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Shadowleaf
2010-06-08, 05:42 PM
Hi there. As I have recently gotten my filthy hands on ToB, I'm trying out the new classes.
This has let me to rolling up a Warblade for the P&P game Assassins versus Bodyguards, and I'm having some difficulties finishing the character.

Limitations:
ECL: 6.
Race: Warforged
Stats: 32 point buy

My current ideas are:

Stats:
Strength 18
Dexterity 8
Constiution 18 (+2 Warforged)
Intelligence 14
Wisdom 6 (-2 Warforged)
Charisma 6 (-2 Warforged).

Feats:
Adamantine Body
Extra Maneuver feats.

I'm not looking for extreme cheese, but pointers/build help to make it a decently powerful character. My opponents might very well be tier 2-ish or low tier 1 strength-wise.

Draz74
2010-06-08, 05:58 PM
Yeesh, those are some terrible Wisdom and Charisma scores. You're apparently not trying to do any fear-based (Intimidate) tricks? And not worried about Will saves? If you have any worry at all about Will saves, take Moment of Perfect mind for sure.

Combat Reflexes is still one of the best feats around, but only with a much better Dexterity score. On the whole, I'm not sure your 18 Strength is worth it.

Full ToB characters don't generally need to spend feats on Martial Study or Martial Stance. Extra Readied Maneuver and Extra Granted Maneuver are better, but neither works for Warblades. The best maneuver-related feat for Warblades is Adaptive Style, but even that's quite optional. Mostly, you just want to pick feats that would be strong options for Fighters. Power Attack and Shock Trooper come to mind.

AslanCross
2010-06-08, 06:00 PM
That's a pretty decent build, though I wouldn't dump Dex. The good thing about a Warforged Warblade taking Adamantine Body is that it circumvents the Warblade's lack of heavy armor prof. A good deal overall.

What kind of maneuvers are you planning on taking? I typically take Diamond Mind and Emerald Razor, and combine that with Power Attack. Maxed-out Power Attacks have a good chance of hitting thanks to Emerald Razor.

Oh yeah: Take Moment of Perfect Mind and Iron Heart Surge later, because you're going to fail a lot of saves otherwise.

Shadowleaf
2010-06-08, 06:13 PM
Okay, changed ability scores to:

Strength 16
Dexterity 12
Constitution 18
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 12
Charisma 6

Not touching Intimidate at all.

I don't know much about maneuvers, other than what I skimmed through half an hour ago. Which is exactly why I need some help. :smallwink:

Runestar
2010-06-08, 06:14 PM
Seems overly expensive to pump str, I would funnel some points into dex.

When you say limitations, so you mean like E6 or something? If so, consider something more fancy than warblade6, such as crusader1/dragon shaman1/warblade1/crusader+3 (or alternatively, swap the warblade and crusader lvs).

Or try here for more inspiration.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6726.0

Shadowleaf
2010-06-08, 06:15 PM
When you say limitations, so you mean like E6 or something? If so, consider something more fancy than warblade6, such as crusader1/dragon shaman1/warblade1/crusader+3 (or alternatively, swap the warblade and crusader lvs).

Limitations is exactly what is written up there. Not E6 but ECL6.

It was just to avoid the wasted efforts of someone posting an ECL 20 build, for example.

Edit: How does Multiclassing between the ToB classes work? Say Crusader 1/Warblade 5?

Reynard
2010-06-08, 06:41 PM
Their maneuvers known/readied are kept separate.

Shadowleaf
2010-06-08, 06:56 PM
It got a bit too complicated for me.

How is this:

Warforged Warblade 6

Ability Scores:
Strength 16
Dexterity 12
Constitution 18
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 10
Charisma 6

Feats:
1st: Adamantine Body
F: Improved Initiative
F: Adaptive Style
3rd: Power Attack
Bonus: Shock Trooper
6th: Leap Attack

Maneuvers:
Moment of Perfect Mind
Steel Wind
Sudden Leap
Emerald Razor
Iron Heart Surge
Action Before Thought

Stances:
Leaping Dragon Stance
Thicket of Blades

gdiddy
2010-06-08, 07:14 PM
Okay, changed ability scores to:

Strength 16
Dexterity 12
Constitution 18
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 12
Charisma 6

Not touching Intimidate at all.

I don't know much about maneuvers, other than what I skimmed through half an hour ago. Which is exactly why I need some help. :smallwink:

How to do Maneuvers:

Maneuvers are once-per-encounter powers that usually revolve around melee attacks.

They are divided into three types: Strikes, which usually take a standard action and modify a melee attack; Boosts, which buff you and usually take a swift action; and Counters, which are responsive maneuvers that do not usually take place on your turn and use immediate actions, unless specified otherwise.

