swordsage

[brehobit]

OK,
We had our first game (5th level) and the swordsage was just crazy powerful. 32 point point buy and he has the following abilties:

d6+7 damage with a (small) spiked chain.
AC 23 (+5 armor (+1 mith chain shirt), +5 Dex +1 size +2 Wis)

Combat goes:
Swordsage moves into combat. Has an attack that is at +10 (+3 BAB, +5 dex (finese), +1 master work, +1 size) If it hits he does 1d6+7 damage (+5 from feat that lets him use dex rather than STR, +2 from Wis) and does 6d6 fire damage (Save DC 14 for half) to the target and all in 10 feet.

Next round he does a manouver that give him +1d6 damage and makes the opponent flat-footed. (needs to make a conc. check vs. AC). Is in a stance that gives him 2d6 sneak attack dice. So 4d6+7 damage.

When we hit the caster behind the wall of baddies he did a 50' teliport (no attack) next to the caster. In a stance that gives 20% miss chance. Caster moved more than 5' got an AoO. Moved less and had to cast defensively. Same thing when the baddies were on a ledge 30' above us.

Oh, and he made a will save with a roll of a 2 by making a conc. check instead.

Ick ick ick.

Still not sure it is much worse than a barbarian (lots of damage one target). But it is very powerful and very well designed. The rogue is seeing this combat monster do sneak attacks as well as he can.

A well designed sword-sage is a monster in battle.

Plus 6 skill points....

Mark

 

[gabrion]

Well you've just listed off 4 or 5 maneuvers the character used (in what sounded like) one encounter. He only has 5 readied maneuvers, so while he put a good showing, a little bit longer combat would probably have seen less spunk from him (especially since he seemed to use his best maneuvers first).

In general though, these guys are pretty good. One special advantage they have at low levels is that they don't have to give up attacks to use maneuvers. At 6th level, when the party fighter or barbarian has multiple attacks/round, things will look better. At 8th level, when the swordsage finally gets two iterative attacks, using maneuvers won't be free anymore (well boosts still will be i guess).

Anyway, I love ToB (I'm about to start a 15th level gestalt game playing a Swordsage/Crusader).

 

[Jens]

As gabrion said, it seems like you describe a situation where the character was able to use just about every single ability (4/5 maneuvers and 2 stances), so he'd better seem powerful considering he'd be much less impressive during the following rounds.

By the way - I count 3 feats (spiked chain ... finesse ... dex for damage) which is a lot at 5th level, which race is he playing?

 

[starwed]

Oh, and he made a will save with a roll of a 2 by making a conc. check instead.

Hmm? He can only have 8 ranks in concentration. Given his other stats, he probably shouldn't have more than a +2 from constitution. So he used a manuever to make a DC 12 will save? That's not too big a deal, and he has to decide to use up the counter before he makes the roll. His base Will save is +6, so he already had like a 2/3 chance of making it.

Also, make sure the player is keeping track of immediate actions like this. If he uses a counter one round, he can't use any swift actions (such as changing stances) the next round.

Is in a stance that gives him 2d6 sneak attack dice.

An orc barbarian will have two points of BAB higher, and an extra +2 Str mod while raging. Assuming he also uses a spiked chain and power attacks down to the sword sage's attack bonus, he'll be doing 2d4+18 damage, more than the sage even w/ sneak attack. And he could well have Weapon Focus for another +2, or Cleave for extra attacks. Except for rage, none of it's situational; he gets to do it every single round in at least two combats per day.

By the way - I count 3 feats (spiked chain ... finesse ... dex for damage) which is a lot at 5th level, which race is he playing?

Given that the character is apparantly small with a +2 Dex, probably not one which grants a bonus feat. ^_^

The one thing I noticed while playing a crusader, is that even thought a fighter could have done more damage over all, the crusaders strikes feel more "powerful." It's what makes them fun to play, but can also make them seem overpowered even if they don't actually do as much damage.

 

[brehobit]

Hmm? He can only have 8 ranks in concentration. Given his other stats, he probably shouldn't have more than a +2 from constitution. So he used a manuever to make a DC 12 will save? That's not too big a deal, and he has to decide to use up the counter before he makes the roll. His base Will save is +6, so he already had like a 2/3 chance of making it.

Yeah,
I was wondering about that too. I think he has +13 somehow. I'll ask.

Also, make sure the player is keeping track of immediate actions like this. If he uses a counter one round, he can't use any swift actions (such as changing stances) the next round.

Yep,
He did that wrong once, but otherwise he got it right. All of his manouvers are standard actions so it works pretty well.

An orc barbarian will have two points of BAB higher, and an extra +2 Str mod while raging. Assuming he also uses a spiked chain and power attacks down to the sword sage's attack bonus, he'll be doing 2d4+18 damage, more than the sage even w/ sneak attack. And he could well have Weapon Focus for another +2, or Cleave for extra attacks. Except for rage, none of it's situational; he gets to do it every single round in at least two combats per day.

Yeah,
but the rage _is_ situational and the barb can't toss the 6d6 fireball (10' radius) as part of his attack.

Given that the character is apparantly small with a +2 Dex, probably not one which grants a bonus feat. ^_^

Yeah, we get one flaw for one feat.

I think you all are right about the longer fights. We had a cake-walk of 2 fights and neither lasted that long. We are the right level for the adventure but we are 32-points, have the extra feat and 3 of the 4 characters are *highly* optimized. The DM is thinking of putting us directly into a 7th-level adventure at 5th level after pumping up (via a magic item) the one non-optimized PC.

Thanks all,
Mark