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View Full Version : [3.5 Tome of Battle] Insightful Strike: Worth it?



AslanCross
2009-02-15, 08:16 AM
I'm talking about the 3rd-level Diamond Mind maneuver, not the Swashbuckler class feature or the Swordsage Discipline Focus feature.

I'm not really sure how good Insightful Strike and Greater Insightful Strike are. Dealing damage = my Concentration check seems easy enough to optimize, but ignores all of the easy damage I can get onto my weapon as well. Does anyone have any experience using this maneuver?

Saph
2009-02-15, 08:34 AM
Remember that Insightful Strike replaces the damage roll completely. This means that the weapon's original damage rating stops mattering, which means that anything can now be a lethal weapon. Daggers, clubs, unarmed strikes, needles, paperclips, small books - whatever you can think of, you can kill someone with it.

After all, in D&D, everyone and his dog can do lots of damage in melee by using a big weapon. But killing someone with a sheet of paper, now that's impressive. :)

As for practical uses:

• Recovering from a disarm: "Haha, I've removed your huge sword! Now your only weapon is a spiked gauntlet aargh."
• Fighting in a grapple: Who cares that you can't use your primary weapon?
• Fighting with no equipment whatsoever: "Wanna see a magic trick? I can make this pencil disappear."

- Saph

The Mormegil
2009-02-15, 08:46 AM
Remember that Insightful Strike replaces the damage roll completely. This means that the weapon's original damage rating stops mattering, which means that anything can now be a lethal weapon. Daggers, clubs, unarmed strikes, needles, paperclips, small books - whatever you can think of, you can kill someone with it.

After all, in D&D, everyone and his dog can do lots of damage in melee by using a big weapon. But killing someone with a sheet of paper, now that's impressive. :)

As for practical uses:

• Recovering from a disarm: "Haha, I've removed your huge sword! Now your only weapon is a spiked gauntlet aargh."
• Fighting in a grapple: Who cares that you can't use your primary weapon?
• Fighting with no equipment whatsoever: "Wanna see a magic trick? I can make this pencil disappear."

- Saph

Now THIS is GREAT!

Thrawn183
2009-02-15, 09:09 AM
It also allows for the generation of completely different character concepts. Imagin a gnome that has been permanently reduced to being tiny walks up to you in full plate while carrying a rapier. You think to yourself, ah but my heavy fortification armor protects me from precision damage, and there is no way this guy has enough strength to hit hard or afford to power attack. Then he stabs the ever-loving bajeesus out of you. I mean really running you through up to the hilt of his blade.

Okay, so maybe that's how I would describe the greater insightful strike being used, but still. The great thing about these is that they scale wonderfully with level (you just keep putting ranks in and buying magic items to boost your concentration check) and they allow low strength characters to have a limited option for dealing damage. Now, if you have a high str, large weapon wielding type guy, you might want to consider the nightmare blade line as an alternative because your damage output might be greater.

Epinephrine
2009-02-15, 09:10 AM
It deals pretty solid damage, too. A +concentration item is easy enough to get, and having a big Con score is nice.

In my case, as a scout 8/swordsage 1, it can allow decent damage delivery when precision damage isn't possible (and in fact, even at 9th level with no concentration boosting items, 1d20+14 is pretty decent damage, easily beating my weapon +4d6 skirmish, though it won't keep up with a skirmished maneuver).

ZeroNumerous
2009-02-15, 09:18 AM
Insightful Strike and Mountain Hammer combine to make it impossible for you to be imprisoned. Your fists destroy objects regardless of their hardness, and you can very easily kill people with just your fists using Insightful Strike. It's hilariously fun at low levels.

hamishspence
2009-02-15, 10:25 AM
"I'll kill you with my teacup" Riddick. Very appropiate.

Epinephrine
2009-02-15, 11:15 AM
Insightful Strike and Mountain Hammer combine to make it impossible for you to be imprisoned. Your fists destroy objects regardless of their hardness, and you can very easily kill people with just your fists using Insightful Strike. It's hilariously fun at low levels.

This is though subject to DM fiat -

Ineffective Weapons: The DM may
determine that certain weapons just
can’t effectively deal damage to certain
objects. For example, you may have a
hard time chopping down a door by
shooting arrows at it or cutting a robe
with a club.