Every class has different maneuver mechanics. As a consensus, Warblade is considered the most well-constructed as far as its maneuver mechanics, so I'll run through them.

A warblade knows a certain number of maneuvers, but can only have about half of them readied at any point. At any point in the day, even with no sleep and hungover, the Warblade can set his readied maneuvers with five minutes of exercise and mental preparation.

Then he's set. Maneuvers are ready the second he decides to beat on someone.

When initiated, a maneuver is expended. At any point, a Warblade can expend a swift action, as long as he initiates no maneuver this turn and only either makes a single move or a single attack, renew all his maneuvers (Read that until it makes sense. Use a swift action, only move or standard attack, then renewed.). For some powerful maneuvers, this can turn a Warblade's strategy into a series of Maneuver -> Renew -> Maneuver -> Renew, but a DM should shut that down with enemies that get savvy.

Initiator Level is the level a martial adept has for the purpose of learning maneuvers. IL determines the maximum level of maneuver he can learn. See the book for details, as I'm not going to replicate a table of (c) material here.

Maneuvers are divided into schools, but they aren't exclusive. A warblade can choose maneuvers from any warblade school, as long as he meets requirements for the maneuver.

Eldariel
2010-06-08, 07:50 PM
Early on I actually prefer Rabid Wolf Strike for PA; +4 will get you by and you get some nice damage bonus out of the deal. AC penalty is AC penalty, but meh. You have Wall of Blades at least.

I'd also pick a charge maneuver; Battle Leader's Charge is quite good on those levels. Not provoking while charging is a huge benefit in some scenarios, and the bonus damage doesn't hurt either.

Other than that, Steel Wind is a great all-rounder though gets obsoleted on level 7 by Mithril Tornado and becomes a tad worse on 6 due to the second iterative kicking in. Sudden Leap is excellent and Wolf Fang Strike can be nice with e.g. Unarmed Strike secondary. Moment of Perfect Mind is key and Charging Minotaur/Stone Bones can be good in the right build. You'll probably want Mountain Hammer for can opening purposes.


Stances, I'd have:
- Punishing Stance or Leading the Charge for damage; Punishing is a better all-rounder, Leading does more when it works and scales better.
- Hunter's Sense; extra detection mode is great.

Stance of Clarity is decent against single toughies (not so much in larger fights) and Blood in the Water is good for critmonger multi-attack builds, but I wouldn't pick them with general Warblade chassis, and Bolstering Voice is more for an army leader.


Oh, and if I didn't make it clear yet, you want Power Attack the feat. Combat Expertise > Improved Trip > Knock-Down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown) is decent too (you can't actively initiate combat maneuvers while performing a martial strike, but a passive effect like Knock-Down should trigger just fine) and Ironheart Aura > Stromguard Warrior has some uses. Just as options.

Obviously charger-line feats (Improved Bull Rush > Shock Trooper) are great on a Warblade too. Overall, there are tons of options, but relatively few feats so pick carefully. As for the bonus feat, Ironheart Aura (as a prereq), Improved Initiative & Combat Reflexes are quite good, and e.g. Quick Draw can be useful in some builds.

Darrin
2010-06-08, 08:51 PM
Feats:
1st: Adamantine Body
F: Improved Initiative
F: Adaptive Style


Warblades recover maneuvers fairly quickly. Most of 'em have no need for Adaptive style, particularly at lower levels. Later, when you have more maneuvers and need to re-ready for something you didn't anticipate, it might be useful, but it's not really a *must have* feat unless you're a Swordsage.



3rd: Power Attack
Bonus: Shock Trooper
6th: Leap Attack


Warblade bonus feats are more restrictive than fighter bonus feats, and Shock Trooper isn't one of the options. Improved Initiative, however, is a Warblade bonus feat, so I would suggest taking that at 5th level. Your 1st and 3rd feats would probably work better as Power Attack and Improved Bull Rush (required for Shock Trooper). You qualify for both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack at level 6, but unfortunately you can only pick one (unless you want to dip a fighter level there). My recommendation would be take Shock Trooper at 6th and wait for Leap Attack until 9th level.



Maneuvers:
Moment of Perfect Mind
Steel Wind
Sudden Leap
Emerald Razor
Iron Heart Surge
Action Before Thought


No real arguments here, all pretty solid choices. I'm a big fan of Mountain Hammer, however... *never leave home without it*. Too many uses, both in combat and particularly out of combat.



Stances:
Leaping Dragon Stance
Thicket of Blades

Your first stance has to be a level 1 stance, and Thicket of Blades isn't available to Warblades unless you multiclass into Crusader or take Martial Study + Martial Stance.

As Eldariel points out, the two most important stances for Warblades are Punishing Stance and Leading the Charge. It's good to have both, but if you have to pick one over the other, take Punishing Stance (unless you want an Ubercharger build, and it looks like you're headed that direction). You'll spend 95% of your time in Punishing Stance, but while Leading the Charge is only useful for charges, the damage scales up as your Initiator Level increases.

