Swordsage clarification

[Cwymbran-San]

Hi there,

my wife is currently playing a battlemage/swordsage and intends to wear heavier armor.
A swordsage only loses his WIS-bonus to armor class if he wears more than light armor, correct? Because if this is the case, she would not lose anything (with a WIS-Score of 10...). Or is there any other significant loss attached?

I was just wondering, this might be a good choice for any melee-character if this is just so.

[lord_khaine]

That is indeed true, though if your wife only has a 10 in wisdom, them she might as well be a warblade instead imo.

[Cwymbran-San]

T'was my idea as well, but she liked the Desert Winds maneuvers better than Iron Heart. Gives her some more flame to toss around i guess...maybe she's half-dragon somewhere deep inside.

[sonofzeal]

For newer players, I usually let them choose three schools based on short descriptions and go with that. It simplifies things, and gives them a bit more control over the character. I recently helped one of my friends make a "Ninja Turtle", and he chose Devoted Spirit, Desert Wind, and Setting Sun. Nevermind that no class officially has access to all three, and nevermind that we went with a Warblade chassis that doesn't have access to any of them, treating them as a Warblade's styles known is entirely fair and balanced. It means he misses out on Iron Heart and White Raven, but gets tricks that feed his own image of who he wants the character to be instead. And I think that's a good thing.

[ClothedInVelvet]

For newer players, I usually let them choose three schools based on short descriptions and go with that. It simplifies things, and gives them a bit more control over the character. I recently helped one of my friends make a "Ninja Turtle", and he chose Devoted Spirit, Desert Wind, and Setting Sun. Nevermind that no class officially has access to all three, and nevermind that we went with a Warblade chassis that doesn't have access to any of them, treating them as a Warblade's styles known is entirely fair and balanced. It means he misses out on Iron Heart and White Raven, but gets tricks that feed his own image of who he wants the character to be instead. And I think that's a good thing.

That's a really interesting idea. Has anyone else tried this out? I'm a bit concerned about balance issues and wondering if it works out elsewhere.

Would anyone play a crusader?
If the character took Iron Heart and Devoted Spirit, would he/she be out of control?
Is the Crusader's damage pool eligible to be removed with Iron Heart Surge?

[limejuicepowder]

That's a really interesting idea. Has anyone else tried this out? I'm a bit concerned about balance issues and wondering if it works out elsewhere.

Would anyone play a crusader?
If the character took Iron Heart and Devoted Spirit, would he/she be out of control?
Is the Crusader's damage pool eligible to be removed with Iron Heart Surge?

I think people would definitely still play a crusader: they have the best recovery mechanic, and arguably the best class features as well. Really, if players were allowed to select any three schools crusader would probably be the way to go 75% of the time.

Like any homebrew changes to classes, it often leads to more homebrew changes because of unintended consequences. It would be an extremely powerful usage of IRS to empty the damage pool; but on the other hand it fits very well with the crusader theme. For balance issues I would probably limit it to appropriately thematic times, like when the character is defending innocents against all odds or something.

[Cwymbran-San]

Sounds like a good idea :smallbiggrin: anyway, we are going with her build right now and see what good it will do. She just likes blasting foes with her battlemage spells and having a Burning Blade/Emerald Razor-combo up her sleeve if anyone gets too close for comfort.

[sonofzeal]

That's a really interesting idea. Has anyone else tried this out? I'm a bit concerned about balance issues and wondering if it works out elsewhere.

Would anyone play a crusader?
If the character took Iron Heart and Devoted Spirit, would he/she be out of control?
Is the Crusader's damage pool eligible to be removed with Iron Heart Surge?
I don't think there's any significant balance issue. Most of the styles are pretty similar in overall power. Desert Wind and Stone Dragon are the most limited, but someone could focus on them and still be in the same ballpark.

Each of the classes is still useful if you allow this. Crusaders are still pseudo-Paladins, Warblades are still pseudo-Fighters, and Swordsages are still pseudo-Rogues. There's plenty of room for stylistic preference there.

And I don't think damage pool constitutes an "effect" though, not in a way that doesn't lead to total physics-breakage when applied to other contexts.

[lord_khaine]

Like any homebrew changes to classes, it often leads to more homebrew changes because of unintended consequences. It would be an extremely powerful usage of IRS to empty the damage pool; but on the other hand it fits very well with the crusader theme. For balance issues I would probably limit it to appropriately thematic times, like when the character is defending innocents against all odds or something.

It should be pointet out that a normal Crusader is only a few feats, or a warblade dip away from getting IHS, without any homebrew changes at all.

[limejuicepowder]

It should be pointet out that a normal Crusader is only a few feats, or a warblade dip away from getting IHS, without any homebrew changes at all.

