Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
The name's more for legacy, at this point, I'm afraid, as this is more likely to be a sporadic thing than a regular feature.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, Radical Taoist, DisposableHero_, Tempest_Stormwind, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, one of Radical Taoist’s babies is up.
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CAPTAIN CHARISMA
All she wants to do is dance
Required Books: Player’s Handbook II, Tome of Battle, Book of Exalted Deeds (1 feat), Complete Warrior (1 feat), Complete Arcane (1 feat), Frostburn (1 feat), Complete Adventurer (1 feat), Eberron Campaign Setting (you guessed it, 1 feat), Spell Compendium, spell suggestions from Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage, a teamwork benefit suggestion from Forge of War, and equipment suggestions from the Magic Item Compendium and Dungeon Master’s Guide II.
Unearthed Arcana used: None! Flaws can help but are not necessary.
Background: This SAD Charisma-based build arose when RT noticed that Ascetic Mage, from Complete Arcane, is pretty open in its wording. So open in its wording, in fact, that it could apply to the Swordsage. But if you’re going to focus on Charisma, then you’ll want to attack with it, and that means Snowflake Wardance. And if you’re going to focus on fighting with light weapons as a swordsage, you might as well go crit fishing with Blood in the Water and Kukris. But if you’re crit fishing with high Charisma, why not pick up Righteous Blow?...and the build just snowballed from there. The result is a versatile and capable support character who, with a little preparation, can absolutely wreck an unprepared opponent in melee.
The Basics
Race: Human. It’s just easier, and the following ability score array is calibrated with the human bonus skill point in mind. Strongheart halfling is possible but the Str prereq will make things difficult for you. Azurin is also possible, though RT didn’t have any ideas on how to optimize this build with incarnum. If you’re going to use flaws to make up the feat difference, then spellscale, hellbred, and aeshuur illumian are all sound choices.
Ability Scores: Open with 14/14/12/8/10/16 for a balanced array. Cha is your go-to stat; it gets all the tome and level bonuses. It’s really tough to get to an 18 Cha, since we need at least 13 Str to make Resounding Blow happen. You can swap Dex and Con if you want. You can also drop Wis to 8 to boost Con some more, but RT hates having any penalty to Will saves, and roleplaying someone with an Int and Wis penalty is such a chore.
Skill Notes: Max Concentration, Perform (Dance), Perform (Sing), Tumble, and Use Magic Device. You have Bardic Knack to cover most of your skill needs. Sadly, you will need to gimp your Balance and Spellcraft checks by taking 5 ranks in those skills for synergies; this will land you with a smaller bonus on those skills than Knack would give you. The rest of your skill points should go into Sense Motive, so you can use the Precision Assault teamwork benefit from Forge of War (p. 131). This benefit is amazing for a crit fisher (+1 to threat range, stacks with Imp. Crit, as long as you and your buddies focus on on one target!) and if you dump your remaining skill points there your Sense Motive bonus should outstrip Knack. Jump is taken care of with Leaping Dragon Stance and your speed boosting buffs; if you need any other skill, Bardic Knack + Improvisation + Inspire Competence is as good as having 18 ranks in that skill.
Basic Equipment: At the low levels, you’ll probably want a spear or longspear, plus a shortbow for distance fights. The best light armor you can get your hands on is a given. By level 4 you should have picked up two kukris and never looked back. You will always have a great Use Magic Device check, so don’t shy away from scrolls and wands!
Magical Gear Goals: Your ideal weapons are +1 Keen Tiger Claw Stunning Surge (MIC) kukris. The Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the MIC is an absolute win option for you, with a Cha-based stunning DC and a number of daily uses based on your Charisma bonus - and since you dual wield, having two of them can possibly give you more stuns per day than you have uses of bardic music! There’s also the Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the DMG2, which is even better, but it’s so damn powerful and broken as to likely get the banhammer. To save money on your weapon’s enhancement bonus, get a staff with Greater Magic Weapon in it. You want the Gloves of the Balanced Hands to remove the need for ITWF. Get enhancement bonuses for Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity, in that order. Slippers of Battledancing (also from the DMG2) are great for any wardancer, and you’ll want the Vest of Legends (MIC) to keep your inspire courage bonus up. Your 4th level spells will face the greatest in-combat demand, so a Ring of Wizardry IV is a great high level investment. Your UMD bonus is well suited to having lots of wands, scrolls, staffs, or runestaffs on hand if you need troubleshooting spells. Ask your party to put in for stuff like CLW wands (or a staff of healing at the high levels, if necessary). Otherwise, usual stuff, Initiative items, drakehelms, Shax haversack, you know the drill.
The Build.
Build Stub: Bard 18/Swordsage 2
1 – Bard – (Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Unarmed Strike) (Bardic music, bardic knack, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1)
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[sblock]Spells learned: Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Mending, Detect MagicYou’ve got options here for tactics depending on your weapon choice: a pseudo-spiked chain with a longspear and your unarmed strike, decent full attacks with a longsword and your unarmed strike, and dual wielded javelins or a shortbow for ranged attacks. Whatever you choose, play it safe. It’s level 1 and you’re squishy.
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2 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Immediate Assistance (CMag), Inspirational Boost (SPC), Read Magic, an open 0thImmediate Assistance gives your allies a skill check reroll, and Inspirational Boost increases your inspire courage bonus by 1 at a very early level. Stick to the support role accordingly. If your party has put in for a wand of Cure Light Wounds, you’re probably the out-of-combat healer as well.
The Bardic Knack alternate class feature (from the PHB2) that we selected last level starts to provide its benefit now.
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3 – Bard – (Snowflake Wardance) (Inspire competence) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Critical Strike (the SPC version! There’s like five spells with this name), an open 0thFrostburn’s Snowflake Wardance feat is a fundamental component of our combat style, allowing us to use Charisma with melee attacks in place of Strength, but at this level it only offers a +1 to hit and lasts for 6 rounds. Use it sparingly, and don’t use it in a fight where you won’t need to full attack people repeatedly. Critical Strike takes a swift action to cast, and gives you +1d6 sneak attack (effectively) and Improved Critical (whatever you’re wielding) for 1 round. Later in your career it can be switched out, but it will be handy at these levels.
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4 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Whirling Blade (SPC), TonguesWhirling Blade is a wonderful spell for this build, and in many cases a better ranged attack option than actual ranged weapons. This spell lets you make a melee attack in a line area using your Charisma modifier in place of strength and is only a standard action to cast. You’ll see how handy that is next level. Tongues was selected to compensate for our low Int (and resulting lack of bonus languages).
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5 – Swordsage – (Weapon Focus: Tiger Claw) (Quick to act +1) *
[sblock]Maneuvers learned: Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Mountain Hammer, Shadow Jaunt, Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike
Stance: Blood in the WaterWe get a good selection of utility maneuvers from splashing into martial adept, but the big draw is Blood in the Water. Our workhorse stance synergizes with Critical Strike and Whirling Blade. Use Whirling Blade on appropriately situated enemies to rack up a good Blood bonus. Don’t discount Stone Bones at this level - you are still squishy, but DR 5/adamantine can help take the bite out of enemy counterattacks.
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6 – Bard – (Stone Power) *
[sblock]Spells learned: An open 2nd, Improvisation (SPC) (You may also swap at this level)We have the caster level now to get good use out of Improvisation, a very handy spell for a wide variety of occasions. The Stone Power feat (from the Tome of Battle) was chosen to qualify us for Resounding Blow later, since unlike Power Attack, Stone Power isn’t utterly useless for someone who dual wields light weapons. Besides, this bard is still squishy - sources of temporary HP are appreciated.
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7 – Bard – (Suggestion) *
[sblock]Your Charisma is your focus, and the saving throw DC for your Suggestion power is Charisma-based. You’ve also get enough bardic music uses per day to start seriously using such tactics.[/sblock]
8 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Haste, Displacement, an open 2ndHaste is just some of the best support out there. And with Displacement, your first miss chance buff, you can start to attempt extended melee combat without getting utterly murdered.
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9 – Swordsage – (Ascetic Mage) (AC bonus) *
[sblock]Maneuvers learned: Mind Over Body
Stance: Leaping Dragon StanceOur Fortitude save is the weakest, and so it’s the one to protect with Mind Over Body. And Leaping Dragon Stance is a decent utility stance to use when you’re not in Blood (though there are other utility picks you might prefer). But our feat is the key gain in this level. Ascetic Mage (from Complete Arcane) can apply to the Swordsage AC bonus, so now we add Charisma to our Armor Class in place of Wisdom. Our defensive values are starting to accelerate rapidly.
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10 – Bard – (Inspire courage +2) *
[sblock]Spells learned: an open 3rd (You may also swap at this level)Inspire Courage is still our favourite support option. If you’ve got a pair of keen kukris by now, it might be time to swap out Critical Strike for something more useful. That swap, and whichever spell you choose to learn this level, are worth careful consideration, so a list of spell suggestions are included in the final spell list later in this post.
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11 – Bard – (Inspire greatness) *
[sblock]Inspire Greatness is a good buff on its own, and another source of temporary HP. If you don’t think the combat will last too long, it could be worth stacking this with Inspire Courage - the benefits don’t disappear until 5 rounds after you end a song. [/sblock]
12 – Bard – (Resounding Blow) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Ruin Delver's Fortune (SPC), Greater Mirror Image (PHB2), an open 3rdOne nice thing about this build’s progression is its evenness. You get something pretty cool every level. But this level is the first really big “WOW” level in the build, and it will take some explaining.
Resounding Blow (from the Book of Exalted Deeds) forces an opponent to make a Charisma-based will save every time you score a critical hit against them. If they fail, they’re shaken (can’t act, lose Dex to AC, -2 to all saves) for 1 round. This build is a crit fisher. If you make a full attack and score a critical hit, and they are shaken, they will stay in place, allowing you another full attack next round. This is a good way to capture enemies with weak Will saves and farm a good Blood in the Water bonus off of them.
Ruin Delver’s Fortune is an amazing spell, and your workhorse counter in emergency situations. It can add your Charisma bonus to one of your three saves (with accompanying benefits, such as evasion) or give you a small buffer of temporary hit points that also scales with your Charisma bonus. This does wonderful things for your survivability - and better yet, the bonuses last for a short duration, so “popping” your defenses isn’t as effective a tactic as it would be against the Diamond Mind counters.
What RDF does for your survivability against save effects, Greater Mirror Image does for your survivability against attackers. A bunch of regenerating mirror images as an immediate action will ruin the day of any melee attacker who doesn’t have True Seeing or a way to attack multiple squares/opponents at once. Can be mighty annoying for enemy archers too.
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13 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Dimension Door (You may also swap at this level)It’s just good utility and support.
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14 – Bard – (Song of the Heart) *
[sblock]This feat (from the Eberron Campaign Setting, although it’s flavour neutral and easily exported) is swapped in to replace Song of Freedom, as per the ECS rules on trading new varieties of bardic music for feats.[/sblock]
15 – Bard – (Arcane Strike) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Greater Blink (SPC), Greater Dispel Magic, Sirine's Grace (SPC)This is another WOW level, and at this point the build is more or less complete.
The Arcane Strike feat (from Complete Warrior) allows her to convert spell slots into attack and damage bonuses on melee attacks. At this level, the build has 36 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots or rings of wizardry. This feat will be our primary source of spike damage, for when we actually need to kill fools dead right now. It is quite draining, though, so use it sparingly.
Greater Dispel Magic needs no further explanation. You’re only two caster levels behind full, a gap that can easily be recovered with the right magic items.
Greater Blink is another miss chance buff, and this one cannot be beaten by True Seeing (though it is pierced by force effects like Power Weapon and can be countered by itself). Stacking miss chances means that this bard is very hard to hit. However, your final 4th level spell boosts that even further. Sirine’s Grace gives you a small connection of stat bonuses, but more importantly a deflection bonus to your Armor Class equal to your Charisma bonus. You’re adding your Charisma to AC twice, and that’s going to your flat-footed touch AC too. This can easily get your AC into the f**k you 40s, and well into the f**k off 50s at the highest levels of this build.
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16 – Bard – (Inspire courage +3) *
[sblock]Spells learned: an open 5th (You may also swap at this level) [/sblock]
17 – Bard – (Inspire heroics) *
[sblock]Another use of bardic music, though honestly not as handy as greatness or courage.[/sblock]
18 – Bard – (Lingering Song) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Project Image, Irresistible Dance, an open 5th, an open 1stProject Image is an incredibly useful spell. One of the useful things it can do is deliver the no-save touch-range Irresistible Dance spell for you.