Blood in the Water I'm not so fond of, since it relies on crits, and those don't happen often enough unless you specifically design your build around high-crit weapons. Hunter's Sense... ok, scent can be useful on occasion, but if I'm dealing with invisible opponents I rely on equipment such as flour pouches and torchbug paste.

balistafreak
2010-06-08, 08:54 PM
If so, consider something more fancy than warblade6, such as crusader1/dragon shaman1/warblade1/crusader+3 (or alternatively, swap the warblade and crusader lvs).

Curious as to what the one level of Dragon Shaman is for - is the rotation-trio of Initiative/DR/Vigor really worth the dip, or am I missing something here?

Draz74
2010-06-08, 09:21 PM
How to do Maneuvers:
At any point, a Warblade can expend a swift action, as long as he initiates no maneuver this turn and only either makes a single move or a single attack, renew all his maneuvers (Read that until it makes sense. Use a swift action, only move or standard attack, then renewed.).

Nope, that's a frustratingly common misperception. There's nothing wrong with the Warblade using a swift action to recover his maneuvers, then spending the rest of his turn making a full attack.


As Eldariel points out, the two most important stances for Warblades are Punishing Stance and Leading the Charge. It's good to have both, but if you have to pick one over the other, take Punishing Stance (unless you want an Ubercharger build, and it looks like you're headed that direction). You'll spend 95% of your time in Punishing Stance, but while Leading the Charge is only useful for charges, the damage scales up as your Initiator Level increases.

Depends on party composition, really. If there's a couple other melee warriors in the party who will be Charging reasonably often, then Leading the Charge becomes way better than Punishing Stance.

Chen
2010-06-09, 08:11 AM
Maneuvers:
Moment of Perfect Mind
Steel Wind
Sudden Leap
Emerald Razor
Iron Heart Surge
Action Before Thought

Stances:
Leaping Dragon Stance
Thicket of Blades

Wall of Blades is a good Maneuver to have IMO. Sudden Leap has a pre-req of another Tiger maneuver. I'm not sure if you can get around this by taking it as a replacement maneuver at 4 or 6 (assuming you had another Tiger maneuver to replace). Also as stated Thicket of Blades is Devoted Spirit which you do not have access to. If you haven't house-ruled the Warblade stance at 4, I'd go with Punishing stance and the charging one IMO. If you can push the stance to 5 I'd suggest either the DR stance from Stone Dragon (good if there's a lot of grappling monsters) or possibly Pearl of Black Doubt.

Runestar
2010-06-09, 08:23 AM
I'm not sure if you can get around this by taking it as a replacement maneuver at 4 or 6 (assuming you had another Tiger maneuver to replace).

It should work. Take wolf tiger fang and sudden leap at 1st lv, then swap out wtf for a 2nd lv tiger claw strike at 4th lv.

Person_Man
2010-06-09, 09:41 AM
I would add that when I play ToB builds I generally avoid the hackneyed Power Attack feat tree (Power Attack -> Imp Bull Rush -> Shock Trooper -> Leap Attack -> things that multiply damage) in favor of some other combo (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026). You'll get plenty of bonus damage from your maneuvers and stances. If you put ubercharge on top of it, you quickly reach the point where DMs breaks out the Fiendish Half-Dragon Warhulk Wartrolls to compensate.

Greenish
2010-06-09, 09:55 AM
I would add that when I play ToB builds I generally avoid the hackneyed Power Attack feat tree (Power Attack -> Imp Bull Rush -> Shock Trooper -> Leap Attack -> things that multiply damage) in favor of some other combo (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026). You'll get plenty of bonus damage from your maneuvers and stances. If you put ubercharge on top of it, you quickly reach the point where DMs breaks out the Fiendish Half-Dragon Warhulk Wartrolls to compensate.Trippy tripper sounds decent for a Bodyguard (without knowing anything about B vs. A).

Let's see, attributes: STR: 16 DEX: 14 CON: 16 INT: 14 WIS: 10 CHA: 6
(Or Wis 8, Cha 8)

Feats:
1: Adamantine Body, Combat Expertise (flaw), Improved Trip (flaw)
3: Knock-Down
5: Combat Reflexes (warblade bonus)
6: Karmic Strike/Hold the Line

Chen
2010-06-09, 10:45 AM
It should work. Take wolf tiger fang and sudden leap at 1st lv, then swap out wtf for a 2nd lv tiger claw strike at 4th lv.

I meant something that ends you up with ONLY Sudden leap. I don't recall where I was reading it but the Pre-reqs don't actually specify ANOTHER Tiger Claw maneuver. Once you have Sudden Leap it fulfills its own pre-req from a literal reading of it (IIRC). If thats true you could take 2 at first level, then swap out the other one without needing to swap it to a Tiger Claw maneuver.