Correct you are; I didn't even think of that. Again though, I would probably stick to what I said above: I think it can add excitement to change abilities in rare and special cases, like giving a barb "super rage" and things like that.

[hushblade]

I think people would definitely still play a crusader: they have the best recovery mechanic, and arguably the best class features as well. Really, if players were allowed to select any three schools crusader would probably be the way to go 75% of the time.

Like any homebrew changes to classes, it often leads to more homebrew changes because of unintended consequences. It would be an extremely powerful usage of IRS to empty the damage pool; but on the other hand it fits very well with the crusader theme. For balance issues I would probably limit it to appropriately thematic times, like when the character is defending innocents against all odds or something.

I beg to disagree. I prefer Warblade personally(getting to make a full attack instead of a maneuver isn't much of a handicap, and you can use the maneuvers you want, when you want them) I dislike the randomness of the crusader's. But that's just personal preference, still, its far from fact that the crusader is superior in recovery mechanic.

[Cwymbran-San]

I beg to disagree. I prefer Warblade personally(getting to make a full attack instead of a maneuver isn't much of a handicap, and you can use the maneuvers you want, when you want them) I dislike the randomness of the crusader's. But that's just personal preference, still, its far from fact that the crusader is superior in recovery mechanic.

THIS is the exact reason i prefer the swordsage to the warblade: you have to actually THINK about the maneuvers and the order in which you intend to use them because your recovery mechanic requires you to more or less stand around doing nothing (which is not extremely clever during a fight).
Just my personal taste.

[hushblade]

I like the flavor of a swordsage the best myself actually, I was just saying that the Warblade recovery mechanic could easily be argured to be mechanically best.

[Person_Man]

That's a really interesting idea. Has anyone else tried this out? I'm a bit concerned about balance issues and wondering if it works out elsewhere.

I don't think it would be a big deal. In fact, you could give everyone access to 3 disciplines and/or schools of magic and/or psionic power disciplines of their choice (within reason - I wouldn't let anyone spam Polymorph), and allow them to be used on top of a chassis of their choice (ie, instead of memorizing spells or using power points, you could use anything you know once per encounter, and recover it with whatever recovery maneuver you selected). It's not a balance issue if all of the players are similarly strong.

[Fax Celestis]

For newer players, I usually let them choose three schools based on short descriptions and go with that. It simplifies things, and gives them a bit more control over the character. I recently helped one of my friends make a "Ninja Turtle", and he chose Devoted Spirit, Desert Wind, and Setting Sun. Nevermind that no class officially has access to all three, and nevermind that we went with a Warblade chassis that doesn't have access to any of them, treating them as a Warblade's styles known is entirely fair and balanced. It means he misses out on Iron Heart and White Raven, but gets tricks that feed his own image of who he wants the character to be instead. And I think that's a good thing.
Agreed. The martial classes should've just had "Crusader: Choose three styles; Swordsage: Choose six styles; Warblade: Choose four styles".

[Glimbur]

Like any homebrew changes to classes, it often leads to more homebrew changes because of unintended consequences. It would be an extremely powerful usage of IRS to empty the damage pool; but on the other hand it fits very well with the crusader theme. For balance issues I would probably limit it to appropriately thematic times, like when the character is defending innocents against all odds or something.

A standard action to effectively heal 20 hp at 12th level, or up to 30 hp at level 20? Not worth a standard action. Given how the delayed damage pool works, you could only use it for in-combat healing, and that is a waste of an action. Therefore, I would allow it but caution against it.

[Snowbluff]

I beg to disagree. I prefer Warblade personally(getting to make a full attack instead of a maneuver isn't much of a handicap, and you can use the maneuvers you want, when you want them) I dislike the randomness of the crusader's. But that's just personal preference, still, its far from fact that the crusader is superior in recovery mechanic.

Agreed, their is alot that can be said about being able to do what you want when you want. Plus, a warblade's recovery technically has no action loss; you are trying to hitting with attacks on a regular basis anyway. Getting maneuvers back is just a bonus.

Crusaders, on the other hand, have the most broken recovery mechanic. Sure, you lose no action, but very often you can be stuck on the bad side of the RNG. Idiot Crusading is rule-able, so it depends on how much smarter you than your DM.

[tyckspoon]

Crusaders, on the other hand, have the most broken recovery mechanic. Sure, you lose no action, but very often you can be stuck on the bad side of the RNG. Idiot Crusading is rule-able, so it depends on how much smarter you than your DM.

With Extra Granted Maneuver you can have more than half your maneuvers up with every refresh. If you don't have *something* useful on hand, it's probably not the RNG's fault; you probably picked bad maneuvers (also, this is likely why Devoted Spirit/White Raven are a bit stronger than the other disciplines; they knew they would be used by a class that didn't have direct control of the maneuvers it used, so they all needed to be generally good.)