Tristalt character classes

[Mclane]

I had an idea for a character. And as the title indicates, their for a tri-stalt game. But I can only think of two classes so far, Swordsage and Warblade. Could anyone give me an idea for a third class that isn't Crusader?

[dextercorvia]

I had an idea for a character. And as the title indicates, their for a tri-stalt game. But I can only think of two classes so far, Swordsage and Warblade. Could anyone give me an idea for a third class that isn't Crusader?

Was your idea for the charcater a Swordsage//Warblade gestalt, then you realized you needed another class? I can throw out a list of classes like Druid, Wizard, Dragon Shaman... but it probably won't help you with your character concept unless I know what that is.

[Fortuna]

Incarnum is fun, although not terribly powerful. It does, however,have the benefit of being largely passive, where you have two largely active classes already.

[Mclane]

Was your idea for the charcater a Swordsage//Warblade gestalt, then you realized you needed another class? I can throw out a list of classes like Druid, Wizard, Dragon Shaman... but it probably won't help you with your character concept unless I know what that is.

Oh yeah, oops, my bad. :smallredface: He's going to have natural reach so that I can attack people with his scythe from a distance, and combat reflexes to get attacks of opportunity against most of the melee enemies that move next to me. The swordsage and warblade will give me the best saves, and the swordsage will give me bonus to AC for Wisdom. I mainly just need another class that uses Str or Con as their main stat, and can be good at melee.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

You can never go wrong with Factotum in gestalt. And it works good with Warblade, both have Int as an important attribute.
Crusader, duh. This way you will be THE ulrimate fighting machine able to heal yourself and allies. And its maneuvers are good for battlefield control with your concept will synergy with (reach and AoOs).

[DeAnno]

I'm not sure how the rules of your gestalt game work, but have you considered running some kind of Giant or Lycanthrope up your third side? Simply being some massively ECLed melee thing is usually quite helpful in gestalt because of the passive bonuses.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

That might be a good idea, but not every gestalt game allows for taking monsters/powerful races (at least not just on one part of the gestalt).

[dextercorvia]

Oh yeah, oops, my bad. :smallredface: He's going to have natural reach so that I can attack people with his scythe from a distance, and combat reflexes to get attacks of opportunity against most of the melee enemies that move next to me. The swordsage and warblade will give me the best saves, and the swordsage will give me bonus to AC for Wisdom. I mainly just need another class that uses Str or Con as their main stat, and can be good at melee.

More combat ability won't help -- you aren't going to get a higher BAB, or more HP. You might get a few abilities, but you have plenty of uses for your actions, you need a passive class. Incarnate could work. Playing a long term buff caster would also work. Cleric and Druid have plenty of these abilities -- they also key off of Wisdom which you are relying on for AC. Dragonfire Adept or Warlock gets a number of all day buffs if you choose your invocations right.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

Is Factotum passive?

[Tokuhara]

Personally, I say be the following:

Fire Giant 19/Warblade 1//Warblade 8/Barbarian 1/Warblade 1/Bloodstorm Blade 10//Swordsage 10/Shadow Sun Ninja 10

Here's what you do:

1) You're Large Size by the end. Lotsa useful feats along the way. With the Barbarian Level (9th), take Frozen Berserker. This way, you are immune to fire and cold damage when you rage.

2) Bloodstorm Blade lets you Throw A Melee Weapon (like your scythe)

3) Shadow Sun Ninja makes getting close to you a bad idea

4) ???

5) Profit!

[dspeyer]

How about Psychic Warrior? The buff powers should be very handy (especially expansion) and the bonus feats will probably be nice. There's nice 1-point stuff, so quicken power becomes viable at 7th level. You'll need wisdom, but not a ton of it.

[deuxhero]

Wizard//Warblade//Factotum.

Int to EVERYTHING!


The tough choice is if Warblade or Wizard should get your PRC.

[Slipperychicken]

Is Factotum passive?

+1 to this. More standard actions (Cunning Surge) means getting more use out of those maneuvers (and easier Warblade maneuver recovery, not that you really need it with two maneuver pools going). Not to mention SLA's, skillpoints, Int to Everything, and all the other wonderful things Factotum offers.

[Tokuhara]

+1 to this. More standard actions (Cunning Surge) means getting more use out of those maneuvers (and easier Warblade maneuver recovery, not that you really need it with two maneuver pools going). Not to mention SLA's, skillpoints, Int to Everything, and all the other wonderful things Factotum offers.