Lingering Song (from Complete Adventurer) doubles the time that a bardic music buff lasts after the song ends, from 5 rounds to 10 rounds. This makes it easier to stack up the bonuses from different types of bardic music if necessary, and by this level you have enough uses of bardic music to afford such tactics.
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19 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Nixie's Grace (SPC), an open 2nd (You may also swap at this level)Nixie’s Grace comes with a +8 enhancement bonus to Charisma, but that’s less impressive when you realize it doesn’t stack with your Charisma enhancing equipment and only lasts for 1 round/level. If you want to select something else in its place, go ahead.
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20 – Bard – (Mass suggestion) *
[sblock]Spells learned: an open 3rdWith your prodigious Charisma score, I hope you’ve remembered to take full advantage of Fascinate + Suggestion when setting up combats (or avoiding them altogether). This is just a boost to that ability.
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Final Spell and Maneuver List
[sblock]Spells known (caster level 18, save DCs of 21 + spell level assuming a +6 enhancement bonus to Charisma):
0th: Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation, Read Magic, 2 open choices
1st: Critical Strike (can swap out later), Immediate Assistance, Improvisation, Inspirational Boost, 1 open choice
2nd: Whirling Blade, Tongues, 3 open choices
3rd: Haste, Displacement, 3 open choices
4th: Dimension Door, Greater Mirror Image, Ruin Delver’s Fortune, Sirine’s Grace
5th: Greater Blink, Greater Dispel Magic, 2 open choices
6th: Irresistible Dance, Nixie’s Grace (less than ideal), Project ImageSpell suggestions for open slots:
1st: Grease, Joyous Noise (SPC), Shock and Awe (SPC), Swift Expeditious Retreat (SPC)
2nd: Glitterdust, Invisibility, Silence, Spymaster's Coin (CScound), Magic Savant (CMag), Doublespeak (CMag), Insight of Good Fortune (PHB2), Speak to Allies (SPC), Grace (SPC), Swift Fly (SPC), Harmonic Chorus (SPC), Sonorous Hum (SPC), and Dark Way (SPC)
3rd: Glibness (PHB), Wounding Whispers (SPC), Create Fetch (CScound), G'Elsewhere Chant (SPC), Listening Coin (SPC), Mass Curse of Impending Blades (SPC), Sonic Shield (PHB2), and Alter Fortune (PHB2)
5th: Renewed Vigor (PHB2), Evacuation Rune (CScound), Dimension Jumper (CMag), Dragonsight (SPC), Mislead (PHB), Seeming (PHB), and False Vision (PHB)
Maneuvers known (initiator level 11, X maneuvers readied): Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Mind Over Body, Mountain Hammer, Shadow Jaunt, Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike
Stances known: Blood in the Water, Leaping Dragon Stance
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Snapshot: Assuming +5 mithral breastplate and +6 items for Cha, Dex, and Con, along with +5 resistance to saves, Gloves of the Balanced Hands, and a +5 natural armor item, level 20 gives her 155 base hp, saves of +15/+22/+17 (RDF adds +11 to any of those, Fort is +27 with MoB), 18 bardic music uses, a +5 inspire courage bonus before Inspirational Boost, and a wardancing TWF kukri full attack routine of +30/+30/+25/+25/+20 before any buffs besides GMW. She can boost that attack routine (and the attacks of her entire party) by +10 with Inspire Courage, Inspirational Boost, Inspire Greatness, and Haste, adding another attack onto the full attacks while she’s at it. The Will saving throw DC for her Resounding Blow feat is 31, and the same goes for the Fortitude saving throw DC of her Stunning Surge kukris. Finally, with Sirine’s Grace up, she packs an AC of 52 (flat-footed touch 32, flat-footed 47, touch 37) before your stack the miss chances from Greater Blink and Displacement or hide behind Mirror Images. Her caster level is 18, though you could potentially boost it with 1 from an Orange Ioun Stone and 1 from a Ring of Arcane Might. Or (see Variants below) boost it for 4 with Practiced Spellcaster + Inspire Greatness, and 2 with Harmonic Chorus + Sonorous Hum (all of these stack). She has 67 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots (which this build will have) or rings of wizardry (a RoW IV is +16 spell slot levels). Her lowest skill checks are Spellcraft (+4 bonus) and Balance (+10 bonus). You can boost them by as much as +9 with Improvisation. Her UMD bonus is +36 before Improvisation, with her other maxed out skills in the same neighbourhood. Improvisation + Knack means I can easily have a bonus of +18 + relevant ability score modifier in any skill I want (slightly higher in Sense Motive, much higher in Jump).
Overall Strengths: This build will bring your party some good bardic support - support that is a lot harder to take out than normal, with Ascetic Mage and a great array of defensive buffs. Bardic knack, an incredible UMD score, bardic music, the utility of the bard spell list, and our small handful of martial maneuvers gives her an incredible array of options both in and out of combat, even before you fill in the slots RT left open. And the Captain has a nasty surprise waiting for anyone who tries to engage her directly in melee! The Blood in the Water + Resounding Blow + Snowflake Wardance ( + stunning surge kukris) combination is the D&D equivalent to a vortex in fighting games - a combination of attacks in sequence that have a good chance of locking a hapless foe in place where they can’t fight back. A weak-willed (or low Fortitude) enemy may very well be trapped in melee range as the full attacks just keep coming. Plus, if they try to cluster up and dogpile her, it will be easy for her to kite with Whirling Blade.
Overall Weaknesses: While she is almost untouchable with her buffs up, this build suffers from the typical gish problem of needing actions to buff, as she’s just too squishy with 155 hp at level 20 to last long in the frontline without boosted AC and miss chances. You have bard spell stamina, too, and that’s fewer spell slots than a generalist wizard. There is also the ever constant fear of dispels, or worse, antimagic. Also, any immunity to fear, stuns, or critical hits will put a crimp in her melee tactics, and the Problematic Monsters (undead, constructs, elementals, oozes, and plants) are immune to all three. (ASK YOUR DM IF CRITICAL HITS AGAINST IMMUNE MONSTERS STILL BUILD BLOOD IN THE WATER EVEN IF THEY DON’T DO EXTRA DAMAGE.) Collecting the wands necessary to fill tactical gaps can be pricey, and there are lots of magic items competing for your budget already. It is very important that this build gauge enemies appropriately and use the right tactics. For short fights, it’s probably better to just buff your allies and let them finish things. There’s also the issue of finishing off an enemy trapped in your vortex quickly with Arcane Strike, or leaving them there for a bit to farm Blood (but risking their escape if you’re unlucky enough to get no crit threats). Ultimately, optimal play of this character will require better tactical sense than that Int score of 8 would imply.
Variants: There are two feats that competed with Lingering Song for the 18th level slot: Practiced Spellcaster (which actually boosts your caster level to 22 when combined with Inspire Greatness) and Adaptive Style, to better utilize your swordsage maneuvers. Of course, if flaws are allowed, you can take both Practiced Spellcaster and Lingering Song at first level, freeing up 18th for Adaptive Style. Nonverbal Spellcasting (from the Planar Handbook) or Lyric Spell (from Complete Mage) could allow you to cast spells while performing bardic music, possibly to buff while fascinating. Otherwise, there’s plenty of room for variation in the selections. A more spymastery type could take Listening Coin, Spymaster’s Coin, and Evacuation Rune for a nifty scry-and-die trick (Listening and Spymaster’s synergize well, as Listening doesn’t require concentration but Spymaster’s lets you see as well as hear). A more mage-type build may prefer Sonorous Hum and Harmonic Chorus for the caster level boost, along with Magic Savant for the boos to Use Magic Device checks. The variants that focus on this build’s melee capability should absolutely go for Grace, Wounding Whispers, Sonic Shield, and Renewed Vigor (the last of which cures fatigue and is thus good for “resetting” in long combats after your Wardance wears out). If you grab Mislead or G’Elsewhere Chant, you may want to drop Dimension Door for Freedom of Movement; if another party member has Dimension Door or you grab a Belt of the Wide Earth, this is an even easier substitution to make. Finally, switching out Inspire Heroics or Inspire Greatness for Haunting Melody (also from the Eberron Campaign Setting) gives you a fear effect in place of a buff effect if you want.
There you have it. Charisma SAD done with a Kung-fu twist!
Next up: In Soviet Russia Showcase Pick You! Yes there are more to come.
Originally posted by JBID:
Wouldn't Slippers of Battle Dancing or Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows be helpful for this? Both add Charisma to damage.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
~~Magical Gear Goals: Your ideal weapons are +1 Keen Tiger Claw Stunning Surge (MIC) kukris. The Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the MIC is an absolute win option for you, with a Cha-based stunning DC and a number of daily uses based on your Charisma bonus - and since you dual wield, having two of them can possibly give you more stuns per day than you have uses of bardic music! There’s also the Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the DMG2, which is even better, but it’s so damn powerful and broken as to likely get the banhammer. To save money on your weapon’s enhancement bonus, get a staff with Greater Magic Weapon in it. You want the Gloves of the Balanced Hands to remove the need for ITWF. Get enhancement bonuses for Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity, in that order. Slippers of Battledancing (also from the DMG2) are great for any wardancer, and you’ll want the Vest of Legends (MIC) to keep your inspire courage bonus up. Your 4th level spells will face the greatest in-combat demand, so a Ring of Wizardry IV is a great high level investment. Your UMD bonus is well suited to having lots of wands, scrolls, staffs, or runestaffs on hand if you need troubleshooting spells. Ask your party to put in for stuff like CLW wands (or a staff of healing at the high levels, if necessary). Otherwise, usual stuff, Initiative items, drakehelms, Shax haversack, you know the drill.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Andarious, I fixed the formatting. (I saw you working on this with Google Docs, even though I didn't provide too much feedback... Google Docs doesn't transfer formatting easily to the forums. Word, on the other hand, does... but often botches the spacing.) There's a couple of corrections I made along the way (i.e. Resounding Blow is COWERING, not Shaken; your description is accurate for cowering, but you call it "shaken"), but it's intact otherwise.
The board doesn't like quote-transferring Sblocks, so I'm leaving this here instead of mailing it, but if you want to try that out later, just let me know.
I've made a couple of changes, though. I really dislike the "let's hide the spell progression inside the Sblock" approach RT added to the template, so the significant spells and maneuvers are now visible at a glance. Additionally, the snapshot is now standardized - every other snapshot except for specific target theoretical builds only used the raw basics on ability scores. I'm also not sure why you're maxing out two Perform skills, but I didn't change that (because of Knack + Improvisation, this is a pretty effective skillmonkey.) There's also now a reference to the unarmed swordsage, which saves you a critical feat at level 1 (but since it's a variant it's not mainbuil
I've also added it to my signature, for a bit more publicity.
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The name's more for legacy, at this point, I'm afraid, as this is more likely to be a sporadic thing than a regular feature.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, Radical Taoist, DisposableHero_, Tempest_Stormwind, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, one of Radical Taoist’s babies is up.
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CAPTAIN CHARISMA
All she wants to do is dance
Required Books: Player’s Handbook II, Tome of Battle, Book of Exalted Deeds (1 feat), Complete Warrior (1 feat), Complete Arcane (1 feat), Frostburn (1 feat), Complete Adventurer (1 feat), Eberron Campaign Setting (you guessed it, 1 feat), Spell Compendium, spell suggestions from Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage, a teamwork benefit suggestion from Forge of War, and equipment suggestions from the Magic Item Compendium and Dungeon Master’s Guide II.
Unearthed Arcana used: None! Flaws can help but are not necessary.
Background: This SAD Charisma-based build arose when RT noticed that Ascetic Mage, from Complete Arcane, is pretty open in its wording. So open in its wording, in fact, that it could apply to the Swordsage. But if you’re going to focus on Charisma and the melee-centric swordsage, then you’ll want to attack with Charisma, and that leads you to Snowflake Wardance. And if you’re going to focus on fighting with light weapons as a swordsage, you might as well go crit fishing with Blood in the Water and Kukris. But if you’re crit fishing with high Charisma, why not pick up Righteous Blow?...and the build just snowballed from there. The result is a versatile and capable support character who, with a little preparation, can absolutely wreck an unprepared opponent in melee.
