[3.5] Unarmed Swordsage/Shadow Sun Ninja

[deavid]

Hello fellow dungeoncrawlers,
I'm currently trying to build a Unarmed Swordsage/Shadow Sun Ninja only discovered I've got no idea how to do this properly and would love some help from the experts here.
My DM has allowed me to ignore alignment restrictions and the monk multiclass restricions if I'd like to dip and its likely i'm getting an extra starting feat if it works out fluffwise.

We have a 32 point buy and I'm a human variant with +1 Dex and -1 Con, the human bonus feat and bonus skill.

Unarmed and Shadow Sun are both because I like the flavor and I don't expect we'll be having a party with much min-maxing (with one exception) which allows for some freedom.

The first main problem is that there are to many options and to little levels ( I was looking at master of Nine and Shiba defender for multiclass options) this is especially the case feat wise.

A small look at the feats I came across
Sudden Recovery [ToB]
recover a maneuver as a swift action

Shadow Blade [ToB]
DEX on damage with shadow hand maneuvers

Adaptive Style [ToB]
change readied maneuvers as a full round action.

Improved Natural ATtack [Eberron, MM]
Unarmed damage of one size larger.

Superior Unarmed Strike [ToB]
Higher unarmed damage/ 4 monk levels higher

Versatile Unarmed Strike [PhB II]
Swift action to change the type of damage your unarmed attacks do (Piercing slashing or bludgeoning)

Sense Weakness [Draconomicon]
ignore 5 points damage reduction/hardness with weapon focus weapon (was considering this because of overlap with Master of nine requirements)

Snap Kick [ToB]
extra attack for -2 on all other attacks

Travel Devotion (Complete Champion)
Once per day move half your speed as a swift action for 1 minute

And there was a 3.0 feat in complete feats that added wis to damage on unarmed strikes


The other thing is I'm new to Tome of Battle and though I think I understand the maneuvers I don't know how things will work out in game so i'm slightly at a loss for seeing whats good.

Basically everything except for psionics is allowed as long as it isn't game breaking (DMs discretion ofcourse) and we'll be doing a campaign that focusses more on the low levels and with a decreased availability of high level magic items when we eventually get there.

I hope this was somewhat informative instead of just a post of me rambling on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated =).

[Biotroll]

Well, there was Iron Chef with Shadow Sun Ninja just a while back, so you might go and take a look at different builds there: Iron Chef (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297327&page=10)

While being swordsage/shadow sun ninja, be ready that you are still going to be depending on items quite a lot.

As for maneuvers: What exactly do you need help with? If it is just general advice, then it is usualy said that Desert Wind school while good deals fire damage which is often resisted. Stone Dragon is usualy only for Mountain Hammer and maybe few picks here or there but is regarded as the weakest of them all, because it's stances are limiting you in movement/action economy to start them after you move. All other schools are good, and you can just go and cherry-pick what you like and still end up being quite useful. Shadow Hand is very handy with teleports and sneaky attacks, Tiger Claw is great for TWF, Setting Sun is for throwing ppl around and defense. More on this is detailed in this handbook: Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259783)

And as an honorable mention what you can do with Shadow Sun Ninja, take a look at Noxius: Noxius (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8337459&postcount=109) He's from one of the first Iron Chef competitions here and it is great thing, though probably not what you might want.

[deavid]

Hadn't seen that Iron Chef thread Looking at the threads now, seems very usefull, thank you. And with the maneuvers, I think I'm just overwhelmed with new mechanics and have trouble assesing what would work with the (not yet existing) build.

[Biotroll]

Well, Iron Chef should show you some tricks and give ideas what the character can do. So then, pick what you want (for example sneaking and killing things) and then you will be able to pick the maneuvers that do these things best. Handbook should have all the maneuvers ranked with short description of what you can expect from them.

I myself am quite a fan of Shadow Hand. It has some utility and damage dealing abilities as well. Diamond Mind is very good too, rolling concentration checks for damage or saves is very very handy. Tiger Claw is good if you plan on using two weapons, and still nice even if you don't. Be prepared to be jumping a lot with TC. Setting Sun is defensive/tripping school. I like few maneuvers and it's usualy quite good. Still it comes to your personal taste of what you want from your character. If you want to be almost untouchable, this is good school for you. Desert Wind is good if you know you won't be running into fire resistant enemies. One of my players uses it quite a lot in my game and he is doing very well. However, with fire imunity renders this school almost useless and fire imunity or very high fire resistance is common in higher levels. Stone Dragon is... odd. It has some very good maneuvers and many maneuvers that are usualy not worth it. I have once made Stone Dragon centered swordsage, who used mountain hammer line a lot to break everything in hit or two. It was fun, but the character wasn't using the class potential to it's full extent.

Usualy though, it doesn't matter what maneuvers you pick. Even if you pick some not so good ones, the character is still able to contribute to the party and do something. ToB is good because it gives you options and has very high optimization floor. On the other hand even when carefully picking maneuvers and stances, ToB optimization ceiling isn't that high. Casters will still be able to be better at everything.

My advice is: decide what you want from character and then just pick what sounds right. With ToB, this works well even if you don't know anything about it. My players are proving this to me every game we play as ToB is new to them too.

[deavid]

Thanks again for the advice
Currently I'm considering sleeping tiger monk 2 Unarmed Swordsage 3 shadow sun ninja 10 and master of nine 5. The only class feature I regret losing is the insightfull strike. I'll have to be picky with the maneuvers (thinking mainly of shadow hand) and though I like the idea of master of nine I don't know if it's to expensive feat wise. I've got two flaws and the human bonus feat to compensate though. Would this be a somewhat viable set up and what would be a good level to enter into master of nine from shadow sun?
Also with a 32 point buy would this work:
STR 12; DEX 16 (17 after race); CON 13 (12 after race); INT 11; WIS 16; CHA 8 ?

Edit:
I'm thinking of taking a dodge variant feat, adaptive style, travel devotion and shadow blade at lvl 1 and everyone got weapon finesse and the DM allowed for me to swap the weapon finesse from sleeping tiger with blind fight.