[3.5] Warblade Help

[Thurbane]

So I'm looking for feat, maneuver and stance suggestions for the following (NPC) character for an upcoming game (I've virtually no experience building ToM characters).

I want to stay low on cheese, but I want it to be an effective melee combatant, and would love to have it somehow snag some kind of healing ability that works with constructs so it can repair damage on itself.

The character: Malvanus, Maug Warblade 4 (ECL 9)

Str 26, Dex 18, Con --, Int 14, Wis 13, Cha 12

HD: 2d10+4d12+30 (71hp)

Skill ranks: Balance 9, Climb 9, Craft (armorsmith) 5, Craft (blacksmith) 5, Craft (stonemasonry) 5, Craft (weaponsmith) 5, Intimidate 5, Jump 6, Knowledge (architecture & engineering) 5, Listen 5, Profession (siege engineer) 5, Spot 5 and Survival 5.
Bonus feats: Alertness, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (two-bladed sword)
Feats: 1st (?), 3rd (?), 6th (?)
Maneuvers Known: 5
Stances Known: 2

All suggestions welcomed, but race, class and ability scores are set.

Cheers - T

[Firechanter]

Warblades should really max Concentration. You use it to substitute your weak save(s), and have access to several maneuvers where Concentration boosts damage.

Seeing how Maugs don't have a Con score, how do they roll their Concentration checks? Is it Cha-based for them?

Feats:
Well, normally I recommend Power Attack, Spiked Chain and Combat Reflexes. However, if you actually want to make use of your Two-Bladed Sword prof, you'd have to go the TWF route. In that case, definitely go for Tiger's Claw and shoot for the Dancing/Raging Mongoose maneuvers. These maneuvers are awesome anyway, even for 2H builds.

[Thurbane]

Could he use his Weapon Aptitude ability to (temporarily) swap out his bonus EWP (two-bladed sword) feat for EWP (spiked chain)?

[avr]

This guy has 2 1st level maneuvers, 2 2nd level and 1 3rd assuming max level chosen / swapped for in all cases. He gets 1 1st and 1 3rd level stance. Feats can add to these, that's just the class.

If you want healing without magic or Crusader levels for a construct, you could spend 2 feats on the Crusader's Strike maneuver and the Martial Spirit stance. TWF helps make the most of this.

Wolf Fang Strike (Tiger Claw 1) lets him move and get 2 attacks with the two-bladed sword. Charging Minotaur (Stone Dragon 1) for pushing people around.

Emerald Razor (Diamond Mind 2) & Rabid Wolf Strike (Tiger Claw 2) for when one attack is better than multiples.

If you get it by retraining an Iron Heart maneuver you can pick up Iron Heart Surge as your 3rd level maneuver.

For stances, Punishing Stance (Iron Heart 1) and Roots of the Mountain (Stone Dragon 3) give some useful variation on Martial Spirit which he will be using a lot of the time.

His Jump skill isn't good enough to be worth investing heavily in Tiger Claw. Are Maugs slow or something, 26 STR should give them better than +6 even without ranks? No Concentration limits use of Diamond Mind too.

If homebrew is acceptable there are many other disciplines available of course.

[Thurbane]

His Jump skill isn't good enough to be worth investing heavily in Tiger Claw. Are Maugs slow or something, 26 STR should give them better than +6 even without ranks? No Concentration limits use of Diamond Mind too.
Skills listed are ranks only, without ability mods (Jump would be +14 before armor modifiers).

I could shuffle things around to get ranks in Concentration.

If homebrew is acceptable there are many other disciplines available of course.
No homebrew for this character, thanks. As one of my first ToB builds, would like to stick to official WotC sources.

[AmberVael]

Fortunately there's very little way to build a Tome of Battle character truly wrong- and similarly not much way to cheese them.

First, you probably want to figure out what two disciplines to go for. You're not truly restricted to two disciplines, but with the limited number of maneuvers a warblade gets and the need to fill prerequisites for higher level maneuvers, generally you're only going to be able to focus on one or two with maybe one or two maneuvers from another discipline.

Personally, the disciplines I would select for this character would be Iron Heart and Tiger Claw. Iron Heart is solid offensively and has some good defensive stuff (such as the infamous Iron Heart Surge), while Tiger Claw is focused on fighting with more than one weapon, like your two bladed sword.