The Basics
Skill Notes: Max Concentration, Perform (Dance), Perform (Sing), Tumble, and Use Magic Device. You have Bardic Knack to cover most of your skill needs. Sadly, you will need to gimp your Balance and Spellcraft checks by taking 5 ranks in those skills for synergies; this will land you with a smaller bonus on those skills than Knack would give you. The rest of your skill points should go into Sense Motive, so you can use the Precision Assault teamwork benefit from Forge of War (p. 131). This benefit is amazing for a crit fisher (+1 to threat range which stacks, as long as you and your buddies focus on on one target!) and if you dump your remaining skill points there your Sense Motive bonus should outstrip Knack. Jump is taken care of with Leaping Dragon Stance and your speed boosting buffs; if you need any other skill, Bardic Knack + Improvisation + Inspire Competence is as good as having 18 ranks in that skill.
Basic Equipment: At the low levels, you’ll probably want a spear or longspear, plus a shortbow for distance fights. The best light armor you can get your hands on is a given. By level 4 you should have picked up two kukris and never looked back. You will always have a great Use Magic Device check, so don’t shy away from scrolls and wands! (Fit the kukris with wand chambers to make use of wands in combat.)
Magical Gear Goals: Your ideal weapons are +1 Keen Tiger Claw Stunning Surge (MIC) kukris. The Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the MIC is an absolute win option for you, with a Cha-based stunning DC and a number of daily uses based on your Charisma bonus - and since you dual wield, having two of them can possibly give you more stuns per day than you have uses of bardic music! There’s also the Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the DMG2, which is even better, but it’s so damn powerful and broken as to likely get the banhammer. To save money on your weapon’s enhancement bonus, get a staff with Greater Magic Weapon in it. You want the Gloves of the Balanced Hands to remove the need for ITWF. Get enhancement bonuses for Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity, in that order. Slippers of Battledancing (also from the DMG2) are great for any wardancer, and you’ll want the Vest of Legends (MIC) to keep your inspire courage bonus up. Your 4th level spells will face the greatest in-combat demand, so a Ring of Wizardry IV is a great high level investment. Your UMD bonus is well suited to having lots of wands, scrolls, staffs, or runestaffs on hand if you need troubleshooting spells. Ask your party to put in for stuff like CLW wands (or a staff of healing at the high levels, if necessary). Otherwise, usual stuff, Initiative items, drakehelms, Shax haversack, you know the drill.
(TS note: It's hard to get this to work with a two-weapon fighter unless you invest in a Spare Hand (MoE), but a Metamagic Rod of Quicken shouldn't go without a mention. TWF characters have intense action demands, particularly for swift-action movement effects or anything to give them extra chances at their full attacks, and this build is no exception (especially because it's a critical-fisher). Being able to use your spells as a swift action is huge - i.e. deliver a full attack to charge up Blood in the Water, then follow it up with a swift-action Whirling Blade to share the pain; or deliver a Greater Dispel or Irresistible Dance before unloading a full attack. If you can somehow afford the rod and get it into your hand without seriously crippling your actions, do it. Likewise, the greater Truedeath and Demolition crystals from the MIC are inexpensive for the strength of the effect they provide.)
The Build.
Build Stub: Bard 18/Swordsage 2
1 – Bard – (Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Unarmed Strike) (Bardic music, bardic knack, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1)*
[sblock]You’ve got options here for tactics depending on your weapon choice: a pseudo-spiked chain with a longspear and your unarmed strike, decent full attacks with a longsword and your unarmed strike, and dual wielded javelins or a shortbow for ranged attacks. Whatever you choose, play it safe. It’s level 1 and you’re squishy.
You don't absolutely need IUS at this point - you can get it as a bonus feat if you're using the Unarmed Swordsage.
[/sblock]
2 – Bard – (Immediate Assistance, Inspirational Boost) *
[sblock]Immediate Assistance gives your allies a skill check reroll, and Inspirational Boost increases your inspire courage bonus by 1 at a very early level. Stick to the support role accordingly. If your party has put in for a wand of Cure Light Wounds, you’re probably the out-of-combat healer as well.
The Bardic Knack alternate class feature (from the PHB2) that we selected last level starts to provide its benefit now.
[/sblock]
3 – Bard – (Snowflake Wardance) (Inspire competence) (Critical Strike (SPC))*
[sblock]This is the Spell Compendium's version of Critical Strike. There's another spell named Critical Strike in Complete Mage, but it's also completely useless.
Frostburn’s Snowflake Wardance feat is a fundamental component of our combat style, allowing us to use Charisma with melee attacks in place of Strength, but at this level it only offers a +1 to hit and lasts for 6 rounds. Use it sparingly, and don’t use it in a fight where you won’t need to full attack people repeatedly. Critical Strike takes a swift action to cast and only works against flat-footed or flanked targets, but gives you +1d6 sneak attack (effectively), Improved Critical (whatever you’re wielding), and Power Critical (though the bonus here is Insight-typed) for 1 round. Later in your career it can be switched out, but it will be handy at these levels.
[/sblock]
4 – Bard –(Whirling Blade, Tongues)*
[sblock]Whirling Blade is a wonderful spell for this build, and in many cases a better ranged attack option than actual ranged weapons. This spell lets you make a melee attack in a line area using your Charisma modifier in place of strength and is only a standard action to cast. You’ll see how handy that is next level. Tongues was selected to compensate for our low Int (and resulting lack of bonus languages).[/sblock]
5 – Swordsage – (Weapon Focus: Tiger Claw) (Quick to act +1) (Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Mountain Hammer, Shadow Jaunt, Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike) (Blood in the Water)*
[sblock]We get a good selection of utility maneuvers from splashing into martial adept, but the big draw is Blood in the Water. Our workhorse stance synergizes with Critical Strike and Whirling Blade. Use Whirling Blade on appropriately situated enemies to rack up a good Blood bonus. Don’t discount Stone Bones at this level - you are still squishy, but DR 5/adamantine can help take the bite out of enemy counterattacks.[/sblock]
6 – Bard – (Stone Power) (Improvisation, an open 2nd and an open swap)*
[sblock]We have the caster level now to get good use out of Improvisation, a very handy spell for a wide variety of occasions. The Stone Power feat (from the Tome of Battle) was chosen to qualify us for Resounding Blow later, since unlike Power Attack, Stone Power isn’t utterly useless for someone who dual wields light weapons. Besides, this bard is still squishy - sources of temporary HP are appreciated.[/sblock]
7 – Bard – (Suggestion)*
[sblock]Your Charisma is your focus, and the saving throw DC for your Suggestion power is Charisma-based. You’ve also get enough bardic music uses per day to start seriously using such tactics.[/sblock]
8 – Bard – (Haste, Displacement, open 2nd)*
[sblock]Haste is just some of the best support out there. And with Displacement, your first miss chance buff, you can start to attempt extended melee combat without getting utterly murdered.[/sblock]
9 – Swordsage – (Ascetic Mage) (AC bonus) (Mind Over Body) (Leaping Dragon Stance)*
[sblock]Our Fortitude save is the weakest, and so it’s the one to protect with Mind Over Body. And Leaping Dragon Stance is a decent utility stance to use when you’re not in Blood (though there are other utility picks you might prefer). But our feat is the key gain in this level. Ascetic Mage (from Complete Arcane) can apply to the Swordsage AC bonus, so now we add Charisma to our Armor Class in place of Wisdom. Our defensive values are starting to accelerate rapidly.[/sblock]
10 – Bard – (Inspire courage +2) (Open 3rd, open swap)
*
[sblock]Inspire Courage is still our favourite support option. If you’ve got a pair of keen kukris by now, it might be time to swap out Critical Strike for something more useful. That swap, and whichever spell you choose to learn this level, are worth careful consideration, so a list of spell suggestions are included in the final spell list later in this post.[/sblock]11 – Bard – (Inspire greatness)*
[sblock]Inspire Greatness is a good buff on its own, and another source of temporary HP. If you don’t think the combat will last too long, it could be worth stacking this with Inspire Courage - the benefits don’t disappear until 5 rounds after you end a song.[/sblock]
12 – Bard – (Resounding Blow) (Ruin Delver's Fortune, Greater Mirror Image, open 3rd)*
[sblock]One nice thing about this build’s progression is its evenness. You get something pretty cool every level. But this level is the first really big “WOW” level in the build, and it will take some explaining.
Resounding Blow (from the Book of Exalted Deeds) forces an opponent to make a Charisma-based will save every time you score a critical hit against them. If they fail, they’re cowering (can’t act, lose Dex to AC, -2 to all saves) for 1 round. This build is a crit fisher. If you make a full attack and score a critical hit, and they are cowering, they will stay in place, allowing you another full attack next round. This is a good way to capture enemies with weak Will saves and farm a good Blood in the Water bonus off of them.
Ruin Delver’s Fortune is an amazing spell, and your workhorse counter in emergency situations. It can add your Charisma bonus to one of your three saves (with accompanying benefits, such as evasion) or give you a small buffer of temporary hit points that also scales with your Charisma bonus. This does wonderful things for your survivability - and better yet, the bonuses last for a short duration, so “popping” your defenses isn’t as effective a tactic as it would be against the Diamond Mind counters.
What RDF does for your survivability against save effects, Greater Mirror Image does for your survivability against attackers. A bunch of regenerating mirror images as an immediate action will ruin the day of any melee attacker who doesn’t have True Seeing or a way to attack multiple squares/opponents at once (i.e. a Whirling Blade of their own; regular AoE effects that aren't "attacks" won't pop the images). Can be mighty annoying for enemy archers or ray specialists too.
[/sblock]
13 – Bard – (Dimension Door, free swap)
14 – Bard – (Song of the Heart)*
[sblock]This feat (from the Eberron Campaign Setting, although it’s flavour neutral and easily exported) is swapped in to replace Song of Freedom, as per the ECS rules on trading new varieties of bardic music for feats.[/sblock]
15 – Bard – (Arcane Strike) (Greater Blink, Greater Dispel Magic, Sirine's Grace)*
[sblock]This is another WOW level, and at this point the build is more or less complete.
The Arcane Strike feat (from Complete Warrior) allows her to convert spell slots into attack and damage bonuses on melee attacks. At this level, the build has 36 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots or rings of wizardry. This feat will be our primary source of spike damage, for when we actually need to kill fools dead right now. It is quite draining, though, so use it sparingly.
Greater Dispel Magic needs no further explanation. You’re only two caster levels behind full, a gap that can easily be recovered with the right magic items.
Greater Blink is another miss chance buff, and this one cannot be beaten by True Seeing (though it is pierced by force effects like Power Weapon and can be countered by itself). Stacking miss chances means that this bard is very hard to hit. However, your final 4th level spell boosts that even further. Sirine’s Grace gives you a small collection of stat bonuses, but more importantly a deflection bonus to your Armor Class equal to your Charisma bonus. You’re adding your Charisma to AC twice, and that’s going to your flat-footed touch AC too. This can easily get your AC into the ████-you 40s, and well into the ████-off 50s at the highest levels of this build.
[/sblock]
16 – Bard – (Inspire courage +3) (Open 5th, free swap)
17 – Bard – (Inspire heroics)
18 – Bard – (Lingering Song) (Project Image, Irresistible Dance, open 5th and 1st)*
[sblock]Project Image is an incredibly useful spell. One of the useful things it can do is deliver the no-save touch-range Irresistible Dance spell for you.
Lingering Song (from Complete Adventurer) doubles the time that a bardic music buff lasts after the song ends, from 5 rounds to 10 rounds. This makes it easier to stack up the bonuses from different types of bardic music if necessary, and by this level you have enough uses of bardic music to afford such tactics.