Since his list has 2 level 2 maneuvers and 1 level 3 maneuver I think he used up his switch at 4 and 6 though (or do you get a level 2 maneuver at 3?)

Draz74
2010-06-09, 11:39 AM
Once you have Sudden Leap it fulfills its own pre-req from a literal reading of it (IIRC).

This is another annoying misperception that keeps popping up. It's not that Sudden Leap "fulfills its own prerequisite"; it's that, after you learn it, the game mechanics simply don't care whether you have its Prerequisite anymore.

Semantics, mostly. Point is, yes, it's fine to learn Wolf Fang Strike, then Sudden Leap, then swap out Wolf Fang Strike. (But it can be an important distinction. It means you can learn Swooping Dragon Strike, then swap out all three lower-level Tiger Claw maneuvers that served as its prerequisites; and still use the higher-level maneuver just fine.)

Runestar
2010-06-09, 05:58 PM
It's not that Sudden Leap "fulfills its own prerequisite"; it's that, after you learn it, the game mechanics simply don't care whether you have its Prerequisite anymore.


Where are you getting this interpretation? If that was the case, couldn't I use maneuver-granting items or heroics spell to help me qualify for higher-tier ones? :smallfrown:

I accept that sudden leap can qualify for itself (retracting my earlier post, I overlooked that part entirely), but doing away with its requirements altogether?

Draz74
2010-06-09, 10:59 PM
Where are you getting this interpretation?
I honestly forget which exact words make this pretty clear, and whether they were in ToB itself or in the FAQ. But I know we discussed them on another thread just, like, a week ago. So my position is freshly affirmed and confident. :smallsmile: Unfortunately, the same can't be said for my Google-fu. :smallredface:

In any case, the rules text on prerequisites on p44 says nothing about needing to keep prerequisites after a maneuver is learned. I know that's a weak argument in itself (like the "I can still take actions when I'm dead" attempted loophole), but it's something.


If that was the case, couldn't I use maneuver-granting items or heroics spell to help me qualify for higher-tier ones? :smallfrown:
Maneuver-granting items, yes.

Heroics spell, it's up to the DM (since one can argue that it takes more than 10 minutes/level duration to learn a new maneuver). I would say "no," myself.

Darrin
2010-06-09, 11:11 PM
Where are you getting this interpretation? If that was the case, couldn't I use maneuver-granting items or heroics spell to help me qualify for higher-tier ones? :smallfrown:


That was from a CustServ ruling that has not been since contradicted/obfuscated/bungled by further CustServ or Sage rulings. Here's the text from one of the old WotC boards:



Q. All of the new base classes from Tome of Battle offer the option of swapping out an old maneuver to gain a new maneuver at certain levels.
What happens if, as a result of swapping out an old maneuver, I can no longer meet the pre-requisites for another stance or maneuver that I currently know? Suppose, for instance, that I currently only have the following 2 maneuvers/stances from the Iron Heart discipline: A) Absolute Steel, and B) Disarming Strike. Absolute Steel is a stance that has one Iron Heart maneuver as a pre-requisite. Disarming Strike currently fulfills that pre-requisite for me. Suppose I reach 4th level and decide to swap out Disarming Strike for another maneuver from a different discipline. I no longer meet the pre-requisites for the Absolute Steel stance. Am I still allowed to use the Absolute Steel stance? What if Absolute Steel were a maneuver instead of a stance; would I be allowed to use it?


A. Going with a strict interpretation of the rules, you would only need to have the appropriate number of maneuvers to meet a prerequisite when you needed to learn the maneuver, not if you wanted to use that maneuver later. So the character in question would still be able to use the Absolute Steel stance even though you have given up your only Iron Heart maneuver. So again, you only have to meet the prerequisites when you learn the maneuver or stance, not when you want to use ready or use it. I hope that clears things up.


As stated, it's about official as anything else CustServ has completely mangled, but most people accept this as RAI (Rules As Intended) that is not directly contradicted by any RAW.

Fcannon
2010-06-09, 11:24 PM
It seems like a valid reading. The "Prerequisite" section on ToB pg44 only mentions needing to meet prereqs to learn new maneuvers, not keep them. And from a fluff perspective-it makes sense that you need to be familiar with more basic Tiger Claw maneuvers before moving on to more advanced ones; if you no longer favor the simpler maneuvers (ie trade them out) theres no reason you should spontaneously forget the more advanced stuff.

Runestar
2010-06-10, 08:21 AM
Fair enough. Still seems to run counter to conventional dnd wisdom (largely because of the requirements for feats), but it seems there has been fair amount of debate about, and I can see where the posters are coming from. :smallsmile: