Tomb of Battle Martial Study/Multiclassing question

[Talbot]

I have two questions regarding initiator level/which maneuvers you can take.

1) If you take Martial Study for a discipline you don't have as a martial adept, can you then select more strikes from that discipline as you progress (i.e., does it effectively add the discipline to your class list?)? Or is it just the one?

2) Similarly, if you multiclass (let's say Swordsage 8/Warblade 2), and you take a White Raven maneuver on your Warblade level, could you continue taking White Raven maneuvers as a swordsage, or only as a Warblade?

[Morph Bark]

1. Just the one.

2. Nope, only as a Warblade. Just like if you take a Wizard level, then go further with previous Archivist levels, you can't suddenly take Wizard spells.

[Caphi]

I have two questions regarding initiator level/which maneuvers you can take.

1) If you take Martial Study for a discipline you don't have as a martial adept, can you then select more strikes from that discipline as you progress (i.e., does it effectively add the discipline to your class list?)? Or is it just the one?

2) Similarly, if you multiclass (let's say Swordsage 8/Warblade 2), and you take a White Raven maneuver on your Warblade level, could you continue taking White Raven maneuvers as a swordsage, or only as a Warblade?

No and no. RAW, you can't actually add disciplines to an adept class, though you can use Martial Study to add individual maneuvers.

[Muad'dib]

1. Just the one.

2. Nope, only as a Warblade. Just like if you take a Wizard level, then go further with previous Archivist levels, you can't suddenly take Wizard spells.

2. As a side note, unlike the wizard/archivist, your initiator level continues progressing at half the total of your other classes while multiclassing, so when you do go back to warblade or take martial study again you gain access to higher level maneuvers.

[Talbot]

Hmmm... That may make what I want to do borderline impossible, then. I wanted to do a Swashbuckler 3/Unarmed Swordsage X/Master of Nine 5 build that got all nine ninth level maneuvers while still having 16+ base attack at 20th level and room for three non-martial feats, but that may be impossible.

Closest I could come up with was Swashbuckler 3/Swordsage 4/Warblade 4/Shadow Sun Ninja 4/Master of Nine 5, but that only gets you an Initiator Level of 16 (although it does get it for both Warblade and Swordsage).

Any helpful ideas?

EDIT: Technically, I guess Swashbuckler 3/Swordsage 2/Warblade 2/Shadow Sun Ninja 4/Bloodclaw Master 4/ Master of Nine 5 gets you all ninth level maneuvers, but you still only have 15 base attack.

Is there any way to get everything I want here?

[Fouredged Sword]

The three swashbuckler levels grant you 1 Initiator.
Swordsage 4 / warblade 4 grants you 8
master of 9 5 grants you 5
shadow sun ninja 4 should grant you another 4

So you end up with 18

Initator level is independant of class, but based on total levels in initiator and non initiator classes.

[Talbot]

But Warblade and Swordsage levels only count half for each other, I thought?

[Fax Celestis]

Initator level is independant of class, but based on total levels in initiator and non initiator classes.

No, it is not.

Swashbuckler 3/Swordsage 4/Warblade 4/Shadow Sun Ninja 4/Master of Nine 5

This has a Swordsage IL of 16 and Warblade IL 16. If you could drop Swashbuckler for something, you might be able to do it. SWS 4/WBL 4/SSN 4/Eternal Blade 3/Mo9 5 would get SWS 18, WBL 18, but can you DO that?

[WinWin]

I thought you had to track initator levels seperate for each martial adept class.

For example a Warblade 2/Swordsage 5 would have a Warblade IL of 4 and a Swordsage IL of 6.

Martial Adept PrC's stack with all Adept base classes though. I'll check the books again, but if I am wrong please say so.

As for Talbot's question, I can only suggest you take a look at the retraining rules from PHB2. They may allow you to juggle manuevers around in order to get what you want. If you DM allows it, it is going to cost a bit though.

[DragoonWraith]

I thought you had to track initator levels seperate for each martial adept class.

For example a Warblade 2/Swordsage 5 would have a Warblade IL of 4 and a Swordsage IL of 6.

Martial Adept PrC's stack with all Adept base classes though. I'll check the books again, but if I am wrong please say so.
You are correct.

[Talbot]

So it's impossible then? You can't do Master of Nine with all nine level nines, 16 base attack, and three levels of Swashbuckler?

Tangential question: Does an unarmed Swordsage's unarmed strike continue to progress when he's in Prestige Classes, or only on Swordsage levels?

[Greenish]

Tangential question: Does an unarmed Swordsage's unarmed strike continue to progress when he's in Prestige Classes, or only on Swordsage levels?Only on swordsage levels.

[Edit]: Unless the PrC progresses unarmed damage, which none of the ToB ones do as far as I recall.

