Diamond Mind

[TechnOkami]

I want to primarily use this discipline and possibly shadow hand, but is there a good way to making a Diamond Mind swordsage (any builds I should be aware of)?

Also, for this character, he's an Illithid with the talenta sharrash scythe from the Ebberon Campaign Setting. Please don't comment on the Illithid's ferocious LA, my GM and I are working on it.

[T.G. Oskar]

There's two ways you can pretty much specialize into: either going the Insightful Strike path, or the Nightmare Blade path.

One is when you have insane quantities of attack bonuses but deal little damage. Effectively, if a Concentration roll would be higher than your usual damage, then Insightful Strike (and Greater Insightful Strike) would be the choice. If you can also stack several extra damage on the attack and still retain that high attack bonus, another is Avalanche of Blades: as if you were making a full attack, but the penalty is -4 instead of -5 and you keep on attacking until you miss or you down the enemy (so you get one attack at full, one attack at -4, one attack at -8, one attack at -12, one attack at -16, one attack at -20...)

Otherwise, the king here is Nightmare Blade. The first Nightmare Blade (Sapphire) isn't so hot (succeed in a Concentration check; add 1d6 to damage) but the other two are whoppingly good (Ruby causes double damage, Diamond causes quadruple damage); you do need high Concentration to get them to be effective, or else you get a penalty to attack rolls.

If you can deal huge damage but not have good attack rolls (or you want to make the hit be actually effective), Emerald Razor treats your attack as a touch attack. It's only one attack as a standard action and you don't get much benefits, but you can attempt to get Power Attack and still be effective (if you can stack the damage to very high levels).

Evidently, you want Time Stands Still for the very end. If you get several attacks on a full attack action, TSS effectively doubles that. Might not work that well with a scythe (it works better with two weapons, since you get twice the attacks and you get pretty much around 14 attacks total).

Defensively, you want Pearl of Black Doubt if your AC is insanely high (it makes your AC become insanely higher with multiple attacks, such as when a 10-headed hydra decides it's great to attack you), Action Before Thought/Moment of Perfect Mind/Mind over Body for Reflex/Fortitude/Will, and replace Diamond Defense for all three afterwards.

Actually, Diamond Mind is one of the best disciplines out there, so it shouldn't be so bad. Shadow Hand is also great if you know which abilities to get (Shadow Jaunt/Stride/Blink for standard/move/swift teleportation, Shadow Noose/Garrote for flat-footed/stunned creatures, Island of Blades for flanking, Dance of the Spider for climb speeds, and so on).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For this character specifically, see if your DM is willing to adapt the Jade Phoenix Mage prestige class to work with psionic manifesting instead of arcane spellcasting. If so, use the psionic mind flayer variant in XPH, which gets you 9th level Psion (Telepath) manifesting in place of most of the spell/psi-like abilities. From there, get as few Swordsage levels as it takes to qualify for JPM (minimum 2 though for the AC bonus), and you should be all set. Maybe see if you can get the Telepath specialty switched to Egoist since it gives significantly better combat buffs. Get the feat Linked Power (CP) and manifest a swift action buff with a standard action buff linked, so the following round you won't have to spend any actions to get the standard action buff up. Definitely see if you can use the feat Carmendine Monk (Champions of Valor) or Kung Fu Genius (Dragon 319) to get your Int bonus to AC instead of Wisdom.

[Prime32]

Also, for this character, he's an Illithid with the talenta sharrash scythe from the Ebberon Campaign Setting. Please don't comment on the Illithid's ferocious LA, my GM and I are working on it.If that's the 19-20/x4 weapon, it was errata'd to 19-20/x2. Also, some of the weapon illustrations were mislabeled.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If that's the 19-20/x4 weapon, it was errata'd to 19-20/x2. Also, some of the weapon illustrations were mislabeled.

It was errated yes, but then it was reprinted in a more recent book which put it back to 19-20/x4. Either the writers of the newer book didn't look over the errata when picking out what to reprint, or they thought it would be better if they changed it back. Regardless, RAW says 19-20/x4, so unless his DM wants to make a house rule that's where it stands.

