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Kaje
2011-01-11, 04:43 PM
In the Adaptation section of the Swordsage's write-up, there is mention of the possibility that people might replace the martial maneuvers with arcane spells. Has anyone tried this? What did you do and how were the results?

While we're at it, would it be reasonable to make other swordsage variants like this? A divine swordsage? An eldritch swordsage, with at-will EB and refreshing invocations? A Psionic swordsage?

MeeposFire
2011-01-11, 04:48 PM
The arcane SS is not defined enough to give you good analysis since it will be different by each DM possibly significantly. From what I have heard the consensus is that it is a bit overpowered though it really depends on the allowed spell list. If it is a crappy spell list then it would not be too powerful but the spell types that are suggested can be very pwoerful.

Greenish
2011-01-11, 04:54 PM
Someone had a suggestion where defensive spells would work as counters (immediate action, duration reduced to one round), buffs would work as boosts (swift action, duration down to one round), and offensive spells would work as strikes (standard or full round action, require melee attack and do normal damage + spell effect).

Seemed pretty good for a quick-and-dirty rule of thumb.

Runestar
2011-01-11, 05:08 PM
The most obvious abuse would be buffing your party at-will (since spells like enlarge person/bull's str have fairly long durations and you can refresh your maneuvers with adaptive style).

I would personally rule that the buffs are either personal-range only. Basically like a psywarrior.

Kaje
2011-01-11, 06:46 PM
What if their spells were limited to say, the Duskblade list? It seems a good fit thematically. Or would that be too weak?

MeeposFire
2011-01-11, 11:14 PM
Duskblade does not go up to 9th level spells so that would be a problem. Duskblade would not be as much of a problem as some but still you have to consider would your arcane swordsage be significantly better than the duskblade itself? If yes then there is a problem in general though it still may be less powerful than the real big classes.

Kaje
2011-01-11, 11:36 PM
Well, I would expect the idea would be to keep it in tier 3, like the DB and SS.

Coidzor
2011-01-11, 11:38 PM
Well, I would expect the idea would be to keep it in tier 3, like the DB and SS.

Duskblade's low tier 3 and in danger of falling into tier 4. Just having the duskblade class list, which is one of the worst class lists around is not very helpful, especially since the duskblade class list is geared towards being useful as part of its arcane channeling at will ability and then getting it on a full attack in order to pump out large amounts of damage.

And, simply put, the Duskblade spell list is very bad.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2011-01-12, 01:42 AM
The Arcane Swordsage variant specifies arcane spells of the Abjuration, Evocation, and Transmutation schools. Apart from the specific schools, the only limiting factor here is that they must be arcane spells, so you could pick spells from the Sorcerer/Wizard, Duskblade, Bard, Wu-Jen, and Hexblade spell lists indiscriminately. The Heart Of- line of spells in CM is particularly useful, and especially Greater Magic Weapon. Since they're used as maneuvers instead of as spells they're considered supernatural effects, so they ignore spell resistance and cannot be dispelled.

Since those spells are learned as though they were maneuvers, you would be able to use the Martial Study feat to learn more of them. That means you could learn the spell Heroics as a maneuver, and use it to temporarily gain Martial Study to learn any arcane spell from one of those schools as a maneuver. Use Adaptive Style to ready and initiate that new maneuver, along with re-readying Heroics, then dismiss the previous casting of Heroics (since you can only have Martial Study twice) and repeat the process. That way you get access to every hour/level buff from those schools that you would have available at your level, but you only have to spend one maneuver known to use all of them.

Simply put, spells are balanced around being a finite resource. Making them available as often as desired is extremely game breaking, and it should not be allowed. The Arcane Swordsage sounds good, but there are serious problems with its implementation. Consider something like Swordsage 8/ Suel Arcanamach 2/ Jade Pheonix Mage 10 instead.

MeeposFire
2011-01-12, 04:35 AM
In order for the class to be balanced then spells need to be near in power (perhaps ever so slightly greater) than the maneuvers you are replacing. This means you might have to create your own spell list unique to it which may require you to move the spell levels around a bit. 9th level spells for the SS probably should not be more powerful than 6-7th level wizard spells or so.

Runestar
2011-01-12, 05:47 AM
In order for the class to be balanced then spells need to be near in power (perhaps ever so slightly greater) than the maneuvers you are replacing.

What? You mean swordsages are not supposed to learn effulgent epuration, elminster's evasion, shapechange and timestop at lv17? :smalleek:

I love the giant size spell. Would it be too broken to let a swordsage learn it? Colossal at lv20...:smallcool:

Salbazier
2011-01-12, 08:22 AM
There is some good suggestion here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7499117#post7499117