In order to prevent Mountain Hammer being a 3rd level "I can go through anything" ability, I rule that you need an appropriate weapon. Fists can break boards, thin walls, etc, but you're not busting through foot thick quarried rock, steel bars, or smashing through 5' of dungeon wall with them.

kjones
2009-02-15, 12:42 PM
This is though subject to DM fiat -


In order to prevent Mountain Hammer being a 3rd level "I can go through anything" ability, I rule that you need an appropriate weapon. Fists can break boards, thin walls, etc, but you're not busting through foot thick quarried rock, steel bars, or smashing through 5' of dungeon wall with them.

I took the exact opposite approach - I let the warblade Mountain Hammer his way through a cavern wall.

(What? It was awesome!)

If you want to be reasonable about it, just say that he takes damage. (I once punched a locker and shredded my knuckles something fierce. I imagine punching your way through a wall would hurt).

Draz74
2009-02-15, 12:55 PM
I'm talking about the 3rd-level Diamond Mind maneuver, not the Swashbuckler class feature or the Swordsage Discipline Focus feature.

I'm not really sure how good Insightful Strike and Greater Insightful Strike are. Dealing damage = my Concentration check seems easy enough to optimize, but ignores all of the easy damage I can get onto my weapon as well. Does anyone have any experience using this maneuver?

Strange weapon options aside, yes, these maneuvers rock. Definitely a good choice for any martial adept who has managed to spend enough skill points on Concentration.

kjones
2009-02-15, 02:34 PM
And ranks in Concentration are worth it for any martial adept: see Moment of Perfect Mind.

(Then again, I love Diamond Mind - YMMV.)

AslanCross
2009-02-15, 05:30 PM
And ranks in Concentration are worth it for any martial adept: see Moment of Perfect Mind.

(Then again, I love Diamond Mind - YMMV.)

So do I. Moment of Perfect Mind is the primary reason I always max out Concentration ranks on my Martial Adepts.

Thanks for the answers, guys. This'll work really well with a concept I was working on.

I also remembered that the Concentration check maneuvers synergize well with Psionic focus.

Keld Denar
2009-02-15, 07:07 PM
Check out MIC. It has the Tunic of Steady Concentration for about 3k gold. It gives you +5 compentance bonus. If you really want to spend, you can drop 10k gold on a Third Eye Concentrate for a +10 competance. Unfortunately, you can't use both, since competance bonuses never stack.

Swooper
2009-02-15, 08:08 PM
I also remembered that the Concentration check maneuvers synergize well with Psionic focus.
Which is the reason why Psion//Warblade is my favourite gestalt combo :smallbiggrin:

Lycar
2009-02-16, 05:37 PM
Oh, Insightful Strike is neat.

Ever heard of Ijatsu Focus? I think it's from Oriental Adventures or something.
As far as I know it is a skill. You roll on it, and if you beat certain DCs, you get a bonus on the damage on your first strike in combat (it is supposed to be the art of combining drawing your sword and cutting your enemy in one move).

Enter Insightful Strike: You do really need to have initiative to pull it off. Plus you kinda need either Quickdraw or one of those nifty Least Weapon Crystals of Return (which allow drawing the weapon as a free action).

Now, consider your Samurai fighter type wins ini and declares a ready action to draw and execute Insightful Strike as soon as an enemy gets into range. Works especially well for duels.

Ok, you can't one-shot a challenging opponent that way. But the history is full of stories of master swordsmen who were challenged to duels by lesser fighters and promptly cut them down with the first strike.

Consider that one of the 10% or so of 'easy' encounters PCs are supposed to have. :smallbiggrin:

Also, if your encounter is of the challenging variety because of number, rather then toughness of the individual monsters, this should allow you a fair chance to one-shot the first enemy who charges.

Combine with a taunt to challenge the leader of the enemy formation and after you get that nice circumstance bonus to intimidate, win a diplomatic victory by politely telling the survivors to go away and live, or stay and die. :smallamused:

Of course that requires the GM to play along. :smallconfused:

Lycar

Irreverent Fool
2009-02-16, 05:48 PM
Insightful Strike and Greater Insightful Strike are great for reasons mentioned above. They are also great for making shields usable by a dedicated melee fighter. As most people (around here) are likely to tell you, the armor gained from shield usage is not usually worth giving up the ridiculousness of the two-handed power attack unless you are building a high-AC character, at which point the enemies will just simply avoid you and go eat your lower-AC companions.

