maneuver Help

[12owlbears]

For my next character I'm going to make a fighter with 1 or 2 levels of warblade. I want to be able to keep up with the rest of the party(a sword sage, crusader, druid, and sorcerer) but I don't like playing ToB classes. What low level maneuvers would help my character
P.s the race would ether be a Half-Ogre(if I can haggle out of the LA), a Duergar(haggling down the LA), or a regular dwarf
P.s.s what should I try to trade to get a lower LA for the Half-Ogre or the Duergar

[Red Fel]

With regard to LA, I suggest asking if your DM will allow LA buy-off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm#experiencePointCost).

With regard to a Warblade dip, it depends on what you want to do with your maneuvers. Warblades have access to Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, and White Raven maneuvers. Your Crusader already has access to Stone Dragon and White Raven, and your Swordsage has access to Diamond Mind, Stone Dragon, and Tiger Claw. So check what they use with regularity to ensure you aren't being redundant.

Now, onto specific uses. I would first suggest looking at the Warblade Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176968) for suggestions and advice. Remember that, with ToB classes, the later you take the class, the higher your Initiator Level will be when choosing maneuvers. Next, decide what kind of build you're playing.

If your build is a dual-wielding build or crit-fishing, you might do well with Tiger Claw. If you don't do either of those, or have a poor jump check, skip it entirely.

Stone Dragon is okay if you don't move around the field a lot; being able to overcome DR and hardness is a nice thing. But if you have to move around, skip it.

White Raven is an excellent way to augment your partymembers. In particular, if nobody else has taken it, you can help your melee friends shine. However, it only particularly starts to shine once you get White Raven Tactics, which requires an Initiator Level of 5-6. That means your Warblade levels plus 1/2 your Fighter levels would have to be at least 5 before you could take it. If you're only doing a one or two-level Warblade dip, it would have to be somewhat later in your progression (Fighter 8/ Warblade 1, Fighter 6/ Warblade 2, or Fighter 4/ Warblade 3) to get White Raven Tactics. If you don't plan to go that long, skip White Raven.

That leaves Iron Heart and Diamond Mind. Let's start with Diamond Mind. The most valuable thing you can get from Diamond Mind is the ability to turn a saving throw into a Concentration check. Fighters and Warblades share inferior Reflex and Will saves. At first level, the Moment of Perfect Mind counter fixes Will saves. At second (requiring IL 3, or Fighter 2/ Warblade 1 minimum) Action Before Thought does the same for Reflex saves. You could grab other maneuvers too. Emerald Razor is nice, although you lose iterative attacks, you perform one at full bonus as a touch attack. Stack on Power Attack and you can crush someone.

Now, Iron Heart. Iron Heart is the Warblade's private playground. At low levels, Steel Wind is a nice way to deal with multiple threats. But the really fun one is Wall of Blades. Read the description carefully. You block a "melee or ranged attack" with your attack roll or AC, whichever is higher. That means almost anything, including blades, arrows, and rays. You can parry a ray with your weapon. That's just too awesome to pass up, particularly once your BAB starts going through the roof.

Lastly, let's look at stances. For a one- or two-level dip into Warblade, you're only going to get one stance, and by most interpretations, it will be a level 1 stance. Punishing Stance is one that will help you through most of your career - you take -2 to AC, but add +1d6 to every attack. That's not every whole attack, that's every individual attack. Once you get up to multiple iteratives, that's +1d6 to each one. Apart from that, Hunter's Stance is tactically useful - everyone could use Scent, and it's something a lot of people don't consider.

These decisions change if you plan to invest more heavily in Warblade, but as an intro, these will probably help you.

[Alabenson]

Is there anything else you could tell us about the general optimization level of the rest of the group, particularly the druid and the sorcerer? Also, what can you tell us about your planned build?

[OldTrees1]

One of your many options is to:

Take your 1st level of Warblade as your 7th level. This gives you access to 1 1st level stance and 3 maneuvers (up to 3rd level maneuvers).

Select a 1st level Iron Heart and a 1st level White Raven (One of these should be the 1st level stance. The other should be one of your 3 manuevers)

Now use your remaining 2 maneuvers to select Iron Heart Surge and White Raven Tactics. (Two useful 3rd level maneuvers. The first helps prevent you from being disabled. The second helps you get allies out of near death situations)

Another good thing about this option is that it helps weaker martial characters (Fighters) keep up with the ToB characters without changing how the non ToB characters feel to play. For the most part you will be doing Fighter things on your turn.

[12owlbears]

Is there anything else you could tell us about the general optimization level of the rest of the group, particularly the druid and the sorcerer? Also, what can you tell us about your planned build?

The druid is a first time player, the sorcerer is purposely not optimizing so they don't overshadow the rest of us, the crusader is also new and is mostly just choosing maneuvers that sound cool and the swordsage is a self-proclaimed munchkin master. The build I was going for was ether a power attack focused beat stick or a tripper/battlefield controller build

[Greenish]

If you don't like ToB, why use it? A barbarian/fighter can beatstick and trip perfectly adequately. Charging around can easily match (or exceed) most maneuvers, and if you don't care about having any versatility (if you did, you'd love ToB :smalltongue:) you won't miss a thing.

If that's not strong enough, there's always things like psychic warrior or totemist.

[12owlbears]

For clarification the reason I dislike ToB is that I've always hated the "art of fighting" archetype. It always makes me roll my eye when a character in any medium claims that using some fancy technique to kill people makes them better than the person who hits things with a stick. Also I have always found the ToB to animeish. I would be playing a psychic warrior but my DM has said no psionics period.

[OldTrees1]

In that case minimize the impact your ToB dip has on your combat.
That way you can focus on your Hit->Trip->Hit->Knockback->Nauseate* or other non ToB fighting style.

*Example provided via Improved Trip, Knockback and Three Mountain feats

[Xerlith]

For clarification the reason I dislike ToB is that I've always hated the "art of fighting" archetype. It always makes me roll my eye when a character in any medium claims that using some fancy technique to kill people makes them better than the person who hits things with a stick. Also I have always found the ToB to animeish. I would be playing a psychic warrior but my DM has said no psionics period.

Iron Heart Surge the fluff away, then you can pretty much say that you do not know anything of this "Iron Heart" you are all speaking of, I've been just training hitting things since I was ten.

[Lightlawbliss]

Iron Heart Surge the fluff away, then you can pretty much say that you do not know anything of this "Iron Heart" you are all speaking of, I've been just training hitting things since I was ten.

the fluff isn't a condition


at op: TOB doesn't make you better at hitting stuff for a ton of damage, It simply increases versatility. irl, people with the special techniques do tend to be more versatile then "hit it with a stick" dudes. Also a well placed strike tends to be more efficient then just a single wild swing.

[Urpriest]

For clarification the reason I dislike ToB is that I've always hated the "art of fighting" archetype. It always makes me roll my eye when a character in any medium claims that using some fancy technique to kill people makes them better than the person who hits things with a stick. Also I have always found the ToB to animeish. I would be playing a psychic warrior but my DM has said no psionics period.

Why are you taking Fighter levels, then? Fighter's fluff and crunch are built around fancy maneuvers and tactics, they're just more repetitive about them than the ToB classes. You can't play a character with more than 4 or so levels of Fighter without having some sort of special technique.

If you want a "I am a decent man who hits things with a stick, but damnit I do it well" character, Barbarian seems more appropriate. You hit hard and fast (especially with things like Spirit Lion Totem), and you can fit in some versatility without going all "special technique" (Intimidating Rage and friends, decent skill points, etc.)