've got Discipline Focus/Weapon Focus, so you're only a point or two behind a solid fighter. Later on you'll want to be sure to get a weapon with an enhancement bonus to attack and damage, of course, and prioritize magic items that boost your Strength for its attack boosting.


I figure your ability scores are alright as a generalist sort of Swordsage.... More Wisdom would be preferable, but if you go for high Wis + mediocre Str then you would have to take both Weapon Finesse and Shadow Blade to compensate for the lower attack and damage bonuses. You seem to be focusing more on Constitution and hit points than on AC, though, for defense, anyway. Also, if you went for lower Strength, you'd have a harder time making effective use of some Stone Dragon and Setting Sun maneuvers, I think, which would make you less of a generalist. You would then have to focus on the use of Shadow Hand weapons for Shadow Blade to work, and thus do even less damage.

Your 3rd-level feat should probably be Adaptive Style. Swordsages can only fight for a few rounds at low levels before they run out of maneuvers ready, and then they either have to fight without them (like a bard who's used up all their spells and bardic music, which is bad), or waste a round for each maneuver they want to recover.

 

[hong]

Get Acrobatic Strike (PHB2) ASAP. Max out your weapon's enhancement bonus. These two go a long way to cancelling out the medium BAB. You don't need to worry about fewer iterative attacks, since much of your combat power comes from strikes.