I once played a Diamond Mind focused Warblade Mongrelfolk (Races of Destiny, +4 Con bonus). I took exotic weapon proficiency: Bastard Sword and made ample use of both a tower shield and the Emerald Razor + 2h power attack combo (by dropping the shield as needed). It was great fun.

The most memorable part of that campaign was when our War Weaver polymorphed the party into rats and I dealt something like 50 points of damage with an Insightful Strike while a rat. Hilarity and Monty Python references ensued. I highly recommend it.

Edit: and yes, it is very very helpful in grapples.

Edit: Regarding Iaijutsu: You cannot add additional damage to an Insightful Strike. The description is pretty explicit about this.

obnoxious
sig

Eldariel
2009-02-16, 05:53 PM
Ever heard of Ijatsu Focus? I think it's from Oriental Adventures or something.
As far as I know it is a skill. You roll on it, and if you beat certain DCs, you get a bonus on the damage on your first strike in combat (it is supposed to be the art of combining drawing your sword and cutting your enemy in one move).

Here's how Iaijutsu Focus works outside Iaijutsu Duels:
If you make an attack against a flat-footed opponent immediately after drawing a melee weapon, you get bonus depending on your Iaijutsu Focus-check. It's a Cha-based skill and the result of 10-14 gives +1d6 to damage (for minimum benefit) and it scales up to 50+, which gives +9d6 to damage.

Formal Iaijutsu Duels use Iaijutsu Focus for Initiative and opposed Iaijutsu Focus-checks to determine who gains bonus damage. Requires both participants to agree on one.


The skill is from Oriental Adventures and is 3.0, but it's perfectly usable in 3.5 like all 3.0 material that hasn't specifically been reprinted or changed later on. Oriental Adventures is handy for skills in general as it also has Extreme Tumbling like that DC 40 check to take a 10' step (awesome additional use for it IMHO) and additional defense bonuses for every 10 ranks beyond 5 ranks you have in the skill. Great book IMHO, even if you use the material outside Rokugan (much of it works just fine; OA Samurai is a playable class unlike CW Samurai, and actually has interesting abilities).

Person_Man
2009-02-16, 05:56 PM
A Con SAD build is ridiculously hard to come by. You're pretty much limited to Wildshape Ranger or Totemist. Diamond Mind runs off of Concentration, so you could theoretically have a Con SAD build that runs off of it.

Keld Denar
2009-02-16, 06:07 PM
A Con SAD build is ridiculously hard to come by. You're pretty much limited to Wildshape Ranger or Totemist. Diamond Mind runs off of Concentration, so you could theoretically have a Con SAD build that runs off of it.

LRN2DragonfireAdept?

Sure, cha is a secondary ability, but if you take mostly Invocations that are buffs or don't allow saves, you could get by with a 10 Cha or so. Other than that? Str? Not needed. Dex? Not really needed. Int? Not really needed. Wis? Nope, not this either. Con SAD.

kjones
2009-02-16, 07:54 PM
The thing is, you don't need ridiculous Constitution in order to pull this off. You'll want a decent Con score anyway, as a melee frontliner, but with max ranks + an item, another +something from a stat bonus won't make a huge difference.

Consider: Level 10 Warblade with 12 Con, max ranks, and that cloak Keld Dener mentioned = 1 + 13 + 5 = +19 concentration check

Same guy with 20 Con: +23 Concentration check

Not a huge difference.

Lycar
2009-02-17, 03:15 PM
Edit: Regarding Iaijutsu: You cannot add additional damage to an Insightful Strike. The description is pretty explicit about this.

obnoxious
sig

Oh maybe I should have worded that better. I didn't mean to add Ijatsu Focus and Insightful Strike, but to use the latter to replace/represent the former.

For example if OA material is out but ToB is in. Or if you just don't want to spend skillpoints on such an obscure skill. :smallwink:

Lycar

Person_Man
2009-02-18, 03:04 PM
LRN2DragonfireAdept?

