Staying Alive

[Mari01]

My friend and I are using ToB characters for the first time. We printed out the maneuver cards and have been following everything to the closest rule following we can. However, our DM doesnt seem to like that we have more options than move, hit, move ( in particular, we're using Island of Blades and Iron Guard's Glare to help the other members hit and stay alive). While he isn't going to kill us outright, when we die, the book is banned. I'm playing a Crusader and he is a Swordsage. We're having a lot of fun and aren't pulling any EXTREME OP shenanigans. Do you guys have any tips on staying alive? More so for me since my role in the group is to draw the enemy's attacks/damage.

TL;DR Tips on staying alive as a Crusader.

[dgnslyr]

Consider investing skill points into Perform (Disco), even at cross-class costs. With a good Perform check, you should be able to Stay Alive.

Now that that joke's out of the way, consider Stone Power? It's like power attack, but instead of getting bonus damage, you get 2 temporary HP per BAB sacrificed, capping out at -5 attack/ +10 temporary HP. I'm pretty sure you can heal your delayed damage pool damage with temporary HP, so it's basically Fast Healing 10 at level 5.

White Raven has a lot of good defensive maneuvers in general. You really can't go wrong with anything that heals, considering it's free healing. There's a Belt of Healing in the Magic Item Compendium, I believe, that lets you heal a few d8s every day. They're dirt cheap, at 750gp a belt, so have you and your buddy pick up a a belt or three each. Go crazy with them, as if you're a Tetsuya Nomura character.

Also, if you find yourself in need of even more healing, consider buying your divine caster a Wand of Lesser Vigor and maybe a box of chocolates, to keep the party topped off between encounters. Or you can learn to heal yourself. Ruby Knight Vindicator combines divine casting with maneuver progression, so a level of cleric at level 5 should be enough to enter RKV, and even one level of cleric is enough to use wands of spells on your spell list without fail.

[Flickerdart]

What level are you? At low levels, the DR 5 from Stone Bones is amazing against weak mobs.

[Strormer]

Perhaps the deeper reason behind your dm's lack of approval would be benificial. Does he really have a problem with options or is it a preconception than you're not a caster so insert hate. I had a dm like that. You might be able to talk it out with him to avoid the issue rather than fight a combative dm.

[0nimaru]

Tonight on "evening ToB discussion". Well viewers, it's the same topics as usual:

Is it OP? No
Should it be banned? No
Can melee have nice things? Sometimes


Back to serious, ToB is optimized out of the box and invalidates several other classes. It also crushes nearly any appropriate CR monsters, and VOIDS the entire concept of wearing down the party with winnable battles, rest, repeat. HP is your only resource, and it is easily replenishable with tricks or maneuvers

ToB has no resources, so there is nothing to wear down, and the battles won't get harder as the day goes on. DMs can have a hard time dealing with this, especially in a mixed party.

[KillianHawkeye]

If he doesn't like it, he should never have allowed it to begin with. Maybe instead of doing this passive-aggressive death banning, you guys can all work together to work out a compromise.

[kulosle]

Really, the only DMs who I find don't like ToB are poor DM's anyways. One of the first questions I ask perspective DMs is if ToB is allowed. Even though I don't use it that much, mainly for Blood Storm Blade. They finally came up with a mechanic for martial characters besides, "Oh I know, why don't we just give them extra feats, that will make them balanced."

That aside, Swordsage is one of the most survivable classes. If you can't make it work I don't know much of what to tell you. If you aren't tripping people, you should probably start doing that. Use your damage reduction maneuvers and your healing stances. Some of the sheild maneuvers are quite nice. You have to sacrifice a bit of power for them though.

[Feytalist]

I was going to make a Bee Gees joke, but then the very first response beat me to it.

Seriously, though, Crusader is the gold standard of damage-soaking potential. Healing strikes, delayed damage pool, mettle, the works.

Other than that, standard methods of protection apply. Miss chance is the big one.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It's worth mentioning that dying from hit point loss isn't the only significant threat. Moment of Perfect Mind, Action Before Thought and Mind Over Body are all worth considering for your Swordsage friend (and by "worth considering", I mean "take these, you fools!"), since they replace each of his saves with a Concentration check 1/encounter. Roots of the Mountain is DR in a stance (it's low, but at low levels it's serviceable). Bolster Voice is necessary for performing Dragon Shouts, oh and also I guess it helps keep you alive or something.

All of that's level 3 or lower on the maneuver scale, as well, so it's easily attainable.

[kulosle]

well his main concern will be saveless ability damage. Best think to do for that is have a cleric friend handy.

[Mari01]

What level are you? At low levels, the DR 5 from Stone Bones is amazing against weak mobs.

We're currently level 5. He's not a fan of low level encounters so we just jumped from level 2 to 5. Standard WBL minus our current equipment. The feats I had already taken were Stone Power and Extra Granted Maneuver (Human). I'm trying to find a good balance of party support and making sure I dont get mauled.

[Slipperychicken]

Let me get this straight. DM thinks ToB classes are overpowered, but will keep them around if they outlive the Fighter?

Good news for you: Crusaders are very good at Staying Alive. White Raven Tactics can give your allies (or even yourself) more actions, so they can do more stuff to keep you alive. Pretty much all of Devoted Spirit is dedicated to keeping you and your allies alive.

[NOhara24]

We're currently level 5. He's not a fan of low level encounters so we just jumped from level 2 to 5. Standard WBL minus our current equipment. The feats I had already taken were Stone Power and Extra Granted Maneuver (Human). I'm trying to find a good balance of party support and making sure I dont get mauled.

The not getting mauled part is tough. Crusaders are pretty much geared toward a lock/crackdown build, which helps the party by drawing attention to yourself. But naturally that sort of build predisposes you to a good bit of damage. That being said, Rejuvenating Strike heals 3d6 every time you use it (when it's available to you of course.), and if you take a cleric dip and head into RKV, you can expend a Turn Undead attempt to get it back right after you use it. But that MAY cause your DM to pull his own hair out.

That being said, you're low level ToB characters, and probably the most powerful in the party at this point. Talk to your DM and let him know that the other members of the party WILL catch up to you, (level 8 is when casters really start to come into their own.) and hopefully he won't ban it. I don't like the idea that after you die, it's banned. That just makes it vulnerable to DM rage. He could very easily kill you at will and then say "Well, that's that. Roll up a PHB fighter."

[Medic!]

When you survive, the next corner will have invisible rock traps that all death-touch when you walk under them. I've played for that kinda DM before lol...I'd say just go nuts. Grab a spiked chain, get your trip-on, and enjoy your brief time with an awesome Crusader while you can!

[Iferus]

Ask the DM why he doesn't like ToB. When he has finished his rant, tell him that you think it would be a shame to ban ToB, because the martial system is fun. And that is what D&D should be about, after all.

[Person_Man]

You might want to take the Fearless Destiny feat (Races of Destiny pg 152) when you hit level 6. Once per day when you are reduced to -10 or fewer hit points, you are instead reduced to -9 and stable. It's extremely helpful in avoiding death, assuming that at least one person in your party can survive the encounter, and you can convince everyone else in your party to flee/hide until the next day whenever you've been nearly killed.

On a more meta note, I would just ask your DM what metric he is using to measure balance in his games. 3.5 originally used "per game day" as the basic metric of balance. The thought process was that casters are more powerful, but eventually run out of spells, whereas full BAB classes can continue to chug along at the same power level all day, and thus had weaker class abilities.

In reality, the real metric of balance is how much a build can do "per encounter" and "per round" - because starting at level 6ish casters have enough resources to cast a spell (or duplicate a magical effect with a magic item or other class ability) for the first 3-4 rounds of 4ish combats per day.