I second Factotum with an asterix:

I say drop Swordsage and go Crusader. Unless you can coerce your DM to allow Kung-Fu Genius to work with Unarmed Swordsage

[TurtleKing]

Get too many active classes (yes the Factotum is an active class) and you will not have use for them all. Sure you can do anything just not at once. Oh wait use Factotum to Cunning Surge all those actions…for what a round? What if the nova didn't work? What next? Oh just pull out something else? Right.

I remember reading a gestalt handbook that shouldn't spread yourself too thin. Should instead try to make both sides to work in unison to make what you want to do even better. Which you are doing.

Well if going down the Int route what about the Duskblade. Combine that with a full caster on another side plus ToB class of choice on the last one for ample amount of channeling spells through your manuavers.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

Duskblade is much more active then Factotum, IF the Factotum is even active, which I doubt.

[AmberVael]

I second Factotum with an asterix:

I say drop Swordsage and go Crusader. Unless you can coerce your DM to allow Kung-Fu Genius to work with Unarmed Swordsage

I disagree. In Tristalt you will get far more mileage out of Swordsage/Warblade than you would Crusader/Warblade, particularly if you use it and Warblade as a launching point for Master of Nine (Unarmed swordsage nets some requirements, warblade feats can get you more, making it a lot less painful to enter- and all the more worth it). Get all the best Crusader maneuvers from Master of Nine, get tons of maneuvers from Swordsage (and gaining a few from shadow hand is really worth it), and get Iron Heart with Warblade. You get a lot more flexibility while gaining most of the potency you'd get from Crusader. With proper maneuver choice, you can do some decent things out of combat with your levels too...

Definitely pick up Kung Fu Genius if possible though.

Also, no, Factotum is not really an active class. It grants a number of out of combat options... and all its in combat options can basically be combined with anything else, and even if they can't- Cunning Surge as needed. Your few spells should likely go to utility, while in combat you focus on the bonuses it provides, and the extra action and ignore DR capabilities.

[deuxhero]

Not an expert on Factotum, but it's an easy way to extra action, extra damage (IF, SA), out of combat utility and more with no asctions.

Warblade gets counters, boosts, and decent enough chassis.

Wizard gets wizard stuff.

[TurtleKing]

I guess should have said the Factotum is an active class overall. Well the Factotum does help by also adding some out of combat versatility to the character that ToB classes seem to be lacking.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

I guess should have said the Factotum is an active class overall.
No, it really isn't. Most of his abilities are passive, no action or free action. And one even grants actions. So yeah.

[hex0]

Swashbuckler 3//Factotum 3//Monk 3
Monk 2//Warblade 2//Fighter 2
Kensai 5//Warblade 5//Monk 5
Exemplar 1//Warblade 1//Monk 1
Kensai 1//Monk 1//Warblade 1
Kensai 4//Fighter 4//Warblade 4
Warblade 3//Fighter 3//Exemplar 3
Fighter 1//Swordsage 1//Exemplar 1

Full BAB Flurry = +20/+20/+20/+15/+10/+5 add on Crushing Strike and Weapon Supremacy...you get the idea

Duskblade 6//Warmage 6//Wizard 6
Duskblade 7//Rainbow Servant 7//Wizard 7
Warblade 3//Rainbow Servant 3//Wizard 3
Jade Phoenix Mage 4 (Wizard)//Warmage 4//Duskblade 4

Hmm...Full bab channel as a level 19 wizard, level 20 warmage (with all the cleric spells), and level 17 duskblade. Sure, why not?

Warblade 5//Scout 5//Spellthief 5
Trapsmith 1//Warblade 1//Scout 1
Swiftblade 10//Warblade 10//Scout 10
Jade Phoenix Mage 4//Warblade 4//Scout 4

Hi kids, I have d12 hit die, 8 skills a level, and all good saves for all but one level. Gotta run...

[Kaje]

Anyone know if it's ok to use Arcane Channeling on SLAs?

[hex0]

Anyone know if it's ok to use Arcane Channeling on SLAs?

It says cast any spell you know, so I would say SLAs are a no go.

Full attack channel Plane Shift though! lol

[Kaje]

Man it would be so awesome if you could though.

