Gonna play a Crusader in Pathfinder: Advice?

[Brock Samson]

Hi all! So I officially decided to play a Crusader today, which will be my first time playing a Tome of Battle class, and I'll be playing it in my friends Pathfinder game, the first time I've played Pathfinder.

So... advice? Anything that I HAVE to grab? (weapons, feats, manuevers)? Any rules changes in Pathfinder that are going to help/hinder me? I know you get more feats, so yay for that.

If anyone can provide me with any help, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Oh, and we're level 2 now. I have 1,000 gp.

[Shpadoinkle]

The ToB classes are designed to be pretty difficult to screw up. You can pretty much take whatever looks cool and have a solid character.

One feat to consider is Extra Granted Maneuver. Having more options is always good.

[Master_Rahl22]

The two basic routes you can take with a Crusader are sword & board or spiked chain lockdown. For the former, you simply focus on whatever maneuvers you like including several Devoted Spirit ones that are really cool and require a shield. For the latter, you get EWP: Spiked Chain, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip and/or Stand Still, and when you're high enough level you get Thicket of Blades stance so that all movement around you provokes AoOs and you control a 20ft by 20ft area.

For more specifics, check out this guide (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871270/Tome_of_Battle_for_Dummies)

[Curious]

If you are taking Crusader to have a Paladin archetype character without having to be a Paladin, just take the real class. It is magnificently improved in Pathfinder.

[nyarlathotep]

If you are taking Crusader to have a Paladin archetype character without having to be a Paladin, just take the real class. It is magnificently improved in Pathfinder.

He could also be playing ti because he finds the crusader to be mechanically interesting.

[stainboy]

So... advice? Anything that I HAVE to grab? (weapons, feats, manuevers)? Any rules changes in Pathfinder that are going to help/hinder me? I know you get more feats, so yay for that.


Maneuvers: White Raven Tactics is bottled awesome.

Pathfinder Changes: Pathfinder handles trip/bull rush differently. You add your base attack bonus to the check and size modifiers are much smaller. For you, Mr. Medium-size Full-BAB dude, this is a big buff.

[McSmack]

From what I've read and my experience with PF, your ToB character will be significantly more awesome than just about every melee PF class. Depending on your degree of optimization and the party composition you might end up outshining the others.

Proud nail gets the nerfbat and all that.

Crusaders are the shiznit, though. I only wish someone locally was running a 3.5 game so I could play one.

[Brock Samson]

I thought I'd heard that trips and bull-rushes were treated differently. Am I all the more likely to succeed at tripping now then? Even against BIG monsters?

I'm playing it because I have never played ToB but always wanted to, and I figured being able to heal my allies whilst contributing to the brawl would be excellent. Of course, White Raven Tactics can also help them. Either way, even if I'm shining, I'll be helping. The rest of the party is an Alchemist, a halfling Druid, and a... crap, some Melee guy of some sort.

Also, I'm ok with taking some dips in Warblade or Swordsage later on.

Any prestige classes I should def consider?

[Curious]

He could also be playing ti because he finds the crusader to be mechanically interesting.

Eh, sorry. I didn't mean to sound condescending. I was just offering advice, and I understand that there is plenty of incentive to play a crusader for other reasons than replacing the paladin. :smallredface:

Edit: Also, the Hellknight might be something to consider, if you are a lawful character or are facing many chaotic creatures. It provides armor training in addition to the ability to smite chaos, so you can wear extremely heavy armor with a relatively high dex bonus, little check penalty, and no reduced speed.

[Brock Samson]

Hm, the Hellknight sounds all right, but for the moment I'm sticking with ToB Crusader. I'll look into Hellknight though and see how I like it sometime, thanks.

[testpatternmih]

The Spiked Chain build doesn't work in pathfinder anymore, i think. Don't have my book but i'm pretty sure they took away its reach, something to doublecheck.

*edit* Yup they did. forgot about the d20pfsrd.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons/weapon-descriptions/chain-spiked

[Brock Samson]

Crap, I thought that had happened. I think a reach weapon would still work, as I can still take advantage of the 5 foot step, and armor spikes.

[testpatternmih]

Yea, Guisarme will give you the trip but not the trip in the 5ft around you. Spiked Armor will give you the AoO in that area though.

Isn't there a feat that allows you to also attack the 5ft square? Short half?

OT:

From my experience playing a Crusader until about 16th level was the Extra Granted Maneuver is required and late game Adaptive Style became really handy.

In the back of ToB they have magic items that can grant you extra maneuvers for that day. This is very very helpful for getting the Shadow Hand teleport maneuvers and Iron Hearts awesome ones ( Iron Heart Surge, Iron Heart Endurance ).