[/sblock]
19 – Bard – (Nixie's Grace, open 2nd, free swap)*
[sblock]Nixie’s Grace comes with a +8 enhancement bonus to Charisma, but that’s less impressive when you realize it doesn’t stack with your Charisma enhancing equipment and only lasts for 1 round/level. If you want to select something else in its place, go ahead.[/sblock]
20 – Bard – (Mass suggestion) (Open 3rd)*
[sblock]With your prodigious Charisma score, I hope you’ve remembered to take full advantage of Fascinate + Suggestion when setting up combats (or avoiding them altogether). This is just a boost to that ability.[/sblock]
Final spell and maneuver list
[sblock]Spells known (caster level 18, save DCs of 21 + spell level assuming a +6 enhancement bonus to Charisma):
Spell suggestions for open slots:
Maneuvers known (initiator level 11, 6 maneuvers readied):
[/sblock]
Snapshot: Assuming the usual +6 items for Cha, Dex, and Con (and leaving out tomes because two weapons, armor, and bardic music boosts are expensive!), level 20 gives her 155 base hp, saves of +10/+17/+12 (RDF adds +11 to any of those, Fort is +27 with MoB), 18 bardic music uses, a +5 inspire courage bonus before Inspirational Boost, and a wardancing TWF kukri full attack routine of +30/+30/+25/+25/+20 before any buffs besides GMW. She can boost that attack routine (and the attacks of her entire party) by +10 with Inspire Courage, Inspirational Boost, Inspire Greatness, and Haste, adding another attack onto the full attacks while she’s at it. She's effective at attacking enemy actions: both Resounding Blow (on every critical hit) and Stunning Surge (on demand, but as as swift action) have a DC of 31, targeting either Will or Fortitude respectively. Finally, with Sirine’s Grace up, she packs an AC of 42 before your stack the miss chances from Greater Blink and Displacement or hide behind Mirror Images. Her caster level is 18, though you could potentially boost it with 1 from an Orange Ioun Stone and 1 from a Ring of Arcane Might. Or (see Variants below) boost it for 4 with Practiced Spellcaster + Inspire Greatness, and 2 with Harmonic Chorus + Sonorous Hum (all of these stack). She has 67 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots or rings of wizardry (a RoW IV is +16 spell slot levels). Her lowest skill checks are Spellcraft (+4 bonus) and Balance (+10 bonus). You can boost them by as much as +9 with Improvisation. Her UMD bonus is +36 before Improvisation, with her other maxed out skills in the same neighbourhood. Improvisation + Knack means I can easily have a bonus of +18 + relevant ability score modifier in any skill I want (slightly higher in Sense Motive, much higher in Jump).
Overall Strengths: This build will bring your party some good bardic support - support that is a lot harder to take out than normal, with Ascetic Mage and a great array of defensive buffs. Bardic knack, an incredible UMD score, bardic music, the utility of the bard spell list, and our small handful of martial maneuvers gives her an incredible array of options both in and out of combat, even before you fill in the slots RT left open. And the Captain has a nasty surprise waiting for anyone who tries to engage her directly in melee! The Blood in the Water + Resounding Blow + Snowflake Wardance ( + stunning surge kukris) combination is the D&D equivalent to a vortex in fighting games - a combination of attacks in sequence that have a good chance of locking a hapless foe in place where they can’t fight back. A weak-willed (or low Fortitude) enemy may very well be trapped in melee range as the full attacks just keep coming. Plus, if they try to cluster up and dogpile her, it will be easy for her to kite by moving or stepping and casting Whirling Blade.
Overall Weaknesses: While she is almost untouchable with her buffs up, this build suffers from the typical gish problem of needing actions to buff, as she’s just too squishy with 155 hp at level 20 to last long in the frontline without boosted AC and miss chances. (That said, this number assumes no Constitution tome, because music / wardance boosts are expensive. If you have an artificer on your team, he can probably make this affordable.) You have bard spell stamina, too, and that’s fewer spell slots than a generalist wizard. There is also the ever constant fear of dispels, or worse, antimagic. Also, any immunity to fear, stuns, or critical hits will put a crimp in her melee tactics, and the Problematic Monsters (undead, constructs, elementals, oozes, and plants) are immune to all three. (However, DO ask your DM if Blood in the Water charges up on critical hits made against creatures immune to crits; it's unclear what happens here.) Collecting the wands necessary to fill tactical gaps can be pricey, and there are lots of magic items competing for your budget already. It is very important that this build gauge enemies appropriately and use the right tactics. For short fights, it’s probably better to just buff your allies and let them finish things. There’s also the issue of finishing off an enemy trapped in your vortex quickly with Arcane Strike, or leaving them there for a bit to farm Blood (but risking their escape if you’re unlucky enough to get no crit threats). Ultimately, optimal play of this character will require better tactical sense than that Int score of 8 would imply.
Variants: If you can swing Unarmed Swordsage, do so - it saves you a feat at level 1, which can be used to speed up your other feat choices or branch into other variants. There are two feats that competed with Lingering Song for the 18th level slot: Practiced Spellcaster (which actually boosts your caster level to 22 when combined with Inspire Greatness) and Adaptive Style, to better utilize your swordsage maneuvers. Of course, if flaws are allowed, you can take both Practiced Spellcaster and Lingering Song at first level, freeing up 18th for Adaptive Style. Nonverbal Spellcasting (from the Planar Handbook) or Lyric Spell (from Complete Mage) could allow you to cast spells while performing bardic music, possibly to buff while fascinating. Otherwise, there’s plenty of room for variation in the selections. A more spymastery type could take Listening Coin, Spymaster’s Coin, and Evacuation Rune for a nifty scry-and-die trick (Listening and Spymaster’s synergize well, as Listening doesn’t require concentration but Spymaster’s lets you see as well as hear). A more mage-type build may prefer Sonorous Hum and Harmonic Chorus for the caster level boost, along with Magic Savant for the boos to Use Magic Device checks. The variants that focus on this build’s melee capability should absolutely go for Grace, Wounding Whispers, Sonic Shield, and Renewed Vigor (the last of which cures fatigue and is thus good for “resetting” in long combats after your Wardance wears out). If you grab Mislead or G’Elsewhere Chant, you may want to drop Dimension Door for Freedom of Movement; if another party member has Dimension Door or you grab a Belt of the Wide Earth, this is an even easier substitution to make. Finally, switching out Inspire Heroics or Inspire Greatness for Haunting Melody (also from the Eberron Campaign Setting) gives you a fear effect in place of a buff effect if you want.
There you have it. Charisma SAD done with a Kung-fu twist!
Originally posted by Scraggled:
How is Two-Weapon Fighting being qualified for at level 1? The way I see it, you've got a 14 Dex and no class ability to let you have that for free, though I may just not be seeing something.
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
Fantastic! I've actually been tinkering with a good-aligned bodyguard, posing as a bruiser but secretly a bard, as an upcoming enemy in the campaign I'm currently running. I was messing around with crusader mostly, but this fits almost perfectly.
The party is comprised of six decently optimized tier 3ish characters (iaijutsu factotum, unarmed swordsage, rogue/binder, duskblade, warlock, incarnate), all currently at ECL 4, though there's a good chance they'll hit ECL 5 by the time they face this guy. So, I'm planning on making him CR 9, and possibly scaling things back a bit if they confront him before gaining a level.
Since unarmed swordsage is on the table, my main dilemma is whether I want to rearrange the first swordsage level to come earlier so he can take Stone Power and Resounding Blow by ECL 9 (at the cost of high level maneuvers), or not worry about Resounding Blow. I guess then the build stub would be something like...
1. Unarmed Swordsage1- IUS, Stone Power, Two Weapon Fighting
Stone Bones, Counter Charge, Wolf Fang Strike, Sudden Leap, Mighty Throw, Distracting Ember, Blood in the Water (s)
2. Bard1-
3. Bard2- Snowflake Wardance
4. Bard3-
5. Bard4-
6. Bard5- Resounding Blow
7. Bard6-
8. Bard7-
9. Unarmed Swordsage2- Ascetic Mage
Baffling Defense, Leaping Dragon Stance (s)
I had to shift around the maneuvers a bit, obviously, since he won't qualify for level 2 maneuvers with that initial swordsage level. I also replaced Mind over Body with Baffling Defense, despite the low Fort save, because I want to emphasize this guy's martial side, and I found that nothing quite does the trick like counters. He'll have a pretty high Sense Motive check anyhow for other reasons, so it fits.
I hadn't originally envisioned him as a two-weapon fighter, so I might drop TWF for Martial Study for Crusader's Strike or something; a little bit of in-combat healing will certainly not go amiss for someone who will eventually have to go it solo against six enemies. Alternatively, I'm considering Subduing Strike - he doesn't like to kill when he can avoid it, and prefers to knock his enemies out and then use a wand of Modify Memory to make them forget the fight ever happened.
Does this make sense for a lower-level version of this build?
Fantastic job as always!
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
One of the nice things with Blood in the Water is it lets you introduce a "boss-type" fight by seeing him fight at a distance... when really, all you're doing as a DM is pre-charging Blood to whatever level you think you need for your foe to truly challenge your players. When used as a villain, Blood in the Water allows this sort of throttling without a massive rebuild mid-game.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Versatile Unarmed Strike or Gauntlets of the Tallon?
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
If anyone is interested, the party is actually facing this guy now on the PbP I run. You can see the ongoing battle here.
I made a few more changes to the build. I did end up working in Subduing Strike, because this NPC is also a bodyguard who is trained to subdue rather than kill (and is actually trying to subdue the party - he does not want them dead). I also traded out Leaping Dragon Stance, which he really wouldn't have occasion to use, for Child of Shadow, as the 20% concealment can come in handy against such a large party.
We're two rounds into combat, going onto three, but thus far the only person who has been able to hit him out of all six party members is the duskblade. Ironically, the fact that the party is pulling their punches is actually working out to their advantage - seeing that he was using nonlethal damage against them, they decided to use nonlethal damage against him in return. But a fun little RAW quirk is that nonlethal damage actually effectively bypasses temporary HP. The glossary definition of "current hit points" makes them a whole separate beast from "temporary hit points," and since nonlethal damage is based off of current hit point total, it doesn't really care that he's got a buffer of 10 temp HP each round from Stone Power. He's planning on switching to full offense next round for that reason.
Also, he'd be doing a lot better off if it weren't for his counter. As the duskblade is basically the only party member that was posing a threat to him, he used his Baffling Defense against the duskblade in round 2. Of course, the attack actually would have missed his regular AC, but he botched his Sense Motive roll, meaning the miss was turned into a hit.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
And that's a really good observation on the temporary HP / nonlethal point. Mix in some healing if at all possible: when you heal HP, you also heal the same amount of nonlethal damage, in effect doubling it up. (Mind you, I don't know if you have healing already on him; I didn't think about it until right now, but the vampiric crystals from the MIC might be ideal.)
I'd love to hear how this unfolds (though I admit I have a problem reading PbP, so I may not be following it directly.)
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
He has Crusader's Strike and CLW as a spell known. Depending on what the warlock does, he'll probably use Crusader's Strike against the duskblade next round. He was entangled this round thanks to the duskblade's Bracers of the Entangling Blast, which will lower his AC enough that the rest of the party might be able to put in some work against him, but if he gets lucky and gets a crit on the duskblade with his Crusader's Strike, there's a pretty good chance he'll be able to escape to heal up and ambush the party when they try to leave their current location.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
I was soo so distracted ... (you know why) ... I misspelled her name. Hey where's my wallet?
The name's more for legacy, at this point, I'm afraid, as this is more likely to be a sporadic thing than a regular feature.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, Radical Taoist, DisposableHero_, Tempest_Stormwind, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, one of Radical Taoist’s babies is up.
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CAPTAIN CHARISMA
All she wants to do is dance
Required Books: Player’s Handbook II, Tome of Battle, Book of Exalted Deeds (1 feat), Complete Warrior (1 feat), Complete Arcane (1 feat), Frostburn (1 feat), Complete Adventurer (1 feat), Eberron Campaign Setting (you guessed it, 1 feat), Spell Compendium, spell suggestions from Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage, a teamwork benefit suggestion from Forge of War, and equipment suggestions from the Magic Item Compendium and Dungeon Master’s Guide II.
Unearthed Arcana used: None! Flaws can help but are not necessary.
Background: This SAD Charisma-based build arose when RT noticed that Ascetic Mage, from Complete Arcane, is pretty open in its wording. So open in its wording, in fact, that it could apply to the Swordsage. But if you’re going to focus on Charisma, then you’ll want to attack with it, and that means Snowflake Wardance. And if you’re going to focus on fighting with light weapons as a swordsage, you might as well go crit fishing with Blood in the Water and Kukris. But if you’re crit fishing with high Charisma, why not pick up Righteous Blow?...and the build just snowballed from there. The result is a versatile and capable support character who, with a little preparation, can absolutely wreck an unprepared opponent in melee.
The Basics
Race: Human. It’s just easier, and the following ability score array is calibrated with the human bonus skill point in mind. Strongheart halfling is possible but the Str prereq will make things difficult for you. Azurin is also possible, though RT didn’t have any ideas on how to optimize this build with incarnum. If you’re going to use flaws to make up the feat difference, then spellscale, hellbred, and aeshuur illumian are all sound choices.
