My buff with desert wind (ToB)

[Seharvepernfan]

I like the idea of a mobility based, tumbling, scimitar/spear/falchion discipline. I'm okay with desert tempest, flashing sun, wind stride, and zephyr dance, but not levitating and fire summoning/blasting. Where does it even come from?

I'm sure plenty of other people share my views on this. I think desert wind should have more scout based maneuvers, like granting skirmish, dodge bonus to AC, better action economy, and if-you-successfully-tumble-then-you-can-(whatever) abilities.

Even if you are okay with sourcless fire abilities, its still fire, which is the most commonly resisted element, rendering an entire discipline ineffective.

Thoughts?

[Eldariel]

Yeah, Desert Wind is meh. I feel similarly about Shadow Hand, to be honest; I think there should be a separate school for the magical stuff and then a separate assassin's school. Right now, non-magical "assassin skills" are limited to Assassin's Stance and that's about it.

Desert Wind would certainly make a lot of sense as a skirmishing school with possibly expanded abilities to enable ranged combat too. Or rather, some other school instead of Desert Wind and leave Desert Wind magical; either would work.

[Yuki Akuma]

Desert Wind is a magical martial art based on the concept of desert heat. Of course it can levitate and summon fire.

You'll note that most of the fire-blasting maneuvers are in fact supernatural.

No, fire attacks aren't great, but then you have "deal 100 fire damage", which will hurt pretty much anythign not outright immune.

And if you're using Desert Wind, you are a Swordsage. You have too many maneuvers to just stick with one discipline. Use another when fighting fire-immune critters.

[Eldariel]

Desert Wind is a magical martial art based on the concept of desert heat. Of course it can levitate and summon fire.

You'll note that most of the fire-blasting maneuvers are in fact supernatural.

No, fire attacks aren't great, but then you have "deal 100 fire damage", which will hurt pretty much anythign not outright immune.

And if you're using Desert Wind, you are a Swordsage. You have too many maneuvers to just stick with one discipline. Use another when fighting fire-immune critters.

I think what he's saying (at least the part I agree with) is that Desert Wind is basically two schools; the mundane mobility/skirmishing school and the fire evoker school. At least the beef I have with that (in addition to the fire maneuvers sucking and not scaling outside the Blade-line) is that you can't really have one without the other.

You can't make a...what would amount to Scout with ToB since that part of the school has like 5 maneuvers total. There'd be room for both, the supernatural as a separate school and the mobility school as a separate one.

[Jack_Simth]

Desert Wind is a magical martial art based on the concept of desert heat. Of course it can levitate and summon fire.

You'll note that most of the fire-blasting maneuvers are in fact supernatural.

No, fire attacks aren't great, but then you have "deal 100 fire damage", which will hurt pretty much anythign not outright immune.

And if you're using Desert Wind, you are a Swordsage. You have too many maneuvers to just stick with one discipline. Use another when fighting fire-immune critters.
Ah... Inferno Blast is Swordsage-9; you're going to be waiting a rather long time for that if you start low-end.

[AslanCross]

Most, if not all of the disciplines are in fact two-pronged:

-Devoted Spirit: Healing and explosive damage, with a little tactical buffing.
-Diamond Mind: Lots of hits, or single explosive hits, with a little saving throw utility.
-Iron Heart: Powerful Hits, or hit multiple opponents, with some cool utility based on GAR (Iron Heart Surge, that one throwing maneuver)
-Setting Sun: Throws and debuffing attacks, though it's not so good at the latter
-Shadow Hand: Ability damage or stealth-based stuff
-Stone Dragon: Tanking or HULK SMASH
-Tiger Claw: Jumping maneuvers or multiple attacks

White Raven is the only outlier, which is composed almost entirely of "gangbang."

EDIT: Though there is a point to what the OP says, as the two paths of the Desert Wind seem so different from each other.

[Runestar]

I like the idea of a mobility based, tumbling, scimitar/spear/falchion discipline. I'm okay with desert tempest, flashing sun, wind stride, and zephyr dance, but not levitating and fire summoning/blasting. Where does it even come from?

Indeed, I wonder...:smalltongue:

http://mh.xindm.cn/display.asp?id=564&page=12
http://mh.xindm.cn/display.asp?id=564&page=13
http://mh.xindm.cn/display.asp?id=564&page=21
http://mh.xindm.cn/display.asp?id=660&page=27
http://mh.xindm.cn/display.asp?id=660&page=28
http://mh.xindm.cn/display.asp?id=688&page=12

In summary, that character is duan lang (first 3 are his father from when he was a child), a villian in the Feng Yun comic series. His sword was an ordinary sword implanted with the scale of a kirin (a mystical fiery beast in the setting), which makes it flaming and improves the prowess of anyone who trains with it, with the drawback of eventually turning him evil.

The longer Duan Lang practices this unique swordplay, the more he is imbued with the sword's fiery aura and can attack with fire (really just his inner strength/chi which has fire-like properties).

He is a recurring villian who appears in the comics sporadically, so it is hard to sift through all the various chapters and provide links of all his fights. :smalltongue:

Odd that I find how desert wind fits his character to a perfect T...