I don't get how the Idiot Crusader works.

[Nettlekid]

I understand the general idea of what you're trying to do: Getting more maneuvers granted than you have readied, so that you get all your maneuvers every turn. But reading guides regarding it, it looks like people are using "maneuvers readied" when they mean "maneuvers granted," and those are quite different. The premise seems to be, get all the Crusader-compatible maneuvers with other classes first, so your first level of Crusader has quite few maneuvers known. Take a PrC like Master of Nine and add maneuvers known to the non-Crusader class but the maneuvers readied to Crusader (this is one I don't get. I don't see why it's a benefit to have more maneuvers readied than known). And then...what? You've still only got two maneuvers granted, three with the Extra Granted Maneuver, so if you've been very clever with your placement of things, only having three maneuvers known, X maneuvers readied, and three maneuvers granted, then you can forever cycle through those three maneuvers, and X doesn't matter at all. Is that how it's supposed to work? I was under the impression that you get more than three maneuvers out of this trick.

[erikun]

The concept is to have more (or an equal number of) Maneuvers Readied than you have Maneuvers Granted.

The way the standard Crusader works is that they have a pool of granted maneuvers, and if they have any available maneuvers to ready, they must roll each turn to see which ones they ready. Thus, you never have all your granted maneuvers readies; there will always be some maneuvers that you might want but do not have access to.

If your granted maneuvers is equal to your readied maneuvers, though, you will always know what maneuvers your will recover as a Crusader. This means that the Crusader can use the same maneuver repeatedly, because they know they will always get that one maneuver back with their recovery. (It will be the only maneuver they do not have readied.) This allows the Crusader to use the same preferred maneuver over and over, while other ToB classes are forced to expend actions or other methods to refresh their maneuvers (and thus, frequently cannot use the same maneuver over and over).

[Nettlekid]

The concept is to have more (or an equal number of) Maneuvers Readied than you have Maneuvers Granted.

The way the standard Crusader works is that they have a pool of granted maneuvers, and if they have any available maneuvers to ready, they must roll each turn to see which ones they ready. Thus, you never have all your granted maneuvers readies; there will always be some maneuvers that you might want but do not have access to.

If your granted maneuvers is equal to your readied maneuvers, though, you will always know what maneuvers your will recover as a Crusader. This means that the Crusader can use the same maneuver repeatedly, because they know they will always get that one maneuver back with their recovery. (It will be the only maneuver they do not have readied.) This allows the Crusader to use the same preferred maneuver over and over, while other ToB classes are forced to expend actions or other methods to refresh their maneuvers (and thus, frequently cannot use the same maneuver over and over).

Okay, that makes sense to me. What I don't understand is that most of the builds I see revolve around taking a PrC, giving maneuvers known to a different initiator, and giving maneuvers readied to Crusader. That seems like the wrong way around. What never gets increased is maneuvers granted, which is the most important thing. You're stuck with three maneuvers granted with the feat, four if you take 10 levels of Crusader (and at that point it makes it hard to keep those maneuvers readied low). Is that how it's supposed to be, to just have three maneuvers to cycle through? Since you start out with more than three maneuvers readied, you'll have to have only three maneuvers known ever in order to have only three readied.

[Aegis013]

What I don't understand is that most of the builds I see revolve around taking a PrC, giving maneuvers known to a different initiator, and giving maneuvers readied to Crusader. That seems like the wrong way around. What never gets increased is maneuvers granted...

ToB pg. 96 "If you choose to add the maneuver readied to a martial maneuver progression derived from Crusader class levels, you also gain one additional maneuver granted at the beginning of the encounter for each additional maneuver you can ready."

PrC's maneuvers readied do increase Crusader's maneuvers granted if applied to Crusader.

[Nettlekid]

ToB pg. 96 "If you choose to add the maneuver readied to a martial maneuver progression derived from Crusader class levels, you also gain one additional maneuver granted at the beginning of the encounter for each additional maneuver you can ready."

PrC's maneuvers readied do increase Crusader's maneuvers granted if applied to Crusader.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

That changes everything.

Now it's very good.

[Big Fau]

The concept is to have more (or an equal number of) Maneuvers Readied than you have Maneuvers Granted.

You got that wrong. You need to have more (or equal) maneuvers granted as you have maneuvers readied. Then the Crusader's recovery mechanic kicks in at the end of each of his turns.

Then you ready WRT and go infinite.

[Chronos]

White Raven Tactics doesn't go infinite if you interpret "ally" in its text to mean "other than you" (which is not the usual definition for that word in D&D, but appears to be the intent in this specific case).

Unless, of course, you have two idiot crusaders tacticing each other.

[Piggy Knowles]

You got that wrong. You need to have more (or equal) maneuvers granted as you have maneuvers readied. Then the Crusader's recovery mechanic kicks in at the end of each of his turns.

Then you ready WRT and go infinite.


White Raven Tactics doesn't go infinite if you interpret "ally" in its text to mean "other than you" (which is not the usual definition for that word in D&D, but appears to be the intent in this specific case).

Unless, of course, you have two idiot crusaders tacticing each other.

It's also important to remember that WRT doesn't let your ally act immediately; it sets your ally's initiative to your current initiative -1 and allows them to act again if their new initiative comes up and they've already acted. However, initiative sequence still runs as normal. Eventually other people will go.

It's still insane, especially if you can use it on yourself, but a lot of people seem to forget that bit.

[mattie_p]

Posting from phone, but the idiot crusader doesn't work the way most people think that it does. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14467383&postcount=2

That is, it either comes online at very high level or you only get low level maneuvers.

[Drachasor]

It's also important to remember that WRT doesn't let your ally act immediately; it sets your ally's initiative to your current initiative -1 and allows them to act again if their new initiative comes up and they've already acted. However, initiative sequence still runs as normal. Eventually other people will go.

It's still insane, especially if you can use it on yourself, but a lot of people seem to forget that bit.

Yes, everyone else will get to go once. Then you go at 0, -1, -2, -3, -4....etc.

Worst-case scenario you need a buddy with WRT.

[Aegis013]

Posting from phone, but the idiot crusader doesn't work the way most people think that it does. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14467383&postcount=2

That is, it either comes online at very high level or you only get low level maneuvers.

It's possible to get the unlimited WRT going by level 7 or so, if you use a crown of the white raven, and use the interpretation that you can't know a single maneuver more than once. If you use the interpretation that you can know a single maneuver more than once, you can't get it running at all until late game. (ie, learn Charging Minotaur on both your Warblade and Crusader maneuvers known)

But yes, the Idiot Crusader really doesn't come into its own until very late game.

[Nettlekid]

Posting from phone, but the idiot crusader doesn't work the way most people think that it does. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14467383&postcount=2

That is, it either comes online at very high level or you only get low level maneuvers.

That's what I had suspected, and I wasn't sure where people were getting any other interpretation of it. If you do the thing where you take two levels of Warblade and take all the Stone Dragon and White Raven strikes, then yes, you start out with two maneuvers known (the two Devoted Spirit maneuvers), five maneuvers readied, and two maneuvers granted. Until you PrC into like, Master of Nine (if you weren't dying to abuse Idiot Crusader and just wanted it on the side, Eternal Blade might work too), then you just have those two 1st level maneuvers to spam. If you continue Warblade and then take levels in something like Master of Nine, I could see how you can add five more maneuvers readied/granted to Crusader for a total of 8 (with the feat), and then you could apply six of the Master of Nine's maneuvers known to the Crusader, adding on maneuvers which you qualified for with your Warblade levels. I guess that's how the Idiot Crusader gets its high powered maneuvers, but that would be at really high levels.