[Dnd 3.5e] Swordsage'd

[Kaeso]

I always hear that the unarmed swordsage variant is what the monk is supposed to be, but what's the basic unarmed swordsage build?

I know that superior unarmed strike, snap kick and adaptive style are pretty much a given, and weapon finesse + shadow blade greatly reduces MAD, but what other feats and/or stances are needed for the ultimate unarmed warrior?

[Eldariel]

I always hear that the unarmed swordsage variant is what the monk is supposed to be, but what's the basic unarmed swordsage build?

I know that superior unarmed strike, snap kick and adaptive style are pretty much a given, and weapon finesse + shadow blade greatly reduces MAD, but what other feats and/or stances are needed for the ultimate unarmed warrior?

The thing about ToB classes is, you don't need a specific build to make 'em good. The maneuvers kinda do that for you. As long as you have Adaptive Style, you can take pretty much whatever the heck you want. Guess you could stack Unarmed Strike Size increases like Improved Natural Attack, SUS and company. Or maybe focus on Setting Sun throws with Combat Expertise > Improved Trip. You can always pick Stunning Fist too. Maybe Improved Grapple to go with Stone Dragon? Mayhap some Charger-feats; Tiger Claw & Diamond Mind offer two paths to charging. It is, after all, only up to what you wish to do.

[Sacrieur]

Most unarmed swordsages take an interest in Setting Sun and Desert Wind, but really it's up to you for who you want to play.

[Draz74]

Setting Sun and Diamond Mind generally feel like the most Monk-ish Swordsage disciplines, but feat-wise ... what Eldariel said. There's a lot of directions you can go.

[Veyr]

Improved Natural Attack (Unarmed Strike) will add more damage than Superior Unarmed Strike; the two stack though, so go for both. Snap Kick is nice for the extra attack; combine this with Discipline weapons (+2 to attack if you use a maneuver from the named discipline) to keep your attack up.

Weapon Finesse and Shadow Blade are musts, yes, which means you need a Shadow Hand Stance. Assassin's Stance is probably the best of them, though Island of Blades is also awesome. I forget what the high-level stance is, but I don't recall it being too impressive.

And all Swordsages need Adaptive Style.

Aside from those... Improved Initiative, Dodge, and Blind-Fight get you into Master of the Nine; one of those feats (Imp. Init.) is good and another (Blind-Fight) is OK-ish. And then you can take Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Concealment, since you already have Blind-Fight. Desert Wind Dodge is pretty meh, but probably better than Dodge. Midnight Dodge is strictly superior to Dodge. Expeditious Dodge is probably the best of 'em if you can get 40 ft. move speed.

Of course, a Human Swordsage 20 only gets 8 feats. I just named ten. Sooo... yeah.

[Draz74]

I forget what the high-level stance is, but I don't recall it being too impressive.
Balance on the Sky ... constant Air Walk effect as long as you have a free hand. Awesome if you don't have another good way to fly. Particularly fantastic for Unarmed Swordsages with Vow of Poverty.

I tend to think Shadow Blade isn't really needed on most Swordsages, but if you do get Shadow Blade, almost all of your stances should probably be from the Shadow Hand Discipline.


Aside from those... Improved Initiative, Dodge, and Blind-Fight get you into Master of the Nine; one of those feats (Imp. Init.) is good and another (Blind-Fight) is OK-ish. And then you can take Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Concealment, since you already have Blind-Fight. Desert Wind Dodge is pretty meh, but probably better than Dodge. Midnight Dodge is strictly superior to Dodge. Expeditious Dodge is probably the best of 'em if you can get 40 ft. move speed.

Of course, a Human Swordsage 20 only gets 8 feats. I just named ten. Sooo... yeah.

Well, I love Master of Nine, but I wouldn't try to include it on an already-feat starved Unarmed Swordsage.

[Kaeso]

I tend to think Shadow Blade isn't really needed on most Swordsages, but if you do get Shadow Blade, almost all of your stances should probably be from the Shadow Hand Discipline.

Why not? Being limited to shadow hand stances sucks, but what sucks even more is MAD: You need dex for defence and str for offence. Being able to eliminate the need for one of those stats is pretty much a gift from above.