[Chipp Zanuff]

It was errated yes, but then it was reprinted in a more recent book which put it back to 19-20/x4. Either the writers of the newer book didn't look over the errata when picking out what to reprint, or they thought it would be better if they changed it back. Regardless, RAW says 19-20/x4, so unless his DM wants to make a house rule that's where it stands.

Which book? I don't remember seeing a reprint of the Sharrash anywhere. I think you may be refering to the Minotaur Greathammer, which has similar stats.

[Pechvarry]

In the instance of low attack/high damage character combos, there are some tricks you can do to make your Nightmare Blades more likely to connect (such as using Cloak of Deception as your swift action just before attacking).

[Fax Celestis]

Defensively, you want Pearl of Black Doubt if your AC is insanely high (it makes your AC become insanely higher with multiple attacks, such as when a 10-headed hydra decides it's great to attack you),

...or if you have any sort of miss chance. Miss chance makes Pearl so much better.

[lsfreak]

If you can also stack several extra damage on the attack and still retain that high attack bonus, another is Avalanche of Blades: as if you were making a full attack, but the penalty is -4 instead of -5 and you keep on attacking until you miss or you down the enemy (so you get one attack at full, one attack at -4, one attack at -8, one attack at -12, one attack at -16, one attack at -20...)

It's -2, not -4. So when you first get it, your attack routine from BAB would be +9/+7/+5/+3/+1/-1/-3... until you missed. It's not quite as good for swordsage as warblade due to the lower attack bonus, but still excellent. Especially if you've got something ridiculous like a wand of wraithstrike.

[T.G. Oskar]

It's -2, not -4. So when you first get it, your attack routine from BAB would be +9/+7/+5/+3/+1/-1/-3... until you missed. It's not quite as good for swordsage as warblade due to the lower attack bonus, but still excellent. Especially if you've got something ridiculous like a wand of wraithstrike.

Um...is that the same book, or is that in the errata? Because I have the book, physically, in my hands, and it says a -4 penalty. And the errata is 7% Tome of Battle and 93% Complete Mage. Also...I reckon hearing something similar...in 4th Edition, that is.

[Chipp Zanuff]

Um...is that the same book, or is that in the errata? Because I have the book, physically, in my hands, and it says a -4 penalty. And the errata is 7% Tome of Battle and 93% Complete Mage. Also...I reckon hearing something similar...in 4th Edition, that is.

The closest thing in 4E is Cascade of Blades and it's ilk, none of which apply a penalty for each attack after the first (which would have gone a long way to balancing those powers...).

[lsfreak]

Um...is that the same book, or is that in the errata? Because I have the book, physically, in my hands, and it says a -4 penalty. And the errata is 7% Tome of Battle and 93% Complete Mage. Also...I reckon hearing something similar...in 4th Edition, that is.

Ignore me, I'm apparently crazy. *whistles absentmindedly*

[TechnOkami]

As per the talk about the scythe, my GM is allowing me to keep its original, un-errata'd stats.

[TechnOkami]

For this character specifically, see if your DM is willing to adapt the Jade Phoenix Mage prestige class to work with psionic manifesting instead of arcane spellcasting. If so, use the psionic mind flayer variant in XPH, which gets you 9th level Psion (Telepath) manifesting in place of most of the spell/psi-like abilities. From there, get as few Swordsage levels as it takes to qualify for JPM (minimum 2 though for the AC bonus), and you should be all set. Maybe see if you can get the Telepath specialty switched to Egoist since it gives significantly better combat buffs. Get the feat Linked Power (CP) and manifest a swift action buff with a standard action buff linked, so the following round you won't have to spend any actions to get the standard action buff up. Definitely see if you can use the feat Carmendine Monk (Champions of Valor) or Kung Fu Genius (Dragon 319) to get your Int bonus to AC instead of Wisdom.

I don't think any wise and sensible DM would allow a character to gain so much power so quickly, especially if the LA of my Illithid is lower than +7. More than likely he would ramp the LA up to compensate.

[TechnOkami]

There's two ways you can pretty much specialize into: either going the Insightful Strike path, or the Nightmare Blade path.

Is is possible to do both, or would it be better to follow one specific path?

[Susano-wo]

Regarding Jade Phoenix Mage, he would also have to get teh GM to allow him to switch up the maneuvers granted, since its Desert Wind and Devoted Spirit only. (kinda silly, really, to make the only ToB gish prestige so specific...)