Sure, cha is a secondary ability, but if you take mostly Invocations that are buffs or don't allow saves, you could get by with a 10 Cha or so. Other than that? Str? Not needed. Dex? Not really needed. Int? Not really needed. Wis? Nope, not this either. Con SAD.

Point conceded. So I guess the list of Con SAD builds is Totemist, Wildshape Ranger 5+, Druid 5 + (who ignores his spellcasting ability), Diamond Mind focused ToB builds (who ignore their Int or Wis related class abilities), and Dragonfire Adept (who only uses buff and no Save Invocations).

I think kjones has hit upon an important point - you really don't need high Con for Insightful Strike to work well, it just helps. In fact, a Warblade or Swordsage using smart tactics and good equipment choices could probably get by with attributes of all 10's.

MammonAzrael
2009-02-18, 03:24 PM
In fact, a Warblade or Swordsage using smart tactics and good equipment choices could probably get by with attributes of all 10's.

12 point buy FTW? :smalltongue:

I agree that Con is nice for the Insightful Strikes, but hardly necessary. They're a great non-PA way to deal good damage, and can be boosted by items instead of feats.

And you can pick up Insightful Strike on a dedicated caster since it doesn't have any prereqs, in case he needs to hit something hard. :smallbiggrin:

KIDS
2009-02-19, 08:25 AM
• Fighting with no equipment whatsoever: "Wanna see a magic trick? I can make this pencil disappear."

WIN!

I have to use Insightful strike for that sometimes. Provided that I manage to ever get the book approved at the board where I play, the people there can be incredibly conservative sometimes (not to use a worse word)..

Back on topic, Insightful strike seems just fine to me. On average, it will be about equal to a weapon, maybe with a higher minimum damage since ranks scale a bit faster than weapon dice or enhancements. I've seen some ways to monstrously optimize concentration and abuse it, but barring those it seems very balanced to me.

Eldariel
2009-02-19, 08:41 AM
Point conceded. So I guess the list of Con SAD builds is Totemist, Wildshape Ranger 5+, Druid 5 + (who ignores his spellcasting ability), Diamond Mind focused ToB builds (who ignore their Int or Wis related class abilities), and Dragonfire Adept (who only uses buff and no Save Invocations).

Out of those Totemist & Diamond Mind ToB both need non-Con stat for offense, and same goes for Wildshape (of course, they get the non-Con stats FROM Wildshape so it's a moot point). Only Dragonfire Adept can truly derive everything of relevance off his Con (and be really Con-SAD in that sense).

Of course, even DFA would really, really want some Dex for AC early on; d8 HD and 22 Con (Dragonborn Dwarf) is nice and all, but on level 1 that's still only 14 HP, meaning two good arrows (or one critical arrow) are enough to knock him out. A two-level dip in Deepwarden would trivialize that, naturally (at that point with Steadfast Determiantion, everything except ref truly goes off Con). Then again, that dip is untakeable before level 10. So bleh.

Dyllan
2009-02-19, 08:47 AM
Two words: Item Familiar

tyckspoon
2009-02-19, 10:14 AM
Out of those Totemist & Diamond Mind ToB both need non-Con stat for offense, and same goes for Wildshape (of course, they get the non-Con stats FROM Wildshape so it's a moot point). Only Dragonfire Adept can truly derive everything of relevance off his Con (and be really Con-SAD in that sense).


Totemist soulmeld DCs are derived from Con. It would want Str to do the more typical natural-weapons melee assault build, but for Con-only you could end up with something rather similar to a Dragonfire Adept. Or go natural weapons *anyway* and use soulmeld binds to get bonus damage to cover your weak base damage rolls.

Darth Stabber
2009-02-19, 01:36 PM
Mountain Hammer is nearly always worth it. I was DMing a naval encounter once, and a player tied himself to a ballista bolt that was connected by rope to the his ship, fired himself at the enemy ship and mountain hammered himself inside the ship, then mountain hammered the bottom of the boat repeatedly. Ruined the encounter in short order, but I had to give him bonus xp for style and panache. I've had several players over the years that ruined difficult encounters in ways i never could have expected through creative lateral thinking, and I can't justify railroading after a crowning moment of awesome like that.