[Fax Celestis]

So it's impossible then? You can't do Master of Nine with all nine level nines, 16 base attack, and three levels of Swashbuckler?

You'd need to get 16 IL for 2 classes in 17 levels, so no.

[Talbot]

You'd need to get 16 IL for 2 classes in 17 levels, so no.

You can't do it without Warblade? Doesn't Mo9 already get access to all nine disciplines? Or can he just not trade in/out maneuvers fast enough to get to level nine in 5 levels?

[Demons_eye]

CoughbloodlineCough

[Yuki Akuma]

Tome.

A tomb is a place where you bury people. A tome is a book.

What is ToB? A crypt or a book?

[Fax Celestis]

You can't do it without Warblade? Doesn't Mo9 already get access to all nine disciplines? Or can he just not trade in/out maneuvers fast enough to get to level nine in 5 levels?

Swordsage actually qualifies itself for Mo9 for maneuvers, but it has 3/4 BAB. You want 16 BAB. And no, actually, Mo9 (afair) has no trade-out mechanic, and doesn't get enough maneuvers past IL 17.

[Morph Bark]

There is one level 20 build I once found that got all level 9 maneuvers somehow. It made gratuitous use of a major bloodline and of Mo9 to crank up the initiator level and to get access to all disciplines. Many feats were also sacrificed for it.

Also, a Tomb of Battle would be wicked. :smallbiggrin:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

There is one level 20 build I once found that got all level 9 maneuvers somehow. It made gratuitous use of a major bloodline and of Mo9 to crank up the initiator level and to get access to all disciplines. Many feats were also sacrificed for it.

There were several all-nine-9s builds on the WotC forum back in the day, all of which relied on some tricks to get them. Of the ones I remember, one used the discipline items to grab a lot of prerequisite maneuvers, one used the bloodlines to stack IL, one dipped many ToB PrCs to progress all three adepts' ILs, and one used Legacy Champion to progress Mo9; I made two of my own, one of which used Taint from HoH to pick up two bonus feats for Martial Study after hitting IL 17 and the other of which abused the IL:HD ratio of the ToB valkyrie to hit IL 17 early.

The long and the short of it is that it's difficult to get all nine 9s even just sticking to ToB classes; putting constraints on it like using swashbuckler 3 or even requiring a certain BAB makes it even more difficult.

[Mongoose87]

Also, a Tomb of Battle would be wicked. :smallbiggrin:

I sense an adventure idea coming on...

[Hague]

But if I eat this cake, how can I have it at the same time? :smallfrown:

[Darrin]

Hmmm... That may make what I want to do borderline impossible, then. I wanted to do a Swashbuckler 3/Unarmed Swordsage X/Master of Nine 5 build that got all nine ninth level maneuvers while still having 16+ base attack at 20th level and room for three non-martial feats, but that may be impossible.


Won't work. Due to prereqs, you need 43 maneuvers and/or stances to get all of the ninth level maneuvers. This is extremely difficult to do, and even if you have all the prereqs, you can't take any 9th level maneuvers once you have an Initiator Level of 17. If you take three non-martial levels such as Swashbuckler 3, this means you won't be able to get 9th level maneuvers until you reach 19th level. Even if you can find a way to get two maneuvers per level (Master of Nine alternates between two new maneuvers and one maneuver + one stance), at best you could only get four 9th level maneuvers.




Any helpful ideas?

EDIT: Technically, I guess Swashbuckler 3/Swordsage 2/Warblade 2/Shadow Sun Ninja 4/Bloodclaw Master 4/ Master of Nine 5 gets you all ninth level maneuvers, but you still only have 15 base attack.

Is there any way to get everything I want here?

No, that won't work. You don't have nearly enough prereqs, and again, you don't get IL 17 until 19th level. Your last two levels of Master of Nine would give you one maneuver + one stance, and then two maneuvers, so only three 9th level maneuvers total.

There are a few tricks to get around this... but rules-wise it can be a bit dodgy.

First, you can use Bloodline Levels, Uncanny Trickster, and Legacy Champion to artificially inflate your initiator level. Bloodline levels are the most effective, since they add initiator levels to *all* of your classes, both martial adept classes and non-martial adept classes. Three bloodline levels would add +3 IL to all of your martial adept classes, and 1.5 IL to all your non-martial adept classes. This means you can string together a bunch of one-level dips that boost your IL by +2 (+0.5 for the one-level dip, and +1.5 for the 3 bloodline levels). Unfortunately, the mechanics of how you treat those three bloodline levels is very murky... it's not clear if they count as another +1.5 IL on their own, if they count toward your ECL, whether they "subtract XP", and other headaches. However, with a half-dozen one level dips and three bloodline levels, you can get your IL up to 17 around ECL 9ish or 10ish, depending on whether you count the bloodline levels as +0.5 IL or +0 IL.

