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Myou
2009-03-15, 05:18 PM
Preamble that may not interest you;

I'm running a 3.5 solo game (very high-powered), my player is a domain variant wizard (Aoi) and I'm running a TWF warblade DMPC with bonus feats as if he were a fighter (Lloyd) as his best friend/romantic interest.

At the moment they're at ECL 6 and Lloyd, is keeping up easily with Aoi, but next level Aoi will be able to take a homebrew PrC that blends a few of the best prestige classes (inantatrix, archmage, IotSFV, etc), so that coupled with the natural dominance of casters at higher levels means that I'm somewhat concerned that Lloyd will soon become useless.

So I'm hoping you guys can advise me on which feats/manuvers/stances Lloyd should take (I'd like to avoid multiclassing, but I've nothing against it if it'd realy help), since I really don't know anything about how to build/play ToB classes (although after running Lloyd for a few weeks I know that I love them ;D ) and melee in general isn't my area of expertise.

The build so far;


Human Warblade 6

Feats, not in any proper order;


Weapon Focus: Katana (1d12 damage, 18–20/×2 criticals, light weapons, weight 4 lbs, Slashing damage)
Two-Weapon Fighting
Weapon Specialisation: Katana
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Katana
Combat Reflexes
Adaptive Style
Improved Critical: Katana
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting


Manuvers, not in any proper order;


Moment of Perfect Mind
Steel Wind
Stone Bones
Leading The Attack
Emerald Razor
Bonecrusher


Stances;


Punishing stance
Blood In The Water


Relevant house rules;

1. Your Hit Dice always give maximum HP.

3. There is no massive damage rule.

4. You die at the half the additive inverse of your HP. If your HP is x you die at 0.5*-x.

7. No spell, ability or effect can kill automatically (such as Blasphemy/Sphere of Annihilation/vorpal enhancements), such effects are banned from the game.

19. Fighters get their bonus feats at the following class levels; 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-03-15, 11:31 PM
Well, I'm never a big fan of DMPC's, but if you were wanting him to do something cool, how about this:

If you get some more Tiger Claw maneuvers, you could easily slide into Bloodclaw Master at 6th level, which nets you a lot of cool TWF stuff. With Pouncing Strike (also a Tiger Claw maneuver), you also get full attack on a charge. Make sure he picks up Iron Heart Surge to shrug off practically any effect tossed at him.

Also, if you want a more martial-artsey kind of character, here's an idea:

take Improved Unarmed Strike, then Superior Unarmed Strike, then grab him a Monk's Belt and Improved Natural Attack. Congratulations, he's doing 1d10 on his unarmed attacks anyways, and this goes up quickly. Give him an Amulet of Natural Attacks +1 so he can actually affect things that have DR/Magic.

Or, if you just want a homebrew hand-wave, just give him the Unarmed Variant that the Swordsage gets... trade your armor proficencies for a monk's unarmed damage progression.

Remember, he's a Warblade. He has Adaptive Style, so he can use his Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical all on his unarmed attacks, so you don't waste any feats.

Then you can take Snap Kick, and get an extra attack on a full attack. Then pick up Rabid Mongoose boost which gives you an extra four hits on a full attack, which you can pull off on a charge... yea, you can easily be dishing out 12+ attacks in one round without NEEDING to rely on Time Stands Still (WITH Time Stands Still, it gets even sillier).

Myou
2009-03-16, 06:26 AM
Well, I'm never a big fan of DMPC's, but if you were wanting him to do something cool, how about this:

If you get some more Tiger Claw maneuvers, you could easily slide into Bloodclaw Master at 6th level, which nets you a lot of cool TWF stuff. With Pouncing Strike (also a Tiger Claw maneuver), you also get full attack on a charge. Make sure he picks up Iron Heart Surge to shrug off practically any effect tossed at him.

Also, if you want a more martial-artsey kind of character, here's an idea:

take Improved Unarmed Strike, then Superior Unarmed Strike, then grab him a Monk's Belt and Improved Natural Attack. Congratulations, he's doing 1d10 on his unarmed attacks anyways, and this goes up quickly. Give him an Amulet of Natural Attacks +1 so he can actually affect things that have DR/Magic.

Or, if you just want a homebrew hand-wave, just give him the Unarmed Variant that the Swordsage gets... trade your armor proficencies for a monk's unarmed damage progression.

Remember, he's a Warblade. He has Adaptive Style, so he can use his Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical all on his unarmed attacks, so you don't waste any feats.

Then you can take Snap Kick, and get an extra attack on a full attack. Then pick up Rabid Mongoose boost which gives you an extra four hits on a full attack, which you can pull off on a charge... yea, you can easily be dishing out 12+ attacks in one round without NEEDING to rely on Time Stands Still (WITH Time Stands Still, it gets even sillier).

I'm no a fan of the DMPC either, but a new player soloing with a wizard is just unfeasable, and it takes out any chance to roleplay a party.

Well, he's already 6th, so it would have to be 7th. It looks like a good PrC for TWF, but the Shifting ability seems useless, what's the point of getting an incredibly low damage, unenhanced claw attack that you can't full attack with? I just don't see how that's even remotely useful unless he somehow loses every other weapon he has. ><

As for the Monk's Belt route, he really needs to stick to swords as his primary weapon, it part of his character concept, good idea otherwise though.