[Eldariel]

Well, I love Master of Nine, but I wouldn't try to include it on an already-feat starved Unarmed Swordsage.

That's a great time to invoke the Monk 2-dip; Monk 2/Unarmed Swordsage X/Master of the Nine 5 has those handy bonus feats to qualify with and only loses one initiator level.


Why not? Being limited to shadow hand stances sucks, but what sucks even more is MAD: You need dex for defence and str for offence. Being able to eliminate the need for one of those stats is pretty much a gift from above.

Depends on your stats. If you are working with a non-insane array, you either go Weapon Finesse/Shadow Blade for Dex-focus or Intuitive Attack/Insightful Strike (Swordsage class feature) for Wis-focus; either works fine. Dex goes nicely with Setting Sun for the throws and stuff, Wis goes great with Shadow Hand (and Diamond Mind + Pounce to be able to full attack with Wis-bonus).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Watch this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446059/), and think of everyone as an Unarmed Swordsage. A student of one martial arts school may focus on Desert Wind and Stone Dragon maneuvers and stances, while a student of another school may have learned mostly Diamond Mind and Setting Sun maneuvers and stances. Yet another school may primarily teach Shadow Hand and Tiger Claw disciplines. Each style would be vastly different from any other, but they're all represented by the same character class. That is what the Monk class should have been.

[Draz74]

Why not? Being limited to shadow hand stances sucks, but what sucks even more is MAD: You need dex for defence and str for offence. Being able to eliminate the need for one of those stats is pretty much a gift from above.

People exaggerate the terrible-ness of MAD. Guess what, all ability scores were originally supposed to be important to all characters. And Warblade and Swordsage are great examples of classes that depend (to some extent) on all six ability scores, but (unlike Monk and Paladin) have strong enough class features that they don't suck anyway.

Of course there's lots of factors in play. If you DM makes you use 25-point buy for your Swordsage, obviously dumping Strength becomes a stronger option than usual. If you roll great scores or get 32-point buy, not so much.

(If you're going for a Gloom Razor-focused ninja type, obviously you need Shadow Blade. If you're going dual-kukri crit fishing, you're going to be in Blood in the Water stance all the time, so why bother? But this thread's Monk-like Swordsage really isn't in either category.)

Long story short, I think with 28-point buy or better, a standard Swordsage can do just fine using his actual Strength score to fight. I'll go with a 12 Dexterity and focus on boosting my Strength high rather than spending two or three feats so I can dump Strength and boost my Dexterity sky-high. Don't get me wrong, Shadow Blade and Weapon Finesse is still a decent option ... but far from mandatory.


That's a great time to invoke the Monk 2-dip; Monk 2/Unarmed Swordsage X/Master of the Nine 5 has those handy bonus feats to qualify with and only loses one initiator level.

True, especially if you can use UA Monk Variants (like the one that gets Dodge as a bonus feat). But then, unless I'm going for Sun School abuse or Shadow Sun Ninja (neither of which I'd combine with Master of Nine), I'd rather get extra feats by dipping Fighter or (with Fractional BAB) Psychic Warrior.

[Veyr]

People exaggerate the terrible-ness of MAD. Guess what, all ability scores were originally supposed to be important to all characters. And Warblade and Swordsage are great examples of classes that depend (to some extent) on all six ability scores, but (unlike Monk and Paladin) have strong enough class features that they don't suck anyway.

Of course there's lots of factors in play. If you DM makes you use 25-point buy for your Swordsage, obviously dumping Strength becomes a stronger option than usual. If you roll great scores or get 32-point buy, not so much.
This may be true-ish at low levels, but by level 20 (honestly, long before then) funding two high scores becomes very expensive — and I don't just mean gold, I mean in terms of opportunity cost — and more than that just becomes unreasonable.

By that time, the 18s you rolled aren't even looking so hot any more. The Wizard's getting up to around 30 Int, if not more, and if you're struggling with 26 Str, 24 Dex, 20 Wis... that's a definite disadvantage, and a large one.

[MeeposFire]

MAD is a little overblown in this case. Even if you constantly bump your dex your AC won't be super without putting a lot of work into it at high levels and if you don't bump str you can still do a lot of damage from doing strikes (which have good accuracy) and size bumps to unarmed attacks.