Ability Scores: Open with 14/14/12/8/10/16 for a balanced array. Cha is your go-to stat; it gets all the tome and level bonuses. It’s really tough to get to an 18 Cha, since we need at least 13 Str to make Resounding Blow happen. You can swap Dex and Con if you want. You can also drop Wis to 8 to boost Con some more, but RT hates having any penalty to Will saves, and roleplaying someone with an Int and Wis penalty is such a chore.
Skill Notes: Max Concentration, Perform (Dance), Perform (Sing), Tumble, and Use Magic Device. You have Bardic Knack to cover most of your skill needs. Sadly, you will need to gimp your Balance and Spellcraft checks by taking 5 ranks in those skills for synergies; this will land you with a smaller bonus on those skills than Knack would give you. The rest of your skill points should go into Sense Motive, so you can use the Precision Assault teamwork benefit from Forge of War (p. 131). This benefit is amazing for a crit fisher (+1 to threat range, stacks with Imp. Crit, as long as you and your buddies focus on on one target!) and if you dump your remaining skill points there your Sense Motive bonus should outstrip Knack. Jump is taken care of with Leaping Dragon Stance and your speed boosting buffs; if you need any other skill, Bardic Knack + Improvisation + Inspire Competence is as good as having 18 ranks in that skill.
Basic Equipment: At the low levels, you’ll probably want a spear or longspear, plus a shortbow for distance fights. The best light armor you can get your hands on is a given. By level 4 you should have picked up two kukris and never looked back. You will always have a great Use Magic Device check, so don’t shy away from scrolls and wands!
Magical Gear Goals: Your ideal weapons are +1 Keen Tiger Claw Stunning Surge (MIC) kukris. The Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the MIC is an absolute win option for you, with a Cha-based stunning DC and a number of daily uses based on your Charisma bonus - and since you dual wield, having two of them can possibly give you more stuns per day than you have uses of bardic music! There’s also the Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the DMG2, which is even better, but it’s so damn powerful and broken as to likely get the banhammer. To save money on your weapon’s enhancement bonus, get a staff with Greater Magic Weapon in it. You want the Gloves of the Balanced Hands to remove the need for ITWF. Get enhancement bonuses for Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity, in that order. Slippers of Battledancing (also from the DMG2) are great for any wardancer, and you’ll want the Vest of Legends (MIC) to keep your inspire courage bonus up. Your 4th level spells will face the greatest in-combat demand, so a Ring of Wizardry IV is a great high level investment. Your UMD bonus is well suited to having lots of wands, scrolls, staffs, or runestaffs on hand if you need troubleshooting spells. Ask your party to put in for stuff like CLW wands (or a staff of healing at the high levels, if necessary). Otherwise, usual stuff, Initiative items, drakehelms, Shax haversack, you know the drill.
The Build.
Build Stub: Bard 18/Swordsage 2
1 – Bard – (Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Unarmed Strike) (Bardic music, bardic knack, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1)
*
[sblock]Spells learned: Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Mending, Detect MagicYou’ve got options here for tactics depending on your weapon choice: a pseudo-spiked chain with a longspear and your unarmed strike, decent full attacks with a longsword and your unarmed strike, and dual wielded javelins or a shortbow for ranged attacks. Whatever you choose, play it safe. It’s level 1 and you’re squishy.
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2 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Immediate Assistance (CMag), Inspirational Boost (SPC), Read Magic, an open 0thImmediate Assistance gives your allies a skill check reroll, and Inspirational Boost increases your inspire courage bonus by 1 at a very early level. Stick to the support role accordingly. If your party has put in for a wand of Cure Light Wounds, you’re probably the out-of-combat healer as well.
The Bardic Knack alternate class feature (from the PHB2) that we selected last level starts to provide its benefit now.
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3 – Bard – (Snowflake Wardance) (Inspire competence) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Critical Strike (the SPC version! There’s like five spells with this name), an open 0thFrostburn’s Snowflake Wardance feat is a fundamental component of our combat style, allowing us to use Charisma with melee attacks in place of Strength, but at this level it only offers a +1 to hit and lasts for 6 rounds. Use it sparingly, and don’t use it in a fight where you won’t need to full attack people repeatedly. Critical Strike takes a swift action to cast, and gives you +1d6 sneak attack (effectively) and Improved Critical (whatever you’re wielding) for 1 round. Later in your career it can be switched out, but it will be handy at these levels.
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4 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Whirling Blade (SPC), TonguesWhirling Blade is a wonderful spell for this build, and in many cases a better ranged attack option than actual ranged weapons. This spell lets you make a melee attack in a line area using your Charisma modifier in place of strength and is only a standard action to cast. You’ll see how handy that is next level. Tongues was selected to compensate for our low Int (and resulting lack of bonus languages).
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5 – Swordsage – (Weapon Focus: Tiger Claw) (Quick to act +1) *
[sblock]Maneuvers learned: Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Mountain Hammer, Shadow Jaunt, Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike
Stance: Blood in the WaterWe get a good selection of utility maneuvers from splashing into martial adept, but the big draw is Blood in the Water. Our workhorse stance synergizes with Critical Strike and Whirling Blade. Use Whirling Blade on appropriately situated enemies to rack up a good Blood bonus. Don’t discount Stone Bones at this level - you are still squishy, but DR 5/adamantine can help take the bite out of enemy counterattacks.
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6 – Bard – (Stone Power) *
[sblock]Spells learned: An open 2nd, Improvisation (SPC) (You may also swap at this level)We have the caster level now to get good use out of Improvisation, a very handy spell for a wide variety of occasions. The Stone Power feat (from the Tome of Battle) was chosen to qualify us for Resounding Blow later, since unlike Power Attack, Stone Power isn’t utterly useless for someone who dual wields light weapons. Besides, this bard is still squishy - sources of temporary HP are appreciated.
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7 – Bard – (Suggestion) *
[sblock]Your Charisma is your focus, and the saving throw DC for your Suggestion power is Charisma-based. You’ve also get enough bardic music uses per day to start seriously using such tactics.[/sblock]
8 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Haste, Displacement, an open 2ndHaste is just some of the best support out there. And with Displacement, your first miss chance buff, you can start to attempt extended melee combat without getting utterly murdered.
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9 – Swordsage – (Ascetic Mage) (AC bonus) *
[sblock]Maneuvers learned: Mind Over Body
Stance: Leaping Dragon StanceOur Fortitude save is the weakest, and so it’s the one to protect with Mind Over Body. And Leaping Dragon Stance is a decent utility stance to use when you’re not in Blood (though there are other utility picks you might prefer). But our feat is the key gain in this level. Ascetic Mage (from Complete Arcane) can apply to the Swordsage AC bonus, so now we add Charisma to our Armor Class in place of Wisdom. Our defensive values are starting to accelerate rapidly.
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10 – Bard – (Inspire courage +2) *
[sblock]Spells learned: an open 3rd (You may also swap at this level)Inspire Courage is still our favourite support option. If you’ve got a pair of keen kukris by now, it might be time to swap out Critical Strike for something more useful. That swap, and whichever spell you choose to learn this level, are worth careful consideration, so a list of spell suggestions are included in the final spell list later in this post.
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11 – Bard – (Inspire greatness) *
[sblock]Inspire Greatness is a good buff on its own, and another source of temporary HP. If you don’t think the combat will last too long, it could be worth stacking this with Inspire Courage - the benefits don’t disappear until 5 rounds after you end a song. [/sblock]
12 – Bard – (Resounding Blow) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Ruin Delver's Fortune (SPC), Greater Mirror Image (PHB2), an open 3rdOne nice thing about this build’s progression is its evenness. You get something pretty cool every level. But this level is the first really big “WOW” level in the build, and it will take some explaining.
Resounding Blow (from the Book of Exalted Deeds) forces an opponent to make a Charisma-based will save every time you score a critical hit against them. If they fail, they’re shaken (can’t act, lose Dex to AC, -2 to all saves) for 1 round. This build is a crit fisher. If you make a full attack and score a critical hit, and they are shaken, they will stay in place, allowing you another full attack next round. This is a good way to capture enemies with weak Will saves and farm a good Blood in the Water bonus off of them.
Ruin Delver’s Fortune is an amazing spell, and your workhorse counter in emergency situations. It can add your Charisma bonus to one of your three saves (with accompanying benefits, such as evasion) or give you a small buffer of temporary hit points that also scales with your Charisma bonus. This does wonderful things for your survivability - and better yet, the bonuses last for a short duration, so “popping” your defenses isn’t as effective a tactic as it would be against the Diamond Mind counters.
What RDF does for your survivability against save effects, Greater Mirror Image does for your survivability against attackers. A bunch of regenerating mirror images as an immediate action will ruin the day of any melee attacker who doesn’t have True Seeing or a way to attack multiple squares/opponents at once. Can be mighty annoying for enemy archers too.
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13 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Dimension Door (You may also swap at this level)It’s just good utility and support.
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14 – Bard – (Song of the Heart) *
[sblock]This feat (from the Eberron Campaign Setting, although it’s flavour neutral and easily exported) is swapped in to replace Song of Freedom, as per the ECS rules on trading new varieties of bardic music for feats.[/sblock]
15 – Bard – (Arcane Strike) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Greater Blink (SPC), Greater Dispel Magic, Sirine's Grace (SPC)This is another WOW level, and at this point the build is more or less complete.
The Arcane Strike feat (from Complete Warrior) allows her to convert spell slots into attack and damage bonuses on melee attacks. At this level, the build has 36 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots or rings of wizardry. This feat will be our primary source of spike damage, for when we actually need to kill fools dead right now. It is quite draining, though, so use it sparingly.
Greater Dispel Magic needs no further explanation. You’re only two caster levels behind full, a gap that can easily be recovered with the right magic items.
Greater Blink is another miss chance buff, and this one cannot be beaten by True Seeing (though it is pierced by force effects like Power Weapon and can be countered by itself). Stacking miss chances means that this bard is very hard to hit. However, your final 4th level spell boosts that even further. Sirine’s Grace gives you a small connection of stat bonuses, but more importantly a deflection bonus to your Armor Class equal to your Charisma bonus. You’re adding your Charisma to AC twice, and that’s going to your flat-footed touch AC too. This can easily get your AC into the f**k you 40s, and well into the f**k off 50s at the highest levels of this build.
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16 – Bard – (Inspire courage +3) *
[sblock]Spells learned: an open 5th (You may also swap at this level) [/sblock]
17 – Bard – (Inspire heroics) *
[sblock]Another use of bardic music, though honestly not as handy as greatness or courage.[/sblock]
18 – Bard – (Lingering Song) *
[sblock]Spells learned: Project Image, Irresistible Dance, an open 5th, an open 1stProject Image is an incredibly useful spell. One of the useful things it can do is deliver the no-save touch-range Irresistible Dance spell for you.
Lingering Song (from Complete Adventurer) doubles the time that a bardic music buff lasts after the song ends, from 5 rounds to 10 rounds. This makes it easier to stack up the bonuses from different types of bardic music if necessary, and by this level you have enough uses of bardic music to afford such tactics.
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19 – Bard – *
[sblock]Spells learned: Nixie's Grace (SPC), an open 2nd (You may also swap at this level)Nixie’s Grace comes with a +8 enhancement bonus to Charisma, but that’s less impressive when you realize it doesn’t stack with your Charisma enhancing equipment and only lasts for 1 round/level. If you want to select something else in its place, go ahead.
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20 – Bard – (Mass suggestion) *
[sblock]Spells learned: an open 3rdWith your prodigious Charisma score, I hope you’ve remembered to take full advantage of Fascinate + Suggestion when setting up combats (or avoiding them altogether). This is just a boost to that ability.