[TechnOkami]

Regarding Jade Phoenix Mage, he would also have to get teh GM to allow him to switch up the maneuvers granted, since its Desert Wind and Devoted Spirit only. (kinda silly, really, to make the only ToB gish prestige so specific...)

Well, it could be a balance thing so people won't make broken things like this possible build given above.

[Susano-wo]

Maybe, but it seemed like it was just overtheming it. Phoenix is a holy fire bird, right? So we'll do a gish prestige class that focuses on holy power, fire, and lots of resurrection themes. (Never mind that one of those schools you will probably have to start from scratch after you start JPM, since no ToB class gives both of them...)

[Greenish]

(kinda silly, really, to make the only ToB gish prestige so specific...)Well, depending on one's definition of "gish", RKV is pretty handy.

[T.G. Oskar]

Is is possible to do both, or would it be better to follow one specific path?

It's better to focus on one path, since otherwise all of your moves would essentially compose of Diamond Mind. Not that Diamond Mind is bad by any means, but you'd be struggling to get more maneuvers even with the 1/level maneuver progression with Swordsage.

It also means one of the progressions will not work to its full potential. Going Insightful Strike means you're effectively sacrificing your damage potential for very specific damage. This, and Greater Insightful Strike, depend exclusively from Concentration, so you basically need to have a massive Concentration bonus to deal high damage from it (in fact, psionic focus is great for Insightful Strike since you essentially deal 15 + Concentration skill check modifier damage, with GIS dealing twice that amount). On the other hand, going Emerald Razor/Nightmare Blade means that you're still going to have a great Concentration check, but you're focusing more on damage (or chance to hit) that the attack you'll deal from Greater/Insightful Strike will be pointless.

Generally, it's better to go Nightmare Blade if you have a high damage potential, coupled with Emerald Razor for when you NEED a hit to land. Insightful Strike is when you can get ridiculous bonuses to Concentration, so much that you can basically pull off over 50 points of damage without breaking a sweat (by having full ranks in Concentration, and several bonuses up the wazoo).

[TechnOkami]

It's better to focus on one path, since otherwise all of your moves would essentially compose of Diamond Mind. Not that Diamond Mind is bad by any means, but you'd be struggling to get more maneuvers even with the 1/level maneuver progression with Swordsage.

It also means one of the progressions will not work to its full potential. Going Insightful Strike means you're effectively sacrificing your damage potential for very specific damage. This, and Greater Insightful Strike, depend exclusively from Concentration, so you basically need to have a massive Concentration bonus to deal high damage from it (in fact, psionic focus is great for Insightful Strike since you essentially deal 15 + Concentration skill check modifier damage, with GIS dealing twice that amount). On the other hand, going Emerald Razor/Nightmare Blade means that you're still going to have a great Concentration check, but you're focusing more on damage (or chance to hit) that the attack you'll deal from Greater/Insightful Strike will be pointless.

Generally, it's better to go Nightmare Blade if you have a high damage potential, coupled with Emerald Razor for when you NEED a hit to land. Insightful Strike is when you can get ridiculous bonuses to Concentration, so much that you can basically pull off over 50 points of damage without breaking a sweat (by having full ranks in Concentration, and several bonuses up the wazoo).

Oo... that's a hard choice.

So now I just need to choose between single super concentrated strikes or an insane rapid flurry of scythe strikes. Interesting...

[T.G. Oskar]

Oo... that's a hard choice.

So now I just need to choose between single super concentrated strikes or an insane rapid flurry of scythe strikes. Interesting...

If what you seek is "single, concentrated super-strikes", both Insightful Strikes and all Nightmare Blades work around this paradigm. Your decision is whether you want fixed damage, or damage multipliers (that's the main difference between IS and NB).

If what you seek is an "insane flurry of rapid strikes", then you want Avalanche of Blades and Time Stands Still. Both are full-round actions that increase the amount of potential strikes.

However, since Avalanche of Blades and TSS are later options, the real first choice is whether you want fixed damage or larger damage multipliers, which is the path of either Insightful Strike or Nightmare Blade. The former is recommended when your damage is little, the latter is recommended when your damage is a lot.