Ah, Snap Kick plus Rabid (I think you mean Raging, right?) Mongoose boost sounds great, thanks! But Snap Kick needs IUS, is it still worth it if I only use it for Snap Kick?

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-03-16, 01:26 PM
I'm no a fan of the DMPC either, but a new player soloing with a wizard is just unfeasable, and it takes out any chance to roleplay a party.

Well, he's already 6th, so it would have to be 7th. It looks like a good PrC for TWF, but the Shifting ability seems useless, what's the point of getting an incredibly low damage, unenhanced claw attack that you can't full attack with? I just don't see how that's even remotely useful unless he somehow loses every other weapon he has. ><

As for the Monk's Belt route, he really needs to stick to swords as his primary weapon, it part of his character concept, good idea otherwise though.

Ah, Snap Kick plus Rabid (I think you mean Raging, right?) Mongoose boost sounds great, thanks! But Snap Kick needs IUS, is it still worth it if I only use it for Snap Kick?

Snap kick does unarmed damage, so pointless if you do not have decent unarmed attacks.

Bloodclaw Master is good for two things:

1) ignores TWF penalties
2) Full Strength modifier on damage to off-hand attacks.

The rest of it is fluff and flavor

Myou
2009-03-16, 05:21 PM
Snap kick does unarmed damage, so pointless if you do not have decent unarmed attacks.

Bloodclaw Master is good for two things:

1) ignores TWF penalties
2) Full Strength modifier on damage to off-hand attacks.

The rest of it is fluff and flavor

Well, that is certainly useful, it's just a shame that it has the wrong flavour. xD

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll think about it. :3

Any more advice is much appreciated.

Swooper
2009-03-16, 06:24 PM
Moment of Perfect Mind
Steel Wind
Stone Bones
Leading The Attack
Emerald Razor
Bonecrusher


Punishing stance
Blood In The Water

He doesn't qualify for the Blood in the Water stance - he needs at least one Tiger Claw manoeuvre to learn it. Easy to miss if you're new to ToB I guess. Unless he had Wolf Fang Strike at 1st level and switched it out for something else at 4th or 6th - a bit of a silly move if he's supposed to be a two weapon fighter since Wolf Fang Strike lets him attack with both weapons as a standard action.

I'd retcon him into a Tiger Claw build, it's the only way to go for a TWF Warblade. Shneekey had some excellent suggestions.

Myou
2009-03-17, 03:21 PM
He doesn't qualify for the Blood in the Water stance - he needs at least one Tiger Claw manoeuvre to learn it. Easy to miss if you're new to ToB I guess. Unless he had Wolf Fang Strike at 1st level and switched it out for something else at 4th or 6th - a bit of a silly move if he's supposed to be a two weapon fighter since Wolf Fang Strike lets him attack with both weapons as a standard action.

I'd retcon him into a Tiger Claw build, it's the only way to go for a TWF Warblade. Shneekey had some excellent suggestions.

I think actually, that he did originally have Wolf Fang Strke, but I swapped it our because I don't understand why it's good. ^^;

Perhaps you can educate me on that?

Arcane_Snowman
2009-03-17, 04:02 PM
I think actually, that he did originally have Wolf Fang Strke, but I swapped it our because I don't understand why it's good. ^^;

Perhaps you can educate me on that? normally, you only get a single attack on a standard action, Wolf Fang Strike gives you two (i.e one with both weapons)

Myou
2009-03-17, 04:12 PM
normally, you only get a single attack on a standard action, Wolf Fang Strike gives you two (i.e one with both weapons)

Yeah, but when a full attack gives me four or more I don't see the advantage, because you can't use it on a charge and a normal move provokes.

Or have I misunderstood the rules? D:

Arcane_Snowman
2009-03-17, 04:21 PM
Yeah, but when a full attack gives me four or more I don't see the advantage, because you can't use it on a charge and a normal move provokes.

Or have I misunderstood the rules? D: Charging is not always possible (difficult terrain, like entangle) so having a better average damage output, even with your standard actions is quite useful. Tumble takes care of normal movement and provoking.

Myou
2009-03-17, 04:26 PM
Charging is not always possible (difficult terrain, like entangle) so having a better average damage output, even with your standard actions is quite useful. Tumble takes care of normal movement and provoking.

Ahhh, thank you, I never thought of that. xD

So that's what I have max ranks in Tumble for. >.>;

Arcane_Snowman
2009-03-17, 04:51 PM
Ahhh, thank you, I never thought of that. xD

So that's what I have max ranks in Tumble for. >.>; You need to beat a DC 15 to tumble past a single enemy, so having a total of 15 is probably all you need.

The Rose Dragon
2009-03-17, 04:53 PM
You need to beat a DC 15 to tumble past a single enemy, so having a total of 15 is probably all you need.

14. You are guaranteed to roll at least 1.

Myou
2009-03-17, 04:59 PM
14. You are guaranteed to roll at least 1.

Unless you have a negative dexterity modifier. ;D