Swordsage for Battlefield Control

[kardar233]

I'm writing a major NPC for a campaign right now and I'm trying to make him somewhere between a battlefield controller and a masochist. However, I'm not sure that I like the Crusader for this character and certain parts of Swordsage fit quite well with him.

If you were to make a battlefield control/AoO monkey (possibly Masochist?) Swordsage, what stances or maneuvers would be required? Would you want to find some feats for Martial Study/Stance to get certain Devoted Spirit maneuvers/stances? Which ones?

Or is it unfeasible and I should stick to Crusader?

[Hiro Protagonest]

You should get the maneuvers that allow you to move around the battlefield, like sudden leap, shadow jaunt, shadow stride, and shadow blink.

You should also get the throw maneuvers from setting sun.

[kardar233]

I'm not seeing how Shadow (X) maneuvers specifically help for battlefield control; that's mobility, which I could see being very useful for a secondary melee like a usual Swordsage, but I don't really see more use than normal here.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'm not seeing how Shadow (X) maneuvers specifically help for battlefield control; that's mobility, which I could see being very useful for a secondary melee like a usual Swordsage, but I don't really see more use than normal here.

It's so if the enemies get out of your range and you don't want to tumble for half speed, you just teleport over.

[Devmaar]

I'm not seeing how Shadow (X) maneuvers specifically help for battlefield control; that's mobility, which I could see being very useful for a secondary melee like a usual Swordsage, but I don't really see more use than normal here.

Move up to one enemy, throw them with Setting Sun, teleport into position to AoO another enemy.

iirc, there's a counter which lets you use a strike on an AoO. If I didn't make it up, that would work great.

[Darrin]

If you were to make a battlefield control/AoO monkey (possibly Masochist?) Swordsage, what stances or maneuvers would be required? Would you want to find some feats for Martial Study/Stance to get certain Devoted Spirit maneuvers/stances? Which ones?


It depends on what particular method/strategy you want to use for battlefield control. Most of the battlefield control maneuvers are in Desert Wind and Setting Sun, which are disciplines exclusive to Sworsages, thus they already make ideal battlefield control specialists, so long as your idea of battlefield control is: 1) burninating people with fire and 2) throwing people into rocks/pits/cliffs/fire/etc.

But the most common tactic employed by Crusaders is the Stand Still/Thicket of Blades "Lockdown Tripper". This requires only a few feats, notably Stand Still and Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades. Add Combat Reflexes, a reach weapon, maybe a size increase (Expansion or Half-Ogre, maybe), and you should be good to go. I'd probably start with something like:

Race: Human, Azurin, or Strongheart Halfing
Weapons: Guisarme + Armor Spikes
Feats:
1) Combat Reflexes, Stand Still
3) Martial Study*: Foehammer or Shield Block
6) Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades

* = You may be able to skip this with a Novice Devoted Spirit Amulet (3000 GP). Once you have Thicket of Blades, you can toss/swap the amulet for something else (Thicket of Blades can act as its own prereq). If so, you can take Adaptive Style here.

Straight-up Swordsage should work, but Swordsage 5/Psychic Warrior 4 would also be quite nice. You can take 2 levels of PsyWar before ECL 6 and still have enough IL to get Thicket of Blades. After that, it shouldn't matter too much whether you go Swordsage or PsyWar, but stopping at PsyWar 4 gets you Hustle and Expansion, add Practiced Manifester for Augmented Expansion. This may also give you enough feats to do something like EWP: Spiked Chain + Shadow Blade. But that gets a little tricky, since to get Shadow Blade damage you'll have to get out of the Thicket of Blades stance.

Another possibility...

Swordsage 6/Cloistered Cleric 1/Master of Nine 2 (Darkness and Time domain)
or
Swordsage 5/PsyWar 2/Master of Nine 2

This gets you Dual Stance, limited for a number of rounds per day, but lets you stay in Thicket of Blades and a shadow hand stance for lockdown AoOs and Dex bonus on damage. Finish off Master of Nine and then add 8 levels of Legacy Champion, and you could get up to 22 rounds of Dual Stance (although this may get books thrown at your head).

Hmm... I think I'm missing Improved Trip somewhere in there. How about:

Race: Human, Azurin, or Strongheart Halfing
Weapons: Guisarme + Armor Spikes
Swordsage 2/PsyWar 2/Swordsage +2
Feats:
1) Combat Reflexes, Stand Still
3) Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
4) Martial Study: Foehammer or Shield Block
6) Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades

Or you can get Improved Trip with a two-level dip into Wolf Totem Barbarian (SRD/UA). Which still has Fast Movement, so we can swap that with Spirit Lion Totem for Pounce (Complete Champion):

Race: Human, Azurin, or Strongheart Halfing
Weapons: Guisarme + Armor Spikes
Swordsage 2/Barbarian 2/Swordsage +1/PsyWar 4/Swordsage +11
Feats:
1) Combat Reflexes, Stand Still
3) Adaptive Style
4) Improved Trip
6) Martial Study: Foehammer or Shield Block
7) Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades
9) Practiced Manifester, TWF
12) EWP: Kusari-Gama
15) Double Hit
18) Martial Stance: Immortal Fortitude

[AslanCross]

I agree that a crusader build is best, as their schools really work with that. An Iron Heart warblade AOO build can also feasibly work.

[kardar233]

Thanks Darrin, that helps a lot. I like the idea of combining Thicket of Blades, a Trip weapon and all the throws from Setting Sun, so that looks good.

[Eldariel]

Thicket of Blades is good. That said, Setting Sun throws work as a form of unorthodox Battlefield Control. Since they use Trip-checks, they go perfectly with AoO trip build; I suggest combining those two.