Legacy Champion and Uncanny Trickster are a bit more mechanically sound, in that each level counts as +0.5 IL by itself and +1 IL if you advance the class abilities of another class. However, they both have "dead levels" that don't add the +1 IL, and unlike bloodline levels they don't affect all of your class levels all at once. A Swordsage 10/Master of Nine 5/Legacy Champion 5 might be able to pull this off, but it's not clear if Legacy Champion can advance Master of Nine's class abilities beyond 5 levels. At best, you could get one 9th level maneuver at 17th, three at 18th (with Martial Study), one at 19th, and two at 20th, so only seven total. And you're still short on the 43 prereqs.

Magic items such as the Crown of the White Ravens *might* help with the prereqs problem, but it's up to a DM's judgement call. Some DMs don't like it when you try and use magic items to qualify for a PrC or feat. Ruleswise, ToB isn't explicitly clear if what you gain from a Crown of the White Raven counts towards learning new maneuvers. Spells such as Heroics can also help, but you're limited to three Martial Study feats by RAW, and it's a temporary solution at best.

If you manage to find a way to keep your IL high enough, avoid wasting feats on qualifying for PrCs, pick up Martial Stance whenever possible, and wait until 20th level to take Swordsage 1, you can get six 9th level maneuvers that way, but even then you fall just two maneuvers short of the 43 prereqs. At least, that was as close as I could get with my Heaven of Nine build. But I eventually found a way to get all nine 9th level maneuvers:

Archon of Nine. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137260)

It doesn't quite work for your purposes... if you use the Unarmed Swordsage variant, there are three feat slots open. However, BAB is only +14 and there's just no room for three levels of Swashbuckler. Three non-martial adept levels would prevent you from getting IL = 17 early enough to get in all the 9th level maneuvers after that. However, you might be able to work out something with Bloodline levels or Dark Chaos Shuffle + Martial Study to pick up some more 9th level maneuvers later on.

[Fortuna]

On a related note, how many ninth level maneuvers can one have which use the Crusader recovery method? I got seven, using eternal blade and master of nine to get access to disciplines, but I couldn't get higher. Is it possible?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

On a related note, how many ninth level maneuvers can one have which use the Crusader recovery method? I got seven, using eternal blade and master of nine to get access to disciplines, but I couldn't get higher. Is it possible?

The easiest way to get the last two 9s would be to add in two Martial Study feats after IL 17 by a method of your choice (psychic reformation, Taint, etc.).

[Douglas]

The real question here, imo, is why do you want all 9 9ths? Aside from bragging rights to say you did it, it's really not that good an idea. Every last one of them is a strike, and having that many strikes available isn't that much of a benefit. You can still only use one per round (without extra actions), aside from Strike of Righteous Vitality they're pretty much all variations on "hit someone for mega damage", and overall you'll have a much more effective character with a suitable array of boosts and counters ready too.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The real question here, imo, is why do you want all 9 9ths? Aside from bragging rights to say you did it, it's really not that good an idea. Every last one of them is a strike, and having that many strikes available isn't that much of a benefit. You can still only use one per round (without extra actions), aside from Strike of Righteous Vitality they're pretty much all variations on "hit someone for mega damage", and overall you'll have a much more effective character with a suitable array of boosts and counters ready too.

Well, the main reason is bragging rights. Aside from that, one option is to use as many of the prerequisite maneuvers as possible, to pick up boosts and counters, so you can have all the utility stuff you want and your 9 strikes are the big guns.

[Draz74]

The real question here, imo, is why do you want all 9 9ths? Aside from bragging rights to say you did it, it's really not that good an idea. Every last one of them is a strike, and having that many strikes available isn't that much of a benefit. You can still only use one per round (without extra actions), aside from Strike of Righteous Vitality they're pretty much all variations on "hit someone for mega damage", and overall you'll have a much more effective character with a suitable array of boosts and counters ready too.

True that. And some of them really aren't even very good for dealing lots of damage. The Tiger Claw and Desert Wind L9 maneuvers are really pretty underwhelming.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would just cut out all the weak ones that don't see much use and stick to a few really good 9ths. I would take the Dimond, Iorn, Tiger, and Spirit and stick with that. Now you have a single power hit, a flurry of light hits, a save or die, and a healing power. This can be easily obtained by takeing warblade into Master of Nine at 16 to 20. That and you end up with a warblade that has tons of readied abilities. Casting heal every other round if you need to is not to be shruged at, and I do think the warblade recovery system is more user friendly.

I'm not even sure it would be a good idea to mix Master of Nine and Crusader. You want to keep your list short so you can get the power you need when you need it. If you had 11 powers waiting to be granted it would really bog down the refresh rate on your big hitters.