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Final Spell and Maneuver List
[sblock]Spells known (caster level 18, save DCs of 21 + spell level assuming a +6 enhancement bonus to Charisma):
0th: Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation, Read Magic, 2 open choices
1st: Critical Strike (can swap out later), Immediate Assistance, Improvisation, Inspirational Boost, 1 open choice
2nd: Whirling Blade, Tongues, 3 open choices
3rd: Haste, Displacement, 3 open choices
4th: Dimension Door, Greater Mirror Image, Ruin Delver’s Fortune, Sirine’s Grace
5th: Greater Blink, Greater Dispel Magic, 2 open choices
6th: Irresistible Dance, Nixie’s Grace (less than ideal), Project ImageSpell suggestions for open slots:
1st: Grease, Joyous Noise (SPC), Shock and Awe (SPC), Swift Expeditious Retreat (SPC)
2nd: Glitterdust, Invisibility, Silence, Spymaster's Coin (CScound), Magic Savant (CMag), Doublespeak (CMag), Insight of Good Fortune (PHB2), Speak to Allies (SPC), Grace (SPC), Swift Fly (SPC), Harmonic Chorus (SPC), Sonorous Hum (SPC), and Dark Way (SPC)
3rd: Glibness (PHB), Wounding Whispers (SPC), Create Fetch (CScound), G'Elsewhere Chant (SPC), Listening Coin (SPC), Mass Curse of Impending Blades (SPC), Sonic Shield (PHB2), and Alter Fortune (PHB2)
5th: Renewed Vigor (PHB2), Evacuation Rune (CScound), Dimension Jumper (CMag), Dragonsight (SPC), Mislead (PHB), Seeming (PHB), and False Vision (PHB)
Maneuvers known (initiator level 11, X maneuvers readied): Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Mind Over Body, Mountain Hammer, Shadow Jaunt, Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike
Stances known: Blood in the Water, Leaping Dragon Stance
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Snapshot: Assuming +5 mithral breastplate and +6 items for Cha, Dex, and Con, along with +5 resistance to saves, Gloves of the Balanced Hands, and a +5 natural armor item, level 20 gives her 155 base hp, saves of +15/+22/+17 (RDF adds +11 to any of those, Fort is +27 with MoB), 18 bardic music uses, a +5 inspire courage bonus before Inspirational Boost, and a wardancing TWF kukri full attack routine of +30/+30/+25/+25/+20 before any buffs besides GMW. She can boost that attack routine (and the attacks of her entire party) by +10 with Inspire Courage, Inspirational Boost, Inspire Greatness, and Haste, adding another attack onto the full attacks while she’s at it. The Will saving throw DC for her Resounding Blow feat is 31, and the same goes for the Fortitude saving throw DC of her Stunning Surge kukris. Finally, with Sirine’s Grace up, she packs an AC of 52 (flat-footed touch 32, flat-footed 47, touch 37) before your stack the miss chances from Greater Blink and Displacement or hide behind Mirror Images. Her caster level is 18, though you could potentially boost it with 1 from an Orange Ioun Stone and 1 from a Ring of Arcane Might. Or (see Variants below) boost it for 4 with Practiced Spellcaster + Inspire Greatness, and 2 with Harmonic Chorus + Sonorous Hum (all of these stack). She has 67 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots (which this build will have) or rings of wizardry (a RoW IV is +16 spell slot levels). Her lowest skill checks are Spellcraft (+4 bonus) and Balance (+10 bonus). You can boost them by as much as +9 with Improvisation. Her UMD bonus is +36 before Improvisation, with her other maxed out skills in the same neighbourhood. Improvisation + Knack means I can easily have a bonus of +18 + relevant ability score modifier in any skill I want (slightly higher in Sense Motive, much higher in Jump).
Overall Strengths: This build will bring your party some good bardic support - support that is a lot harder to take out than normal, with Ascetic Mage and a great array of defensive buffs. Bardic knack, an incredible UMD score, bardic music, the utility of the bard spell list, and our small handful of martial maneuvers gives her an incredible array of options both in and out of combat, even before you fill in the slots RT left open. And the Captain has a nasty surprise waiting for anyone who tries to engage her directly in melee! The Blood in the Water + Resounding Blow + Snowflake Wardance ( + stunning surge kukris) combination is the D&D equivalent to a vortex in fighting games - a combination of attacks in sequence that have a good chance of locking a hapless foe in place where they can’t fight back. A weak-willed (or low Fortitude) enemy may very well be trapped in melee range as the full attacks just keep coming. Plus, if they try to cluster up and dogpile her, it will be easy for her to kite with Whirling Blade.
Overall Weaknesses: While she is almost untouchable with her buffs up, this build suffers from the typical gish problem of needing actions to buff, as she’s just too squishy with 155 hp at level 20 to last long in the frontline without boosted AC and miss chances. You have bard spell stamina, too, and that’s fewer spell slots than a generalist wizard. There is also the ever constant fear of dispels, or worse, antimagic. Also, any immunity to fear, stuns, or critical hits will put a crimp in her melee tactics, and the Problematic Monsters (undead, constructs, elementals, oozes, and plants) are immune to all three. (ASK YOUR DM IF CRITICAL HITS AGAINST IMMUNE MONSTERS STILL BUILD BLOOD IN THE WATER EVEN IF THEY DON’T DO EXTRA DAMAGE.) Collecting the wands necessary to fill tactical gaps can be pricey, and there are lots of magic items competing for your budget already. It is very important that this build gauge enemies appropriately and use the right tactics. For short fights, it’s probably better to just buff your allies and let them finish things. There’s also the issue of finishing off an enemy trapped in your vortex quickly with Arcane Strike, or leaving them there for a bit to farm Blood (but risking their escape if you’re unlucky enough to get no crit threats). Ultimately, optimal play of this character will require better tactical sense than that Int score of 8 would imply.
Variants: There are two feats that competed with Lingering Song for the 18th level slot: Practiced Spellcaster (which actually boosts your caster level to 22 when combined with Inspire Greatness) and Adaptive Style, to better utilize your swordsage maneuvers. Of course, if flaws are allowed, you can take both Practiced Spellcaster and Lingering Song at first level, freeing up 18th for Adaptive Style. Nonverbal Spellcasting (from the Planar Handbook) or Lyric Spell (from Complete Mage) could allow you to cast spells while performing bardic music, possibly to buff while fascinating. Otherwise, there’s plenty of room for variation in the selections. A more spymastery type could take Listening Coin, Spymaster’s Coin, and Evacuation Rune for a nifty scry-and-die trick (Listening and Spymaster’s synergize well, as Listening doesn’t require concentration but Spymaster’s lets you see as well as hear). A more mage-type build may prefer Sonorous Hum and Harmonic Chorus for the caster level boost, along with Magic Savant for the boos to Use Magic Device checks. The variants that focus on this build’s melee capability should absolutely go for Grace, Wounding Whispers, Sonic Shield, and Renewed Vigor (the last of which cures fatigue and is thus good for “resetting” in long combats after your Wardance wears out). If you grab Mislead or G’Elsewhere Chant, you may want to drop Dimension Door for Freedom of Movement; if another party member has Dimension Door or you grab a Belt of the Wide Earth, this is an even easier substitution to make. Finally, switching out Inspire Heroics or Inspire Greatness for Haunting Melody (also from the Eberron Campaign Setting) gives you a fear effect in place of a buff effect if you want.
There you have it. Charisma SAD done with a Kung-fu twist!
Next up: In Soviet Russia Showcase Pick You! Yes there are more to come.
Originally posted by JBID:
Wouldn't Slippers of Battle Dancing or Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows be helpful for this? Both add Charisma to damage.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
~~Magical Gear Goals: Your ideal weapons are +1 Keen Tiger Claw Stunning Surge (MIC) kukris. The Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the MIC is an absolute win option for you, with a Cha-based stunning DC and a number of daily uses based on your Charisma bonus - and since you dual wield, having two of them can possibly give you more stuns per day than you have uses of bardic music! There’s also the Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the DMG2, which is even better, but it’s so damn powerful and broken as to likely get the banhammer. To save money on your weapon’s enhancement bonus, get a staff with Greater Magic Weapon in it. You want the Gloves of the Balanced Hands to remove the need for ITWF. Get enhancement bonuses for Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity, in that order. Slippers of Battledancing (also from the DMG2) are great for any wardancer, and you’ll want the Vest of Legends (MIC) to keep your inspire courage bonus up. Your 4th level spells will face the greatest in-combat demand, so a Ring of Wizardry IV is a great high level investment. Your UMD bonus is well suited to having lots of wands, scrolls, staffs, or runestaffs on hand if you need troubleshooting spells. Ask your party to put in for stuff like CLW wands (or a staff of healing at the high levels, if necessary). Otherwise, usual stuff, Initiative items, drakehelms, Shax haversack, you know the drill.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Andarious, I fixed the formatting. (I saw you working on this with Google Docs, even though I didn't provide too much feedback... Google Docs doesn't transfer formatting easily to the forums. Word, on the other hand, does... but often botches the spacing.) There's a couple of corrections I made along the way (i.e. Resounding Blow is COWERING, not Shaken; your description is accurate for cowering, but you call it "shaken"), but it's intact otherwise.
The board doesn't like quote-transferring Sblocks, so I'm leaving this here instead of mailing it, but if you want to try that out later, just let me know.
I've made a couple of changes, though. I really dislike the "let's hide the spell progression inside the Sblock" approach RT added to the template, so the significant spells and maneuvers are now visible at a glance. Additionally, the snapshot is now standardized - every other snapshot except for specific target theoretical builds only used the raw basics on ability scores. I'm also not sure why you're maxing out two Perform skills, but I didn't change that (because of Knack + Improvisation, this is a pretty effective skillmonkey.) There's also now a reference to the unarmed swordsage, which saves you a critical feat at level 1 (but since it's a variant it's not mainbuil
I've also added it to my signature, for a bit more publicity.
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The name's more for legacy, at this point, I'm afraid, as this is more likely to be a sporadic thing than a regular feature.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, Radical Taoist, DisposableHero_, Tempest_Stormwind, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, one of Radical Taoist’s babies is up.
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CAPTAIN CHARISMA
All she wants to do is dance
Required Books: Player’s Handbook II, Tome of Battle, Book of Exalted Deeds (1 feat), Complete Warrior (1 feat), Complete Arcane (1 feat), Frostburn (1 feat), Complete Adventurer (1 feat), Eberron Campaign Setting (you guessed it, 1 feat), Spell Compendium, spell suggestions from Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage, a teamwork benefit suggestion from Forge of War, and equipment suggestions from the Magic Item Compendium and Dungeon Master’s Guide II.
Unearthed Arcana used: None! Flaws can help but are not necessary.
Background: This SAD Charisma-based build arose when RT noticed that Ascetic Mage, from Complete Arcane, is pretty open in its wording. So open in its wording, in fact, that it could apply to the Swordsage. But if you’re going to focus on Charisma and the melee-centric swordsage, then you’ll want to attack with Charisma, and that leads you to Snowflake Wardance. And if you’re going to focus on fighting with light weapons as a swordsage, you might as well go crit fishing with Blood in the Water and Kukris. But if you’re crit fishing with high Charisma, why not pick up Righteous Blow?...and the build just snowballed from there. The result is a versatile and capable support character who, with a little preparation, can absolutely wreck an unprepared opponent in melee.
The Basics
- Race: Human. It’s just easier, and the following ability score array is calibrated with the human bonus skill point in mind. Strongheart halfling is possible but the Str prereq will make things difficult for you. Silverbrow human is another option, but feats are tight, making the main reason to consider this race (Dragonfire Inspiration, which pairs quite well with bard sonic spells with the right heritage) an uneconomical choice. Azurin is also possible, though RT didn’t have any ideas on how to optimize this build with incarnum. If you’re going to use flaws to make up the feat difference, then spellscale, hellbred, and aeshuur illumian are all sound choices.
- Ability Scores: Open with 14/14/12/8/10/16 for a balanced array. Cha is your go-to stat; it gets all the tome and level bonuses. It’s really tough to get to an 18 Cha, since we need at least 13 Str to make Resounding Blow happen. You can swap Dex and Con if you want. You can also drop Wis to 8 to boost Con some more, but RT hates having any penalty to Will saves, and roleplaying someone with an Int and Wis penalty is such a chore.
- Alignment: As a bard, you have to be nonlawful. There's a lot of ways to play this, though.
Skill Notes: Max Concentration, Perform (Dance), Perform (Sing), Tumble, and Use Magic Device. You have Bardic Knack to cover most of your skill needs. Sadly, you will need to gimp your Balance and Spellcraft checks by taking 5 ranks in those skills for synergies; this will land you with a smaller bonus on those skills than Knack would give you. The rest of your skill points should go into Sense Motive, so you can use the Precision Assault teamwork benefit from Forge of War (p. 131). This benefit is amazing for a crit fisher (+1 to threat range which stacks, as long as you and your buddies focus on on one target!) and if you dump your remaining skill points there your Sense Motive bonus should outstrip Knack. Jump is taken care of with Leaping Dragon Stance and your speed boosting buffs; if you need any other skill, Bardic Knack + Improvisation + Inspire Competence is as good as having 18 ranks in that skill.
Basic Equipment: At the low levels, you’ll probably want a spear or longspear, plus a shortbow for distance fights. The best light armor you can get your hands on is a given. By level 4 you should have picked up two kukris and never looked back. You will always have a great Use Magic Device check, so don’t shy away from scrolls and wands! (Fit the kukris with wand chambers to make use of wands in combat.)
Magical Gear Goals: Your ideal weapons are +1 Keen Tiger Claw Stunning Surge (MIC) kukris. The Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the MIC is an absolute win option for you, with a Cha-based stunning DC and a number of daily uses based on your Charisma bonus - and since you dual wield, having two of them can possibly give you more stuns per day than you have uses of bardic music! There’s also the Stunning Surge weapon enhancement from the DMG2, which is even better, but it’s so damn powerful and broken as to likely get the banhammer. To save money on your weapon’s enhancement bonus, get a staff with Greater Magic Weapon in it. You want the Gloves of the Balanced Hands to remove the need for ITWF. Get enhancement bonuses for Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity, in that order. Slippers of Battledancing (also from the DMG2) are great for any wardancer, and you’ll want the Vest of Legends (MIC) to keep your inspire courage bonus up. Your 4th level spells will face the greatest in-combat demand, so a Ring of Wizardry IV is a great high level investment. Your UMD bonus is well suited to having lots of wands, scrolls, staffs, or runestaffs on hand if you need troubleshooting spells. Ask your party to put in for stuff like CLW wands (or a staff of healing at the high levels, if necessary). Otherwise, usual stuff, Initiative items, drakehelms, Shax haversack, you know the drill.
(TS note: It's hard to get this to work with a two-weapon fighter unless you invest in a Spare Hand (MoE), but a Metamagic Rod of Quicken shouldn't go without a mention. TWF characters have intense action demands, particularly for swift-action movement effects or anything to give them extra chances at their full attacks, and this build is no exception (especially because it's a critical-fisher). Being able to use your spells as a swift action is huge - i.e. deliver a full attack to charge up Blood in the Water, then follow it up with a swift-action Whirling Blade to share the pain; or deliver a Greater Dispel or Irresistible Dance before unloading a full attack. If you can somehow afford the rod and get it into your hand without seriously crippling your actions, do it. Likewise, the greater Truedeath and Demolition crystals from the MIC are inexpensive for the strength of the effect they provide.)
The Build.
Build Stub: Bard 18/Swordsage 2
1 – Bard – (Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Unarmed Strike) (Bardic music, bardic knack, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1)*
[sblock]You’ve got options here for tactics depending on your weapon choice: a pseudo-spiked chain with a longspear and your unarmed strike, decent full attacks with a longsword and your unarmed strike, and dual wielded javelins or a shortbow for ranged attacks. Whatever you choose, play it safe. It’s level 1 and you’re squishy.
You don't absolutely need IUS at this point - you can get it as a bonus feat if you're using the Unarmed Swordsage.
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2 – Bard – (Immediate Assistance, Inspirational Boost) *
[sblock]Immediate Assistance gives your allies a skill check reroll, and Inspirational Boost increases your inspire courage bonus by 1 at a very early level. Stick to the support role accordingly. If your party has put in for a wand of Cure Light Wounds, you’re probably the out-of-combat healer as well.
The Bardic Knack alternate class feature (from the PHB2) that we selected last level starts to provide its benefit now.
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3 – Bard – (Snowflake Wardance) (Inspire competence) (Critical Strike (SPC))*
[sblock]This is the Spell Compendium's version of Critical Strike. There's another spell named Critical Strike in Complete Mage, but it's also completely useless.
Frostburn’s Snowflake Wardance feat is a fundamental component of our combat style, allowing us to use Charisma with melee attacks in place of Strength, but at this level it only offers a +1 to hit and lasts for 6 rounds. Use it sparingly, and don’t use it in a fight where you won’t need to full attack people repeatedly. Critical Strike takes a swift action to cast and only works against flat-footed or flanked targets, but gives you +1d6 sneak attack (effectively), Improved Critical (whatever you’re wielding), and Power Critical (though the bonus here is Insight-typed) for 1 round. Later in your career it can be switched out, but it will be handy at these levels.
[/sblock]
4 – Bard –(Whirling Blade, Tongues)*
[sblock]Whirling Blade is a wonderful spell for this build, and in many cases a better ranged attack option than actual ranged weapons. This spell lets you make a melee attack in a line area using your Charisma modifier in place of strength and is only a standard action to cast. You’ll see how handy that is next level. Tongues was selected to compensate for our low Int (and resulting lack of bonus languages).[/sblock]
5 – Swordsage – (Weapon Focus: Tiger Claw) (Quick to act +1) (Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Mountain Hammer, Shadow Jaunt, Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike) (Blood in the Water)*
[sblock]We get a good selection of utility maneuvers from splashing into martial adept, but the big draw is Blood in the Water. Our workhorse stance synergizes with Critical Strike and Whirling Blade. Use Whirling Blade on appropriately situated enemies to rack up a good Blood bonus. Don’t discount Stone Bones at this level - you are still squishy, but DR 5/adamantine can help take the bite out of enemy counterattacks.[/sblock]
6 – Bard – (Stone Power) (Improvisation, an open 2nd and an open swap)*
[sblock]We have the caster level now to get good use out of Improvisation, a very handy spell for a wide variety of occasions. The Stone Power feat (from the Tome of Battle) was chosen to qualify us for Resounding Blow later, since unlike Power Attack, Stone Power isn’t utterly useless for someone who dual wields light weapons. Besides, this bard is still squishy - sources of temporary HP are appreciated.[/sblock]
7 – Bard – (Suggestion)*
[sblock]Your Charisma is your focus, and the saving throw DC for your Suggestion power is Charisma-based. You’ve also get enough bardic music uses per day to start seriously using such tactics.[/sblock]
8 – Bard – (Haste, Displacement, open 2nd)*
[sblock]Haste is just some of the best support out there. And with Displacement, your first miss chance buff, you can start to attempt extended melee combat without getting utterly murdered.[/sblock]
9 – Swordsage – (Ascetic Mage) (AC bonus) (Mind Over Body) (Leaping Dragon Stance)*
[sblock]Our Fortitude save is the weakest, and so it’s the one to protect with Mind Over Body. And Leaping Dragon Stance is a decent utility stance to use when you’re not in Blood (though there are other utility picks you might prefer). But our feat is the key gain in this level. Ascetic Mage (from Complete Arcane) can apply to the Swordsage AC bonus, so now we add Charisma to our Armor Class in place of Wisdom. Our defensive values are starting to accelerate rapidly.[/sblock]
10 – Bard – (Inspire courage +2) (Open 3rd, open swap)
*
[sblock]Inspire Courage is still our favourite support option. If you’ve got a pair of keen kukris by now, it might be time to swap out Critical Strike for something more useful. That swap, and whichever spell you choose to learn this level, are worth careful consideration, so a list of spell suggestions are included in the final spell list later in this post.[/sblock]11 – Bard – (Inspire greatness)*
[sblock]Inspire Greatness is a good buff on its own, and another source of temporary HP. If you don’t think the combat will last too long, it could be worth stacking this with Inspire Courage - the benefits don’t disappear until 5 rounds after you end a song.[/sblock]
12 – Bard – (Resounding Blow) (Ruin Delver's Fortune, Greater Mirror Image, open 3rd)*
[sblock]One nice thing about this build’s progression is its evenness. You get something pretty cool every level. But this level is the first really big “WOW” level in the build, and it will take some explaining.
Resounding Blow (from the Book of Exalted Deeds) forces an opponent to make a Charisma-based will save every time you score a critical hit against them. If they fail, they’re cowering (can’t act, lose Dex to AC, -2 to all saves) for 1 round. This build is a crit fisher. If you make a full attack and score a critical hit, and they are cowering, they will stay in place, allowing you another full attack next round. This is a good way to capture enemies with weak Will saves and farm a good Blood in the Water bonus off of them.
Ruin Delver’s Fortune is an amazing spell, and your workhorse counter in emergency situations. It can add your Charisma bonus to one of your three saves (with accompanying benefits, such as evasion) or give you a small buffer of temporary hit points that also scales with your Charisma bonus. This does wonderful things for your survivability - and better yet, the bonuses last for a short duration, so “popping” your defenses isn’t as effective a tactic as it would be against the Diamond Mind counters.
What RDF does for your survivability against save effects, Greater Mirror Image does for your survivability against attackers. A bunch of regenerating mirror images as an immediate action will ruin the day of any melee attacker who doesn’t have True Seeing or a way to attack multiple squares/opponents at once (i.e. a Whirling Blade of their own; regular AoE effects that aren't "attacks" won't pop the images). Can be mighty annoying for enemy archers or ray specialists too.
[/sblock]
13 – Bard – (Dimension Door, free swap)
14 – Bard – (Song of the Heart)*
[sblock]This feat (from the Eberron Campaign Setting, although it’s flavour neutral and easily exported) is swapped in to replace Song of Freedom, as per the ECS rules on trading new varieties of bardic music for feats.[/sblock]
15 – Bard – (Arcane Strike) (Greater Blink, Greater Dispel Magic, Sirine's Grace)*
[sblock]This is another WOW level, and at this point the build is more or less complete.
The Arcane Strike feat (from Complete Warrior) allows her to convert spell slots into attack and damage bonuses on melee attacks. At this level, the build has 36 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots or rings of wizardry. This feat will be our primary source of spike damage, for when we actually need to kill fools dead right now. It is quite draining, though, so use it sparingly.
Greater Dispel Magic needs no further explanation. You’re only two caster levels behind full, a gap that can easily be recovered with the right magic items.
Greater Blink is another miss chance buff, and this one cannot be beaten by True Seeing (though it is pierced by force effects like Power Weapon and can be countered by itself). Stacking miss chances means that this bard is very hard to hit. However, your final 4th level spell boosts that even further. Sirine’s Grace gives you a small collection of stat bonuses, but more importantly a deflection bonus to your Armor Class equal to your Charisma bonus. You’re adding your Charisma to AC twice, and that’s going to your flat-footed touch AC too. This can easily get your AC into the ████-you 40s, and well into the ████-off 50s at the highest levels of this build.
[/sblock]
16 – Bard – (Inspire courage +3) (Open 5th, free swap)
17 – Bard – (Inspire heroics)
18 – Bard – (Lingering Song) (Project Image, Irresistible Dance, open 5th and 1st)*
[sblock]Project Image is an incredibly useful spell. One of the useful things it can do is deliver the no-save touch-range Irresistible Dance spell for you.
Lingering Song (from Complete Adventurer) doubles the time that a bardic music buff lasts after the song ends, from 5 rounds to 10 rounds. This makes it easier to stack up the bonuses from different types of bardic music if necessary, and by this level you have enough uses of bardic music to afford such tactics.
[/sblock]
19 – Bard – (Nixie's Grace, open 2nd, free swap)*
[sblock]Nixie’s Grace comes with a +8 enhancement bonus to Charisma, but that’s less impressive when you realize it doesn’t stack with your Charisma enhancing equipment and only lasts for 1 round/level. If you want to select something else in its place, go ahead.[/sblock]
20 – Bard – (Mass suggestion) (Open 3rd)*
[sblock]With your prodigious Charisma score, I hope you’ve remembered to take full advantage of Fascinate + Suggestion when setting up combats (or avoiding them altogether). This is just a boost to that ability.[/sblock]
Final spell and maneuver list
[sblock]Spells known (caster level 18, save DCs of 21 + spell level assuming a +6 enhancement bonus to Charisma):
- 0th: Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation, Read Magic, 2 open choices
- 1st: Critical Strike (can swap out later), Immediate Assistance, Improvisation, Inspirational Boost, 1 open choice
- 2nd: Whirling Blade, Tongues, 3 open choices
- 3rd: Haste, Displacement, 3 open choices
- 4th: Dimension Door, Greater Mirror Image, Ruin Delver’s Fortune, Sirine’s Grace
- 5th: Greater Blink, Greater Dispel Magic, 2 open choices
- 6th: Irresistible Dance, Nixie’s Grace (less than ideal), Project Image
Spell suggestions for open slots:
- 1st: Grease, Joyous Noise (SPC), Shock and Awe (SPC), Swift Expeditious Retreat (SPC)
- 2nd: Glitterdust, Invisibility, Silence, Spymaster's Coin (CScound), Magic Savant (CMag), Doublespeak (CMag), Insight of Good Fortune (PHB2), Speak to Allies (SPC), Grace (SPC), Swift Fly (SPC), Harmonic Chorus (SPC), Sonorous Hum (SPC), and Dark Way (SPC)
- 3rd: Glibness (PHB), Wounding Whispers (SPC), Create Fetch (CScound), G'Elsewhere Chant (SPC), Listening Coin (SPC), Mass Curse of Impending Blades (SPC), Sonic Shield (PHB2), and Alter Fortune (PHB2)
- 5th: Renewed Vigor (PHB2), Evacuation Rune (CScound), Dimension Jumper (CMag), Dragonsight (SPC), Mislead (PHB), Seeming (PHB), and False Vision (PHB)
Maneuvers known (initiator level 11, 6 maneuvers readied):
- Strikes: Stone Bones, Wolf Fang Strike
- Boosts: Cloak of Deception
- Counters: Counter Charge, Mind over Body
- Other: Shadow Jaunt
- Stances: Blood in the Water, Leaping Dragon Stance
[/sblock]
Snapshot: Assuming the usual +6 items for Cha, Dex, and Con (and leaving out tomes because two weapons, armor, and bardic music boosts are expensive!), level 20 gives her 155 base hp, saves of +10/+17/+12 (RDF adds +11 to any of those, Fort is +27 with MoB), 18 bardic music uses, a +5 inspire courage bonus before Inspirational Boost, and a wardancing TWF kukri full attack routine of +30/+30/+25/+25/+20 before any buffs besides GMW. She can boost that attack routine (and the attacks of her entire party) by +10 with Inspire Courage, Inspirational Boost, Inspire Greatness, and Haste, adding another attack onto the full attacks while she’s at it. She's effective at attacking enemy actions: both Resounding Blow (on every critical hit) and Stunning Surge (on demand, but as as swift action) have a DC of 31, targeting either Will or Fortitude respectively. Finally, with Sirine’s Grace up, she packs an AC of 42 before your stack the miss chances from Greater Blink and Displacement or hide behind Mirror Images. Her caster level is 18, though you could potentially boost it with 1 from an Orange Ioun Stone and 1 from a Ring of Arcane Might. Or (see Variants below) boost it for 4 with Practiced Spellcaster + Inspire Greatness, and 2 with Harmonic Chorus + Sonorous Hum (all of these stack). She has 67 levels of spell slots to spend on Arcane Strike before bonus spell slots or rings of wizardry (a RoW IV is +16 spell slot levels). Her lowest skill checks are Spellcraft (+4 bonus) and Balance (+10 bonus). You can boost them by as much as +9 with Improvisation. Her UMD bonus is +36 before Improvisation, with her other maxed out skills in the same neighbourhood. Improvisation + Knack means I can easily have a bonus of +18 + relevant ability score modifier in any skill I want (slightly higher in Sense Motive, much higher in Jump).
Overall Strengths: This build will bring your party some good bardic support - support that is a lot harder to take out than normal, with Ascetic Mage and a great array of defensive buffs. Bardic knack, an incredible UMD score, bardic music, the utility of the bard spell list, and our small handful of martial maneuvers gives her an incredible array of options both in and out of combat, even before you fill in the slots RT left open. And the Captain has a nasty surprise waiting for anyone who tries to engage her directly in melee! The Blood in the Water + Resounding Blow + Snowflake Wardance ( + stunning surge kukris) combination is the D&D equivalent to a vortex in fighting games - a combination of attacks in sequence that have a good chance of locking a hapless foe in place where they can’t fight back. A weak-willed (or low Fortitude) enemy may very well be trapped in melee range as the full attacks just keep coming. Plus, if they try to cluster up and dogpile her, it will be easy for her to kite by moving or stepping and casting Whirling Blade.
Overall Weaknesses: While she is almost untouchable with her buffs up, this build suffers from the typical gish problem of needing actions to buff, as she’s just too squishy with 155 hp at level 20 to last long in the frontline without boosted AC and miss chances. (That said, this number assumes no Constitution tome, because music / wardance boosts are expensive. If you have an artificer on your team, he can probably make this affordable.) You have bard spell stamina, too, and that’s fewer spell slots than a generalist wizard. There is also the ever constant fear of dispels, or worse, antimagic. Also, any immunity to fear, stuns, or critical hits will put a crimp in her melee tactics, and the Problematic Monsters (undead, constructs, elementals, oozes, and plants) are immune to all three. (However, DO ask your DM if Blood in the Water charges up on critical hits made against creatures immune to crits; it's unclear what happens here.) Collecting the wands necessary to fill tactical gaps can be pricey, and there are lots of magic items competing for your budget already. It is very important that this build gauge enemies appropriately and use the right tactics. For short fights, it’s probably better to just buff your allies and let them finish things. There’s also the issue of finishing off an enemy trapped in your vortex quickly with Arcane Strike, or leaving them there for a bit to farm Blood (but risking their escape if you’re unlucky enough to get no crit threats). Ultimately, optimal play of this character will require better tactical sense than that Int score of 8 would imply.
Variants: If you can swing Unarmed Swordsage, do so - it saves you a feat at level 1, which can be used to speed up your other feat choices or branch into other variants. There are two feats that competed with Lingering Song for the 18th level slot: Practiced Spellcaster (which actually boosts your caster level to 22 when combined with Inspire Greatness) and Adaptive Style, to better utilize your swordsage maneuvers. Of course, if flaws are allowed, you can take both Practiced Spellcaster and Lingering Song at first level, freeing up 18th for Adaptive Style. Nonverbal Spellcasting (from the Planar Handbook) or Lyric Spell (from Complete Mage) could allow you to cast spells while performing bardic music, possibly to buff while fascinating. Otherwise, there’s plenty of room for variation in the selections. A more spymastery type could take Listening Coin, Spymaster’s Coin, and Evacuation Rune for a nifty scry-and-die trick (Listening and Spymaster’s synergize well, as Listening doesn’t require concentration but Spymaster’s lets you see as well as hear). A more mage-type build may prefer Sonorous Hum and Harmonic Chorus for the caster level boost, along with Magic Savant for the boos to Use Magic Device checks. The variants that focus on this build’s melee capability should absolutely go for Grace, Wounding Whispers, Sonic Shield, and Renewed Vigor (the last of which cures fatigue and is thus good for “resetting” in long combats after your Wardance wears out). If you grab Mislead or G’Elsewhere Chant, you may want to drop Dimension Door for Freedom of Movement; if another party member has Dimension Door or you grab a Belt of the Wide Earth, this is an even easier substitution to make. Finally, switching out Inspire Heroics or Inspire Greatness for Haunting Melody (also from the Eberron Campaign Setting) gives you a fear effect in place of a buff effect if you want.
There you have it. Charisma SAD done with a Kung-fu twist!
Originally posted by Scraggled:
How is Two-Weapon Fighting being qualified for at level 1? The way I see it, you've got a 14 Dex and no class ability to let you have that for free, though I may just not be seeing something.
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
Fantastic! I've actually been tinkering with a good-aligned bodyguard, posing as a bruiser but secretly a bard, as an upcoming enemy in the campaign I'm currently running. I was messing around with crusader mostly, but this fits almost perfectly.
The party is comprised of six decently optimized tier 3ish characters (iaijutsu factotum, unarmed swordsage, rogue/binder, duskblade, warlock, incarnate), all currently at ECL 4, though there's a good chance they'll hit ECL 5 by the time they face this guy. So, I'm planning on making him CR 9, and possibly scaling things back a bit if they confront him before gaining a level.
Since unarmed swordsage is on the table, my main dilemma is whether I want to rearrange the first swordsage level to come earlier so he can take Stone Power and Resounding Blow by ECL 9 (at the cost of high level maneuvers), or not worry about Resounding Blow. I guess then the build stub would be something like...
1. Unarmed Swordsage1- IUS, Stone Power, Two Weapon Fighting
Stone Bones, Counter Charge, Wolf Fang Strike, Sudden Leap, Mighty Throw, Distracting Ember, Blood in the Water (s)
2. Bard1-
3. Bard2- Snowflake Wardance
4. Bard3-
5. Bard4-
6. Bard5- Resounding Blow
7. Bard6-
8. Bard7-
9. Unarmed Swordsage2- Ascetic Mage
Baffling Defense, Leaping Dragon Stance (s)
I had to shift around the maneuvers a bit, obviously, since he won't qualify for level 2 maneuvers with that initial swordsage level. I also replaced Mind over Body with Baffling Defense, despite the low Fort save, because I want to emphasize this guy's martial side, and I found that nothing quite does the trick like counters. He'll have a pretty high Sense Motive check anyhow for other reasons, so it fits.
I hadn't originally envisioned him as a two-weapon fighter, so I might drop TWF for Martial Study for Crusader's Strike or something; a little bit of in-combat healing will certainly not go amiss for someone who will eventually have to go it solo against six enemies. Alternatively, I'm considering Subduing Strike - he doesn't like to kill when he can avoid it, and prefers to knock his enemies out and then use a wand of Modify Memory to make them forget the fight ever happened.
Does this make sense for a lower-level version of this build?
Fantastic job as always!
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It makes sense to me, though it will feel very different without TWF (particularly beacuse you can't use Snowflake Wardance with unarmed strikes - it's gotta be a slashing weapon). If you do drop TWF, I'd favor the crusader's strike approach; between that and Stone Bones / Stone Power you'll be pretty durable.
One of the nice things with Blood in the Water is it lets you introduce a "boss-type" fight by seeing him fight at a distance... when really, all you're doing as a DM is pre-charging Blood to whatever level you think you need for your foe to truly challenge your players. When used as a villain, Blood in the Water allows this sort of throttling without a massive rebuild mid-game.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Versatile Unarmed Strike or Gauntlets of the Tallon?
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
If anyone is interested, the party is actually facing this guy now on the PbP I run. You can see the ongoing battle here.
I made a few more changes to the build. I did end up working in Subduing Strike, because this NPC is also a bodyguard who is trained to subdue rather than kill (and is actually trying to subdue the party - he does not want them dead). I also traded out Leaping Dragon Stance, which he really wouldn't have occasion to use, for Child of Shadow, as the 20% concealment can come in handy against such a large party.
We're two rounds into combat, going onto three, but thus far the only person who has been able to hit him out of all six party members is the duskblade. Ironically, the fact that the party is pulling their punches is actually working out to their advantage - seeing that he was using nonlethal damage against them, they decided to use nonlethal damage against him in return. But a fun little RAW quirk is that nonlethal damage actually effectively bypasses temporary HP. The glossary definition of "current hit points" makes them a whole separate beast from "temporary hit points," and since nonlethal damage is based off of current hit point total, it doesn't really care that he's got a buffer of 10 temp HP each round from Stone Power. He's planning on switching to full offense next round for that reason.
Also, he'd be doing a lot better off if it weren't for his counter. As the duskblade is basically the only party member that was posing a threat to him, he used his Baffling Defense against the duskblade in round 2. Of course, the attack actually would have missed his regular AC, but he botched his Sense Motive roll, meaning the miss was turned into a hit.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Good to hear it!
And that's a really good observation on the temporary HP / nonlethal point. Mix in some healing if at all possible: when you heal HP, you also heal the same amount of nonlethal damage, in effect doubling it up. (Mind you, I don't know if you have healing already on him; I didn't think about it until right now, but the vampiric crystals from the MIC might be ideal.)
I'd love to hear how this unfolds (though I admit I have a problem reading PbP, so I may not be following it directly.)
Originally posted by piggyknowles:
He has Crusader's Strike and CLW as a spell known. Depending on what the warlock does, he'll probably use Crusader's Strike against the duskblade next round. He was entangled this round thanks to the duskblade's Bracers of the Entangling Blast, which will lower his AC enough that the rest of the party might be able to put in some work against him, but if he gets lucky and gets a crit on the duskblade with his Crusader's Strike, there's a pretty good chance he'll be able to escape to heal up and ambush the party when they try to leave their current location.
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
Marilyn Monroe breathily (and heavingly) sings: Happy Birthday Mister President
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Roll for Perform (sing).
Originally posted by awaken_D_M_golem:
I was soo so distracted ... (you know why) ... I misspelled her name. Hey where's my wallet?
