Pathfinder 1E What would be a good "Pathfinder Bonus" for a Swordsage?

[Captain Trek]

Hello everyone.

Well, as the title of the thread implies, I've been allowed to port the Swordsage class into Pathfinder for a brand-spanking new from-1st-level game. We were wondeirng what would make for a good small and relatively insignificant but still useful ability to give the class as a sort of "Pathfinder bonus", like how even Wizards (on their core frame, I mean... This is just referring to the things the class itself gives you, rather than what builds you can do with feats and maneuver choices (or spells in the case of wizards) and the like) got small bonuses depending on what school they specialised in.

Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no concerns about my Swordsage being able to keep up with the power curves of the other four party members, particularly as I was allowed to retain the Concentration skill for the benefit of this class (and also because the other members are an Inquisitor, an Alchemist, a Fighter and a Gunslinger, meaning we have no full casters)... No, it just seemed like it would be nice to give this character some sort of small "Pathfinder Bonus" (beyond just the character having Pathfinder feat progression, I mean).

We were thinking of maybe giving the charcater Scribe Martial Script as a Bonus Feat, while a friend of mine suggested instead doing something along the lines of a Wizard's bonded object, bonding the Swordsage to her blade (allowing her to upgrade it and also allowing the 'sage to use any unprepared or perviously used maneuver either once per day or once per encounter depending on what we decided).

Both of those seem like decent options, but what do you guys think?

 

[billd91]

Have you considered plundering the heck out of the magus for ideas?

 

[delericho]

Honestly? "You get to play a Swordsage."

As 3.5e went on, WotC introduced some pretty fierce power creep into the game, with new spells being better than old, new monsters being better than the old, and with new classes being better than the old. The classes in PHB2 and Bo9S were amongst the biggest beneficiaries of this policy.

With Pathfinder, Paizo have more or less just increased the power-level of the "baseline" classes to match that of the late-3.5e-splat classes. As such, the Swordsage, Knight, and the like don't need any sort of "Pathfinder bonus" - they're already comparable.

 

[Captain Trek]

As such, the Swordsage, Knight, and the like don't need any sort of "Pathfinder bonus" - they're already comparable.

I thought I already made it clear in the OP that I know I don't need it. As I said, we just thought it would be nice (as in, not necessary, but nice) to give the Swordsage a little something extra, which was exactly why I'm looking for something that would give a nice litte on-the-side boost (again, like what Pathfinder Wizards as compared with their 3.5 counterparts get) without significantly effecting anything.​

 

[marcielle]

Best thing you can do for the swordsage is give him the Warblade recovery mechanic. Diamond Mind will need some tweaking what with the slightly altered skill system.

The bonded weapon idea sounds good. Beware of the sheer amount of doom doubling up on Martial Studied White Ravens can cause though.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The ability to use 3E Tumble DCs.

Swordsage is a skirmisher class, they really can't do the fight toe to toe thing that well, nor were they meant to. But PF's DCs mean even with heavy investment, you'll fail half the rolls, which means the enemy is attacking your d8 HD medium BAB light armored carcass 1.5x as much as you are attacking him. Which means you're a dead swordsage.
Due to the tumble nerf alone, I consider ToB's Swordsage completely unplayable in PF, no other base class relied on tumbling as much, not even rogue...maybe scout.

Other: Better recovery mechanic or Adaptive Style as a bonus feat, since it's a required feat for swordsage even more than natural spell is for druids. Removing the 3/day limit from thier capstone ability would also be fine.

 

[blargney the second]

Some other options of varying power levels to choose between:
1) Bump the HD up to d10s.
2) Add a couple of new class skills.
3) A scaling bonus to Tumble, similar to how trapfinding works in PF.
4) Flavour tweak: make them psionic by giving them Wild Talent for free. Perhaps not at first level.
5) They already have Wisdom to AC, consider applying the extra bonus to AC that monks accrue.

 

[Captain Trek]

Hey Stream, my DM for the Pathfinder game still wants Tumble to run against the monster's CMD so that my character doesn't hit a point where she can dust her hands and go, "Right... Well, I don't need to put any more ranks into THAT skill...", so do you think the tumbling thing would be alright if we Implimented Blargney's suggestion? Note that I'm almost certain to take Skill Focus (Acrobatics) at some point and also buy some Boots of Striding and Springing...

Also, if that wouldn't be enough, what if we also flipped the size modifiers to CMD on their head just for the purpose of tumbling (so a collossal creature would have -8 instead of +8, for example)? We figure it doesn't make sense for a bigger creature to have an easier time swatting at a tumbling character, so my DM would be willing to do that if it balanced things out for my Swordsage's tumbling prospects...

 

[Epametheus]

The real killer on Tumble is the +10 to DC to use it while moving at full speed. If you have skill focus + an item, you'll have a decent bonus. How much you have to put yourself at risk is going to depend on what your party is like.

I'd suggest looking at rogue talents for some inspiration for sage discoveries/tricks/whatever the heck the proper term is.

Also, talk to your DM about White Raven Tactics. He's going to wind up really unhappy if he allows the thing to work as written. One version of it we've tried was to make it an initiative swap you performed at the start of your turn. Another version was that it let transfer your remianing actions for the round to the target PC. That worked out alright.

 

[SteelDraco]

I actually love the idea of using the size modifier as a penalty rather than a bonus against Acrobatics DCs, but I'm not sure it'd be worth it to have multiple entries for CMD for monsters. It's certainly something I've considered for when I get back to running Pathfinder.