Tell me about the Swordsage

[Slaved]

How about a +2 enhancement item to constitution with a glamor like ability that allows him to make it look like any appropriate type of item for that slot within a certain generous price range?

I am with the others in that a low cost item boosting concentration is bad, the skills that go with it are too good to allow it for that cheap even before the swordsage came into play.

I also dislike the abilities that use jump to set the difficulty to resist. Jump is a skill that if you want it you want to get it very high indeed and yet those abilities make a dungeon master hesitant to allow it, and rightly so! If they just forced you to make a check against some sort of difficulty in order to use it with a more reasonable set afterwards that would be preferable.

Under normal circumstances a +20 item to jump is not a very big deal balance wise and should not cost very much but with those abilities it is broken beyond belief. That is no good in my eyes.

 

[Gumby]

Yeah, for the maneuvers that incorporate skill checks, I'd rule that magic items that increase those skills don't count. Arbitrary as far as it making sense in-game, but very necessary, as there are some sick things you can do with concentrate and jump in Bo9S.

 

[Arkhandus]

A +2 Mithril Shirt could be really handy for his survivability, since he still gets his Wisdom bonus to AC from the Swordsage ability while in light armor, right? It costs a little over 5k.

Or maybe +1 Leather Armor of Silent Moves (or Slick) and Light Fortification? It's worth somewhere between 7k and 8k, but it might be kinda helpful. Ignoring a sneak attack or critical hit once in a while, and getting a +5 bonus to Move Silently (or Escape Artist), which isn't a key skill for any of the disciplines, could be kinda handy. He'd be a bit more sneaky or harder to maintain a grapple with.

An Amulet of Health +2 could be useful, though it's less valuable.

Lesser Bracers of Archery could also be handy; they give proficiency in bows, and if the wearer's already proficient in them, then they gain +1 on attacks with bows. They're worth 5k.

Other options might be Gloves of Arrow Snatching, or Gloves of Dexterity +2.

 

[brehobit]

The swordsage is fine. He's less powerful than a cleric or druid. The maneuver refresh is not a big deal, because he's not throwing around fireballs. Think of it more like feats he can only use once per combat. It's not like he's casting haste on the party or fly or fireball or teleport....
-Nate

I'll disagree with this. He _can_ toss off a fireball every combat (3rd level maneuver). IME swordsages can be the most powerful of classes. I've only seen them up to around 8th level, so it may well be that they get weaker in reality above that level (I was starting to see that a twinked out pure fighter could keep up using PHBII feats). At lower levels (3-6) they are very very very powerful compared to any class. And at these levels a cleric isn't really all that powerful. A druid isn't much until wildshape (and even then depending on errata use and "magic store syndrome" they might not be that powerful until much later).

Briefly, yes swordsages are that powerful if built well at low to medium levels (below 9th). Heck, just the first level stance that lets you flank at any angle is pretty darn powerful (+2 to attack for you and your friends!)

Mark

 

[hong]

I'll disagree with this. He _can_ toss off a fireball every combat (3rd level maneuver).

Yes, a pissy fireball. Sheesh.

 

[Jhaelen]

The +5 concentration item definitely was a mistake. I wouldn't allow it in my campaign regardless of swordsages, because every caster would want it for casting defensively.

Imho, that line of reasoning is flawed. Do you disallow a cloak of elvenkind because every rogue would want it to use it to hide?
There's no reason not to allow +skill items that aren't covered by the magic items available in core material. If a class or a class ability gets broken if the +skill item existed that's a problem of the class and not the item. A skill that doesn't cause any problems _now_ might cause problems as soon as the next (prestige) class or feat is published in some splat book.

So either you disallow all +skill items or you don't. Anything in-between is highly arbitrary.

IMHO, of course

 

[Slaved]

So either you disallow all +skill items or you don't. Anything in-between is highly arbitrary.

This would be true if all skills were of equal power and usefulness, but they are not.

Lets look at jump and diplomacy for example.

An item that granted +100 to jump would allow someone to jump over one hundred feet on a long jump. Pretty impressive! I doubt it would have much of an impact on a game except for looking cool.

An item that granted +100 to diplomacy, however, could turn the game inside out. It makes for autosuccess for turning someone from hostile to helpful as a full round action. Going to the epic skill section this item would put a character in the running for changing someone from any initial attitude to fanatic.


For items that gives bonuses to different skills I would like to see different prices. Some skills would either not have the ability to have a bonus in this way or would be prohibitively expensive while others would be relatively cheap even for a large bonus.

 

[Diirk]

I'll disagree with this. He _can_ toss off a fireball every combat (3rd level maneuver).

I played a swordsage for a bit, and to be honest this was the maneuver I used least often. If you have a few other melee classes in your party, it can be difficult to both be far enough away that it won't hit them, and close enough that you won't get surrounded afterwards

 

[Nail]

This would be true if all skills were of equal power and usefulness, but they are not.

Yep.

And with the martial adept classes, they've taken several skills that were generally considered weak (like jump), and made them into skills that determine save-or-die character abilities.

Not cool.

I love new uses for under-appreciated abilities. But they went just a wee-bit over-board on a few of these.

 

[Slaved]

And with the martial adept classes, they've taken several skills that were generally considered weak (like jump), and made them into skills that determine save-or-die character abilities.

The only one I know that they did such things with was jump. What other skills did they change from weak to save or die?

Concentration was already pretty strong and at the moment I can only think of abilities keyed off of concentration and jump.