[3,5 - ToB] Need Character Advice

[Mordrigar]

Hello Playgrounders!

I'm in a new Forgotten Realms Campaign. We will play as Cormyr Nobles. I picked Duke Bhereu of Cormyr and I'm thinking about for a ToB character.

All official DND, FR books are allowed. Also Dragon Magazines and Web Appendixes too.

I've never played with ToB character before so I need all the things that you can give me as advice.

So here is what I have got at that point:

Race: Human
Point Buy: 25 (or 28 - or 32)
Starting XP: 66.000 (or 59.400 - or 52.800)


-What kind of character that I want?
I want a melee fighter that jumps in shadows and reappears at anywhere in battleground. I will use hit and run attacks. Staying untouchable is my first purpose. Also high damage is preferable for high attacks. I'm thinking about Unarmed Swordsage but any other suggestions are welcomed.

The Build in my head is:

Unarmed Swordsage 1 / XXXX 6 / Master of Nine 4

Str: 8
Dex: 16
Con: 15
Int: 12
Wis: 14
Cha: 8

Feats:
4 from levels, 1 human, 2 flaws, 2 bonus

Human:
-Adaptive Strike
Bonus:
-Weapon Focus Unarmed Strike
-Improved Unarmed Strike
Levels:
-Blind Fight
-Dodge
-Improved Initiative
-Weapon Finesse
Flaws: (Vulnerable, Shaky)
-Shadow Blade
-Light Armor Proficiency

And no maneuver idea at all.

[WinWin]

Teflammar Shadowlord, from Unapproachable East.

4 levels will net you the Shadow Pounce ability in addition to some shadow jumping (dimension door).

The ability to make a full attack after a teleport can be handled in a variety of ways. Personally, I prefer laying down multiple status effects, but 2 weapon fighting in addition to some natural attacks has the potential to yield quite a lot of damage.

[Veyr]

Not really sure Mot9 is worth it, but whatever. Swordsage/Mot9 is probably ideal; I can't think of too many reasons to bother with anything else.

Or actually, a Cleric 1 dip would help immensely. You can get Blind-Fight from the Darkness or Shadow Domains, and Improved Initiative from the Time Domain. That helps a lot with making Mot9 palatable. Due to the way Initiator Level works, it's probably best to dip something else: Fighter gets you another Bonus Feat, PsyWar gets you a bonus feat and 1st level Powers, Monk gets you some feats but not the ones you need; it does conveniently progress Unarmed Strike damage, though. I don't know what the requirements on Shiba Protector are exactly, but that could also work really nicely. Barbarian's Rage is a nice non-action boost to your stats; you could always go for Pounce+Whirling Frenzy and then focus on Boosts and Counters rather than Strikes, or go with Ferocity to get Dex instead of Con from Rage. There's some other Rage variants that are maybe useful. If you want 4 non-initiator levels (allows you to take your first level of Swordsage with IL 3, which helps some), Incarnate 3 might be worth considering.

Anyway, don't take Dodge; it's awful. Desert Wind Dodge, Midnight Dodge, Expeditious Dodge (if you can get Fast Movement somewhere) would all be better.

For maneuvers, you can literally take whatever sounds cool and do well. I'd consider focusing on Tiger Claw, actually, since Tiger Claw's got more Strikes and ones you're likely to use more often. Debatable, though, especially with the way Mot9 works (really encourages you to use a wide variety of maneuvers, which means you can't focus on getting Insightful Strikes on everything), and the Weapon Focus thing always works no matter what you ready. Obviously, make sure you take at least 1 from each of the schools you have available in order to enter Mot9.

Also, it is good to hold off on Mot9 as long as you can. You get a lot of maneuvers from it, which means it's best to get the highest-level maneuvers you can. Taking it early means once you're done with it, you'll be looking a lot of lower-level maneuvers — useful, certainly, but not as good as it could be.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Just go straight swordsage. What you want is shadow jaunt/shadow stride/shadow blink.

[OracleofSilence]

similarly, the swordsage in particular senergiezes really well, as it has lots of benifits that can fire off with a shadow pounce.

[Hazzardevil]

This will sound rather weird but heres what I suggest.
Dip a level of warlock so you get the darkness invocation and then take Instinctive darkness and at home in the deep so you can cast it as a swift action and see through the magical darkness.
Then take a level of Fighter or Feat rogue so you can make up for the lost maneuver learnt or gain another readiead one and also become the quite possibly tank if you got your stats right.

I really ought to try some of the builds I suggest to people at some point.

[Mordrigar]

Thanks for all ideas. It seems i can't take Teflammar Shadowlord as a noble of Cormyr.

@Veyr, I take Dodge because of Mot9. I know it's useless feat but it's a class requirement. Also now I'll just take 2 levels of it just because of double stance and keep rest progression for later levels.

@Hazzardevil, do you think is it really worth to dip in Warlock? I mean 2 feats, losing maneuvers etc. ?