Tristalt Duskblade 20 // Warlock 9 / Hellfire Warlock 3 / Legacy Champion 8 // Binder 1 / Swordsage 4 / Crinti Shadow Marauder 5 / Shadow Sun Ninja 10

Shadow pounces three times every other round for twelve attacks channeling hellfire glaive. Drooooooool. And that's got some great synergy with that Shadow Sun Ninja stance that alternates light and darkness.

Hell, make it quadstalt for some skirmish action as well.

Alas.

[Tokuhara]

My favorite tristalt combo is:

Race: Quorbred Deep Imaskari (2la)
Class: LA 2/Warblade 18//Factotum 20//Domain Wizard 3/Human Paragon 3/Incantrix 10/Archmage 4

Bonus Actions+Ability to be in melee+9th level spells

[JaronK]

War Hulk. Just sayin'.

JaronK

[Curious]

Magus 6/ Warblade 14//Factotum 20// Wizard 20. An amazing gish. Totally Int SAD too, as long as you grab something like Faerie Mysteries Initiate.

[hex0]

If you ignored the rule about having more than one PRC at a time....

Warblade 1//Rogue 1//Halfling Paragon 1
Warblade 2//Swashbuckler 2//Halfling Paragon 2
Warblade 1//Swashbuckler 1//Psychic Warrior 1
Warblade 1//Whisperknife 1//Psychic Warrior 1
Whisperknife 5//Bloodstorm Blade 5//Master Thrower 5 :smallcool:
Whisperknife 4//Bloodstorm Blade 4//Invisible Blade 4
Halfling Paragon 1//Bloodstorm Blade 1//Invisible Blade1
Warblade 5//Rogue 5//Kensai 5

Or something like that. Don't even want to figure out how many daggers you can throw per round like that....

Edit: If with only one prc at a time you can make a wicked thrower build...

[Socratov]

wizard//archivist//swordsage


congratulations, you can do absolutely anything...

[Hiro Protagonest]

Warblade//wizard//factotum gets a dragon chassis with a better skill list. And full casting. And maneuvers.

[JaronK]

Should probably replace Wizard with Archivist for the ability to use armor, the more comprehensive spell list (with less overlap from Factotum), and the really fun Dark Knowledge abilities. But yeah, that's a classic straight forward and very effective tri-stalt concept.

JaronK

[Tokuhara]

Why not have all day use?

Archivist 15/Contemplative 5//Wizard 15/Archmage 5//StP Erudite 15/Arch Psion 5

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why not have all day use?

Archivist 15/Contemplative 5//Wizard 15/Archmage 5//StP Erudite 15/Arch Psion 5

Because at the end of the day, 85 of your 100 spells and powers haven't been used?

[Tokuhara]

Because at the end of the day, 85 of your 100 spells and powers haven't been used?

I've done this, and actually RAN OUT of stuff to do. I had 0 Spells/Day and 0 PP left

[Tyndmyr]

I had an idea for a character. And as the title indicates, their for a tri-stalt game. But I can only think of two classes so far, Swordsage and Warblade. Could anyone give me an idea for a third class that isn't Crusader?

Honestly, I'd probably just gleefully dip classes that provided interesting passive bonuses to my main idea of "hit things with maneuvers". Paragon class if it matched my race for stats/fun stuff. Possibly rogue on first level, for massive skill points and goodies. Two levels of fighter, a level of marshal, possibly some factotum if I have the int to support it.

Nothing that's a stellar build on it's own, but things that make the active stuff awesome.

[hex0]

Sorry for all the builds. Tristalt makes me wonky...

So for your character, you are large (right?) and wield a scythe?

Id like to second Warhulk exploitation:

Warblade 5//Kensai Variant Fighter 5//Psychic Warrior 5
Warhulk 10//Swordsage 10//Psychic Warrior 10
Psychic Warrior 5//Swordsage 5//Warblade 5

[Heliomance]

Actually, it might be kinda fun to stick Wildshape Ranger and MoMF on that chassis. More reach, more stats, another attack, and immunity to crit and stun? Tasty.

[hex0]

Actually, it might be kinda fun to stick Wildshape Ranger and MoMF on that chassis. More reach, more stats, another attack, and immunity to crit and stun? Tasty.

Or just Druid, since you'll have high BAB from another class anyway.

But I strongly suggest Warhulk as +20 strength is too much to pass up. :smallbiggrin:

[JaronK]

Unarmed Variant Swordsage//Wildshape Ranger/Master of Many Forms//Warblade/Warhulk? Hard to fit in the PrCs properly there, but that would be a nasty build indeed.

JaronK