Specific maneuvers and Stances I would recommend:

Sudden Leap. Swift action movement is very useful, whether you want to get a full attack or just get to a different position.
Wall of Blades. With your high strength, your attack bonus is going to be great. Wall of Blades will allow you to put that to defensive use as well as offensive.
Iron Heart Surge. It's... problematically written, but even if it is ruled as a self-only condition remover it is very nice to have.
Hunter's Sense. Scent is an interesting ability to have, and probably more useful than the minor buff than something like Punishing Stance can give you.


Warblades should really max Concentration. You use it to substitute your weak save(s), and have access to several maneuvers where Concentration boosts damage.
Note that this is only true if you take specific Diamond Mind maneuvers. Diamond Mind is admittedly awesome, but you can make a decent Warblade without them- and if you do eschew Diamond Mind, concentration does nothing for you.


Seeing how Maugs don't have a Con score, how do they roll their Concentration checks? Is it Cha-based for them?
Cha based concentration is only for Undead. Constructs just don't get an ability modifier to it. In short, concentration is not going to be as good on this character.


Could he use his Weapon Aptitude ability to (temporarily) swap out his bonus EWP (two-bladed sword) feat for EWP (spiked chain)?

Yes. You could do it indefinitely, even.

[Firechanter]

Could he use his Weapon Aptitude ability to (temporarily) swap out his bonus EWP (two-bladed sword) feat for EWP (spiked chain)?

Yeah, good catch. And the change would not be just temporary, but last until you decide to switch it to something else again.

[Thurbane]

Yes. You could do it indefinitely, even.

Yeah, good catch. And the change would not be just temporary, but last until you decide to switch it to something else again.
Sweet - so he could use his bonus feat and Weapon Aptitude to switch to any Exotic Weapon Proficiency each time he meditates. :smallbiggrin:

[Firechanter]

Well, by RAW once per day, iirc in the morning, but the time isn't endorced by many DMs. It takes an hour, though.
But yeah, it works no problem, so easy access to Spiked Chain (or its blunt brother, the Meteor Hammer, or Drow Scorpion Chain).

As I said, take Power Attack as character feat, but hold off on Combat Reflexes until Warblade 5, when you can get it as free bonus feat.

You could go the Ubercharger route if that's okay with your group's play style.

[Kane0]

I second Iron Heart discipline. It's straightforward and you can't go wrong.
With your spare maneuvers/stances pick up some Diamond Mind (the save ones are good, and the discipline as a whole is just as good as Iron Heart), Stone dragon (the DR ignoring strikes are worth it) and/or White raven (if you want to get in on the teamwork). Tiger Claw is also good if you want to go into two weapon fighting.

Too bad you're set as a warblade though, Crusaders is good at self healing.

Has nobody linked you to the handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176968)yet?

[Ryuuk]

You are starting off with 2 RHD, right? This shifts your Initiator Level a bit, which makes picking maneuvers and stances a bit different.

HD 2, 2 Maug RHD, Initiator Level = 1
HD 3, Warblade 1, Initiator Level = 2, 3 Level 1 Maneuvers, 1 Level 1 Stance
HD 4, Warblade 2, Initiator Level = 3, 1 Level 2 Maneuvers learned
HD 5, Warblade 3, Initiator Level = 4, 1 Level 2 Maneuvers learned
HD 6, Warblade 4, Initiator Level = 5, Can swap a maneuvers known for one up to 3rd level, can learn a stance of up to 3rd level

So you have that over a straight warblade, you can actually pickup a 3rd level stance instead of a second 1st level stance at level 4.

[Thurbane]

Indeed - I know some people argue that RHD do not count as a "class" toward initiator level, but they certainly do in my game.

Thanks for summarizing that for me above, very useful. :smallsmile:

[Keld Denar]

Vital Recovery would give the NPC a once per encounter HP boost when he refreshes his maneuvers. As a Warblade, refreshing is easy. Since it isn't "healing" per se, it should fully affect a Maug.

All else, if you are showcasing a Maug, you gotta put some cool graft mods on it. Slap some wheels and a shoulder canon on that puppy for maximum awesomeness.

[Thurbane]

Vital Recovery would give the NPC a once per encounter HP boost when he refreshes his maneuvers. As a Warblade, refreshing is easy. Since it isn't "healing" per se, it should fully affect a Maug.

I was considering the Combat Vigor feat for limited fast healing, but since it requires BAB +9, couldn't get it until 12th level feat slot.

[Darrin]

I was considering the Combat Vigor feat for limited fast healing, but since it requires BAB +9, couldn't get it until 12th level feat slot.

Hmm. Draconic Aura to grab Dragon Shaman's Vigor Aura? But I think you need the dragonblood subtype for that.