One important boost that swordsages get that monks don't is easy enhancements to their unarmed attacks even in a game with only TOB+core. Gauntlets work fine for monks and they provide cheap enhancements while allowing you to deal full damage. Monks can't do that and need access to splats to have cheap effective enhancements for their fists.

[Tael]

Shadow Blade is definitely not necessary. And it's not even always a good idea. Those two feats could have gone towards Snap Kick and Gloom Razor, or Battle Jump or any number of really nice feats.

[Veyr]

Gloom Razor requires Shadow Blade. And is in any case a weak feat.

[Tael]

Gloom Razor requires Shadow Blade. And is in any case a weak feat.

/fail on my part. Totally forgot that part.

But what do you say that Gloom Razor is a bad feat? Moving Shadows is pretty bad, but Lingering Gloom and Shadow Slip can be really useful.

[Veyr]

It's not awful, but Lingering Gloom is way too specific (concealment, that means you have to use Shadow Clinging Strike or be in Child of Shadow stance? Great...), and it gives Invisibility as the spell, so it only lasts until you make an attack.

Moving Shadows is again, only one attack.

Shadow Slip is decent, but I wouldn't spend a feat on that ability.

[Zaq]

Long story short, I think with 28-point buy or better, a standard Swordsage can do just fine using his actual Strength score to fight. I'll go with a 12 Dexterity and focus on boosting my Strength high rather than spending two or three feats so I can dump Strength and boost my Dexterity sky-high. Don't get me wrong, Shadow Blade and Weapon Finesse is still a decent option ... but far from mandatory.

The thing that makes going DEX-heavy so tempting is that DEX is much more multipurpose than STR.

For a Swordsage, STR is useful for:
Melee to-hit.
Melee damage.
Carrying capacity before you get extradimensional storage space.
Certain feats.
Most combat maneuvers (trip, grapple, etc.)
Stone Dragon, Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw save DCs, as well as those on Strike of the Broken Shield and Comet Throw.
Climbing, jumping, and swimming.

For the same character, DEX is useful for:
Ranged to-hit.
AC.
Reflex saves.
Initiative.
Hiding, moving silently, balancing, riding, and tumbling.
The save DC on Clever Positioning.
Certain feats.

The two biggest benefits on the STR list are usually melee to-hit and melee damage. Those can be replaced with Weapon Finesse and Shadow Blade. The other benefits, while real, are mostly marginal (most maneuvers with save DCs aren't that good) or replaceable (a cheap magic item gives you DEX instead of STR to jumping and climbing, and the Setting Sun maneuvers make a DEX-focused tripper viable, for instance). Basically, with some investment, you can get almost everything you would have cared about from STR from DEX instead. (Pretty much the only thing irreplaceable are the feats, if you care about them for some reason.) Conversely, it's very hard to get STR to cover most of the important jobs of DEX.

In short, STR is replaceable, but DEX isn't. It's not easy (a two-feat investment should make anyone think twice before diving in), but it's possible.

STR-based Swordsages have their place, definitely. If you choose to go for a THF style (which doesn't benefit Swordsages as much as some other classes, mainly due to the lack of full BAB for PA, but which is still viable), for instance, you'll probably want STR. If you're really feat-starved and have another specific goal in mind, you'll probably want STR. That said, Swordsages have an easier time dropping STR than most melee classes do (after all, they have easy access to Shadow Blade, and maneuvers are good enough that you can drop two feats and still be a credible threat), so the all-DEX-all-the-time Swordsage is a common and viable archetype.

[Kaeso]

So the consensus seems to be that a swordsage doesn't really need shadow blade. In that case, what would you guys consider the 'minimum' DEX, STR and WIS scores for an effective swordsage?

[Draz74]

@Zaq: yeah, two feats is a pretty hefty cost though. Plus the fact that Shadow Blade only works in Shadow Hand stances, and there are some other pretty awesome stances. (Blood in the Water, Hearing the Air, Shifting Defense ...)

I agree that DEX can be made to cover everything about STR that you care about, and much more. I just don't think that benefit is always worth it for the cost of two feats and a stance limitation.