Tome of Battle was built around the "per encounter" metric. And thus, it's pretty much the middle point for balance in the 3.5 game system. Full casters are still above it. "Traditional" melee classes (Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, etc) are definitely below it.

[Tyndmyr]

Note that there's also the luck feats, one of which allows you to ignore a blow that would kill you by hp death 1/day. Takes three luck feats to get it, but eh...useful stuff.

[Flickerdart]

Tome of Battle was built around the "per encounter" metric. And thus, it's pretty much the middle point for balance in the 3.5 game system. Full casters are still above it. "Traditional" melee classes (Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, etc) are definitely below it.
Below it in terms of versatility, perhaps, but you can get higher damage ceilings on pouncing shock troopers than you can with ToB.

Since both ToB and most mundane melee are so dip friendly, though, it isn't hard to port the same tricks to a Warblade or something, and have ludicrous damage for when you need it and some versatility for when you don't*.



*This was a trick. Ludicrous damage is always the first, best and only solution to problems.

[kulosle]

Oh no the martial character is now sustainable without depending on a healer. Ban them immediately! The damage ceiling of a martial class is still far less than that of a wizard. Not to mention they still have far less field control.

[Greenish]

The damage ceiling of a martial class is still far less than that of a wizard.Now that is an interesting assertion. I'm pretty sure you could scale the damage from either to infinity or thereabouts, but for equal effort, I'll claim a charger (who can charge) will hold up or beat a wizard's damage.

[Medic!]

Having played a frenzied berserker/war hulk orc with pounce and Headlong Rush...I can safely say melee CAN out damage a wizard pretty heftily. The closest I ever got to the destruction that melee character spread around as a caster was a sorc/incantrix firing off maximized, empowered, twin spelled, split ray, fell drain, ocular enervations (<3 u arcane thesis).

On the melee character things with twice our group's CR couldn't survive the first charge and I didn't even use power attack (let alone leap attack, etc)

[kulosle]

Okay infinite loops aside, no d2 swordsage and no pun pun, the amount of damage ceiling on a wizard is made incredibly high when time stopping shenanigans comes online.

[gkathellar]

Okay infinite loops aside, no d2 swordsage and no pun pun, the amount of damage ceiling on a wizard is made incredibly high when time stopping shenanigans comes online.

IIRC the ubercharger can out-damage the mailman. The mail-man will still beat the ubercharger, mind, but for raw damage potential the ubercharger wins.

[Gavinfoxx]

Have you read the tier system, including the why class x is in tier y series of threads? Has the DM read the same?

[dgnslyr]

I'd say Uberchargers hit harder, but they get stopped by tallish grass and shrubbery, while a Mailman sorcerer does his thing as long as he can see you.

[tyckspoon]

IIRC the ubercharger can out-damage the mailman. The mail-man will still beat the ubercharger, mind, but for raw damage potential the ubercharger wins.

Rather handily, yes. Spells just don't have the same sorts of multipliers/poorly-considered uncapped damage means that the ubercharger and Hulking Hurler builds use. Not that it makes much practical difference; a Mailman-style caster can destroy any one object or kill any one creature, a really tweaked out ubercharger can shatter a planet (assuming 'a planet' is treated as one object and not a collection of billions of individual 5-foot cubes). But there aren't a lot of situations where that makes a practical difference to their in-game capabilities. 98% of the time the exact damage higher-end optimized builds do is irrelevant; it's simply 'enough'.

[Big Fau]

I'd say Uberchargers hit harder, but they get stopped by tallish grass and shrubbery, while a Mailman sorcerer does his thing as long as he can see you.

Such is inherent to playing a noncaster. Still, why devote yourself that heavily to having an arms race with a noncaster when you can save your spell slots by buffing him once or twice/encounter and letting him wreck houses?

[kulosle]

I feel like the thread is digressing. I'd second the recommendation for having your DM read the tier system.