Enix18
2010-06-18, 10:55 PM
So, I've been trying to get a friend of mine to try D&D, and while they finally agreed they happened to decide that Swordsage was the class that most appealed to them. I've been trying to make the game seem as simple as possible for their first time playing, but this class choice has raised a minor issue. They don't quite to like the idea of having a whole list of special powers but only being able to chose a handful of them to actually use, and so I want to find a way to fix that. The easiest and most sensible solution I can think of: the Spontaneous Swordsage.
You know... Wizard is to Sorcerer as Swordsage is to Spontaneous Swordsage!
Basically, the idea is to eliminate the preparatory element. The Spontaneous Swordsage would have a specific list of martial maneuvers that are all prepared automatically, and it would use these just as a normal Swordsage does. I was thinking that such a character should have a smaller number of maneuvers know, but also a larger number of maneuvers readied to make up for the lack of flexibility.
Right now, at level 1, I'm giving the player 5 maneuvers. Normally, a Swordsage of 1st level has 6 known and 4 readied, so this seems like a fairly easy and not too unbalancing solution. However, I'm unsure of how to continue from this point onward. As a normal Swordsage levels up, the gaps between maneuvers known and readied widens, making attempts to find the right number increasingly more difficult. I was hoping you folks might have some suggestions on how best to balance this.
Here's what I was thinking for the first few levels: (I don't actually expect this campaign to go beyond level 6 or 8, though it might...)
{table]Level|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th
Normal Known|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13
Normal Readied|4|4|5|5|6|6|6|7
New Maneuvers|5|5|6|7|7|8|8|9[/table]
So... any thoughts? Am I on the right track, or am I overpowering this class?
— Enix18
You know... Wizard is to Sorcerer as Swordsage is to Spontaneous Swordsage!
Basically, the idea is to eliminate the preparatory element. The Spontaneous Swordsage would have a specific list of martial maneuvers that are all prepared automatically, and it would use these just as a normal Swordsage does. I was thinking that such a character should have a smaller number of maneuvers know, but also a larger number of maneuvers readied to make up for the lack of flexibility.
Right now, at level 1, I'm giving the player 5 maneuvers. Normally, a Swordsage of 1st level has 6 known and 4 readied, so this seems like a fairly easy and not too unbalancing solution. However, I'm unsure of how to continue from this point onward. As a normal Swordsage levels up, the gaps between maneuvers known and readied widens, making attempts to find the right number increasingly more difficult. I was hoping you folks might have some suggestions on how best to balance this.
Here's what I was thinking for the first few levels: (I don't actually expect this campaign to go beyond level 6 or 8, though it might...)
{table]Level|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th
Normal Known|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13
Normal Readied|4|4|5|5|6|6|6|7
New Maneuvers|5|5|6|7|7|8|8|9[/table]
So... any thoughts? Am I on the right track, or am I overpowering this class?
— Enix18