[Bo9S] Notes on swordsage in play

[Nail]

.. if you're going to use swordsages, I've found that they make heavy use of swift/immediate actions (this is true of all the ToB classes to some extent, but the SS in particular). This makes for some interesting tactical conundrums, especially if you add items from the Magic Item Compendium (lots of swift/immediate activation items).

I was just working on a Swordsage, and found this to be true as I planned out tactics. Often, I'd like to have an immediate action free to use as a counter in round 1 (usually the round in which you close)...but then I couldn't use the following round's swift action. That's a major bummer, as many of standard-action manuevers just cry out for some of the swift action boosts.

...I do have that right, correct? You can use an immediate action when its not your turn, but it uses up the swift action from your next turn?

 

[Nifft]

This is why Stance of Alacrity is 8th level. Getting to do both a Counter and a Boost is solid awesome.

-- N

 

[hong]

...I do have that right, correct? You can use an immediate action when its not your turn, but it uses up the swift action from your next turn?

Correct.

And don't get me wrong, I LIKE the tactical constraint this puts on decisionmaking. Makes a change from just using your most powerful available ability each round.

 

[Nail]

This is why Stance of Alacrity is 8th level. Getting to do both a Counter and a Boost is solid awesome.

Too bad the Swordsage I was working on was only 5th....

...don't get me wrong, I LIKE the tactical constraint this puts on decisionmaking. Makes a change from just using your most powerful available ability each round.

Me too. Still, it's easy to forget about the immediate action if several other people have had their turns in between that and your next turn.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Too bad the Swordsage I was working on was only 5th....

Me too. Still, it's easy to forget about the immediate action if several other people have had their turns in between that and your next turn.

Have a Swift Action card on the table in front of you. At the end of your turn, you get to turn it face-up. If you use an Immediate or Swift action, turn it face down. You can't use an Immediate or Swift action unless your card is face-up.

-Hyp.

 

[hong]

Apropos of nothing, I reckon a SS could do with maybe a few more maneuvers known and readied early on, and not so many later on. Since so much of their power is tied up in maneuvers (especially strikes), it's gonna hurt if you only have 3-5 available in a combat. Conversely, at high levels you have more maneuvers known than you're realistically going to use, so the excess goes to waste.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

My 2nd level Crusader keeps absorbing 3-4 times his total hit points every combat, and the healer never has to heal me in combat.

Last session, I walked into a fight down 11 hit points (somebody missed a trap), and then ended the fight down 6 hit points. Then I walked into a fight 6 down hit points, came out down 7 hit points, then started the third combat down 7 hit points and walked out fully healed.

Keeping track of the maneuver pool though, is very annoying, even at low levels. Sometimes I forget to flip my next maneuver card, or mark down damage off my delayed pool before my temp hit points in a round, etc.

My high level Swordsage had Adaptive Style for his whole career, and I used it maybe once every third session.

 

[hong]

Is it? "So invisible you can't be seen even by things that see invisible" reminded me a bit of d02's "killz yous even if you cant be kilt".

Still, by the time we go up against Dragotha, I'll probably have it myself. I'm not proud.

So, from emails, Jasin should now have faced or be about to face Dragotha.

Tell us what happened, Jasin!

 

[jasin]

So, from emails, Jasin should now have faced or be about to face Dragotha.

Tell us what happened, Jasin!

We've only just entered the Tabernacle of Worms.

I don't have superior invisibility, and I don't think I'll get it. I do have AC in the 60s thanks to shapechanging into a pit fiend, and the melee guys aren't far behind, polymorphed into giants. We also have two celestials along: poor Angelica whom I've been binding since 11th level, and an unnamed generic greater planar ally of Garl Glittergold, who turned out to be the one to kill the thessalhydra and get his sword imbued with a part of Balakarde's spirit. Oh, and the pathetically multiclassed derro wyvern-rider is with us too, having failed a save vs. dominate monster.

 

[SPECTRE666]

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3297520&postcount=13

-This link isn't working. I would really like to see this character. Thanks.


SPECTRE666