Keep in mind you can only take the feat Extra Stance 3 times, so if you find you really want a few of the stances later on you might want to plan accordingly.

Take a look at Ruby Knight Vindicator PrC class. All you need to do is going cleric for one level and you pick up all of the extra cleric-ness plus some ways other awesome tricks. :) You will need to talk with your DM if he'll allow you to use your new Cleric burst healing ability to count as turn undead, as that is what the ability replaced. Keep in mind you do loose out Crusader class features, so you'd just want to compare on which you'd rather have.

Stone Power feat is awesome but keep in mind the wording. It only works when you make a regular standard attack, full-attack action, or use a stone dragon maneuver. So you can't spam it every round unless are really heavy on Stone Dragon maneuvers ( which there are some awesome ones, just not your healing strikes. )

[stainboy]

Isn't there a feat that allows you to also attack the 5ft square? Short half?


Short Haft, PHBII. Unfortunately you have to use a swift action to switch between reach and non-reach.

[TroubleBrewing]

There's a better version in Dragon Compendium, called Shorten Grip. You can attack adjacent squares with a reach weapon at a -2 penalty. No prerequisites. Solid feat for a Horizon Tripper build.

[testpatternmih]

using google and cached mode I have seemed to find that in Pathfinder you have to use a Trip weapon to make a trip attempt. The only weapon that isn't listed as a Trip that you can use is your unarmed strike. So for the crusader trip-monkey you may need the Improved Unarmed Strike. But not 100% sure if you even need that since on your AoO attack you can't generate an AoO...so you could unarmed strike trip him.

i just get an awesome cliche sticking the foot out image. :smalltongue:

links for when it comes back up:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PE-1WueSPqkJ:paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/rules/archives/isATripWeaponRequiredToTrip%26page%3D1+paizo+press +Pathfinder+Tripping+with+non-trip+weapon%3F&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
and http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zTgHPKzqDdoJ:paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/rules/tripAndTripWeaponsMustTheyGoTogetherLookingForClar ification+http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/rules/tripAndTripWeaponsMustTheyGoTogetherLookingForClar ification&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

[Curious]

If you are going for a tripper build, you may want to grab the Lunge feat from Pathfinder; it allows you to extend your reach by five feet for a -2 AC penalty.

[PinkysBrain]

If you are taking Crusader to have a Paladin archetype character without having to be a Paladin, just take the real class. It is magnificently improved in Pathfinder.
PF boosted the damage and healing ... but compared to a ToB class you're crippled in mobility, battlefield control and just options in general.

If PF had decent magical items it wouldn't matter so much, but it doesn't.

[Curious]

I don't think an argument that class A is better than class B because it gets better magic items is actually an argument at all. Pathfinder paladins have plenty of options, but most of them are focused around kicking the crud out of evil, and they are very good at it. I think being very good at one thing and decent at several others is exactly the definition of a tier three class, which, if I remember correctly, the ToB classes are as well. I really don't think there is much power disparity.

[Brock Samson]

So beyond the penalties do Shorten Grip and Lunge basically allow me to do the same thing- attack and threaten within 5 and 10 feet?

I'm a little confused by your wording on trip weapons, so can I trip with most weapons, or almost none?

I'll definitely take Extra Granted Manuever. Where is Stand Still located? Did it get converted over to Pathfinder?

[Curious]

No; Lunge adds five feet to your reach, even if you are already using a reach weapon, so you would have a fifteen foot reach. I am assuming you threaten this new area as well, since it makes no mention of it not doing so.

[Brock Samson]

Oh wow! Just looked that up on the Pathfinder SRD and that looks really good, except that it requires BAB 6, and we're level 2 now.

10-15 ft reach sounds really awesome, a lot of threat range, but there's still the with-in 5 ft threat range. Should I double Shorten Grip with Lunge? Would that work well? Too much of a feat investment?

[Curious]

If you are going for a dedicated trip build, I would say take it. Remember, Pathfinder characters get feats every odd level now, so it isn't such an issue.

[Brock Samson]

Any other feats I'd need besides Improved Trip then?

Oh, Combat Reflexes of course. And Stand Still. Anything else?

[JoeYounger]

No; Lunge adds five feet to your reach, even if you are already using a reach weapon, so you would have a fifteen foot reach. I am assuming you threaten this new area as well, since it makes no mention of it not doing so.

You have to be careful here, lunge only adds 5 feet to your range until the end of your turn. So you cant use it for AoPs or anything. =/

[Zarake]

Combat reflexes is a must, and I recommend knock down, in case they get inside your guard.

[Curious]

Aack! Necromancers, necromancers!