So the consensus seems to be that a swordsage doesn't really need shadow blade. In that case, what would you guys consider the 'minimum' DEX, STR and WIS scores for an effective swordsage?

Still way too broad a question. Will the Swordsage in question be using Strikes that the target makes a Save against? If so, which disciplines will those Strikes be chosen from? Will the Swordsage in question be TWF? Does he care about his AC, or does he dump it in favor of other methods of defense?

[Tael]

It's not awful, but Lingering Gloom is way too specific (concealment, that means you have to use Shadow Clinging Strike or be in Child of Shadow stance? Great...), and it gives Invisibility as the spell, so it only lasts until you make an attack.

Moving Shadows is again, only one attack.

Shadow Slip is decent, but I wouldn't spend a feat on that ability.

Just like with normal Invisibility, you get sneak attack on all of your strikes if an enemy is flat-footed to you. And if you don't have 50% concealment on almost all the time by mid levels, you really should. Concealment is the single best defense you can get, outside of outright damage immunity, or not being combat (which are both kind of hard for a Swordsage.)

Totally agree on Moving Shadows.

Shadow Slip is, again, just the icing on the cake. The ability to go invisible 50% of the time after an opponent attacks you is quite nice. Even if you don't use it for a round of sneak attack, it's a great escape or bypassing technique. Not the best feat one could take, but definitely not bad, and quite fun.

[Zaq]

So the consensus seems to be that a swordsage doesn't really need shadow blade. In that case, what would you guys consider the 'minimum' DEX, STR and WIS scores for an effective swordsage?

The only hard minimum stats in D&D are what you need for your desired feats (or desired spells). Go see if there are any feats you want that require, say, 13 WIS or 15 DEX. If so, make sure you have at least 13 WIS or 15 DEX (or that you WILL have that much by the time you take the feat). If you want to play a character with Power Attack, no matter if you add DEX and INT and CHA to damage, you still can't do it without 13 STR (with some exceptions, but let's not go there), so 13 STR is a minimum for that character to be effective. Is it their most important score? Of course not, at least not if they're adding three other stats to damage. But they don't need a certain minimum CHA (for example) to be effective. Sure, if they've invested in adding it to their damage rolls, they want it to be good, but there's no minimum.

So really, just look at what feats you want. A rough order of operations for a Swordsage would go something like this:

Choose desired feats, assign stats accordingly.
Choose necessary (prereq or character-defining) skills, assign enough INT to get all of them.
Get enough CON to not die. This minimum changes from player to player and game to game.
Assign remaining points, if any, to areas of desired focus.
If not enough points remain for your liking, reevaluate which feats and skills are truly necessary.

Just make sure that you can do what you want to do, that any sacrifices you make can be compensated for or ignored, and that you have whatever balance of specialization-to-generalization that you enjoy playing.

[Veyr]

Just like with normal Invisibility, you get sneak attack on all of your strikes if an enemy is flat-footed to you.
If an enemy is flat-footed, you don't need Invisibility at all; all being invisible does for you (offensively) is make things that can't see you lose Dex to AC — i.e., be flat-footed.

Or if you're saying that Invisibility makes an enemy flat-footed for all of your attacks, no, it does not. It makes them flat-footed when they cannot see you. After your first attack, they can see you again, and they regain their Dex-to-AC and therefore you get no Sneak Attacks (unless you would have gotten them anyway; see above).


And if you don't have 50% concealment on almost all the time by mid levels, you really should. Concealment is the single best defense you can get, outside of outright damage immunity, or not being combat (which are both kind of hard for a Swordsage.)
And how, exactly, are you getting that as a Swordsage? You can't just cast Displacement or Mirror Image and call it a day, because you don't get those abilities.

[Curmudgeon]

If an enemy is flat-footed, you don't need Invisibility at all; all being invisible does for you (offensively) is make things that can't see you lose Dex to AC — i.e., be flat-footed.
Losing your DEX to AC does not make you flat-footed. Yes, flat-footed characters lose their DEX to AC, but they're also prevented from making any attacks of opportunity. Invisibility does not prevent your target from taking AoOs generally ─ just against you.

Please try not to confuse these two different conditions.

[Veyr]

OK, I agree and I am aware, it just seemed tangential to the discussion taking place.