[navar100]

If you want Master Of Nine, and I think it's a good Prestige Class, do it as a Crusader. I entered it as Crusader 8/Swordsage 2. When I finished, with Extra Granted Maneuver feat, I had 11 maneuvers readied, 9 granted at the start of every combat, and refreshed for free every three rounds. That was AWESOME!

Using it for Warblade instead is fine too, since Warblade grants you very few maneuvers readied. Master of Nine gives you a nice boost.

You will notice that when you get a new stance and the level stances are available is out of whack. Warblades don't get even a 3rd level stance until level 10 and Crusaders can't get an 8th level stance at all. You would have spend a feat on Martial Stance. If you don't mind this, fine. Otherwise, you need to multiclass two levels in another class to get your initiator level in line with when you get stances and stances are available. Warblades need to do this before character level 6, Crusaders before character level 8 but still need to take Martial Stance for a 3rd level stance, like Thicket Of Blades which is popular, and a level 6 stance. I'm partial to Aura of Perfect Order. Since you want Master of Nine anyway, multiclassing two levels of Swordsage fits the bill. If you decide not to go into Master of Nine, Fighter is good for the feats, and as a Warblade you can still take Weapon Specialization at character level 6 as you could a single class Warblade if you really wanted it.

As an alternative to multiclassing and spending a feat to fix your stances, ask your DM for a house rule to allow for changing one stance known at level 5 and every 5 levels after.

[Veyr]

I take Dodge because of Mot9. I know it's useless feat but it's a class requirement. Also now I'll just take 2 levels of it just because of double stance and keep rest progression for later levels.
Desert Wind Dodge, Midnight Dodge, etc. etc. all count as Dodge for pre-requisites.

[navar100]

Call Dodge the feat tax of a sucky feat almost every prestige class requires. The rest of the prerequisites are useful enough, even Improved Unarmed Strike. Multiclassing two levels of unarmed strike variant swordsage mitigates that, but the feat itself is fine for adepts because all your strike maneuvers work. For whatever reason you don't have a weapon when you need it, you can still use all your strikes for whatever juiciness you want, though Iron Heart may suffer a bit.

[marcielle]

Look for something called 'Heaven of Nine'. It is a build that allows you to get EVERY worthwhile maneuver out there. You'd be a monster(in combat) for the same reasons a wizard is a God all the time. Versatility. Also, I think there is an updated version of Heaven' but can't remember what it is called at the moment.

[Hazzardevil]

Thanks for all ideas. It seems i can't take Teflammar Shadowlord as a noble of Cormyr.

@Veyr, I take Dodge because of Mot9. I know it's useless feat but it's a class requirement. Also now I'll just take 2 levels of it just because of double stance and keep rest progression for later levels.

@Hazzardevil, do you think is it really worth to dip in Warlock? I mean 2 feats, losing maneuvers etc. ?

Warlock is only a good dip for shadow hand swordsages really, because they get quite a bit of sneak attack. Although you definetly need to take 2 levels in other classes.
The Warlock feats I reccomended only taking those feats if you don't have anything better to take.

Fitting Warlock in along with Master of nine is difficult, but the origanal Master of Nine was more of a Master of Six.
So heres a better one. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121583)

[Big Fau]

@Veyr, I take Dodge because of Mot9. I know it's useless feat but it's a class requirement. Also now I'll just take 2 levels of it just because of double stance and keep rest progression for later levels.

Desert Wind Dodge or Midnight Dodge (Magic of Incarnum) are both better than normal Dodge, and both allow you to qualify for Mo9.


And, to reiterate an earlier question: Is Mo9 really worth it? Dual Stance isn't that good considering it has a limited duration.

[Optimator]

If you can tolerate a dip in your build, Cobra Strike Monk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#cobraStrike) can net you Improved Unarmed Strike and Dodge in one level, potentially freeing up a feat. Redundant in some ways if you were going unarmed Swordsage in the first place but for some Mo9 builds it works well. Mo9s work best, in my opinion, in a Crusader-based build. The way prestige classes interact with martial adepts means a lot of granted maneuvers from Master of Nine.

Something like Monk 1 Crusader 5 Swordsage 2 Mo9 4 might be fun. I'd play it. Lots of stances. If I knew the campaign would go to higher levels I'd take Mo9 later in the build, for sure. I guess your unarmed strike damage would suffer... if you focused on strikes you could have so many maneuvers granted that it would make up for it. May be worth it. I suppose skills would suffer this way. I figured since you were going Mo9, maneuvers and fighting were the focus rather than skills.

Ask if you can go unarmed Crusader and just have it stack with the other levels for unarmed damage. You're already using a variant so your DM may let it slide. Trade armor proficiency for it.

[Amphetryon]

Cloistered Cleric 1 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric)/Swordsage 9/Mo9 5/Shadow Sun Ninja 5 would be my choice, given your stated preferences and allowed sources. Do as suggested and take Desert Wind Dodge because it's just better than plain old Dodge. Travel Devotion fits in well with your hit-and-run tactical choices.