Swordsage Conversion (PF)

[Gorr_the_Gastly]

Ok so I know Swordsage is perfect according to many people's opinions.

Now I know it has a lot of dead levels and the popular common conversion process is to up the HD but a d8 is decent for a 3/4 bab class.

So what should I do for a conversion?

[Hytheter]

I don't think it really needs any changes. Most of the dead levels actually give you access to the next Maneuver Level or an increase in the number of maneuvers/stances. I think the Swordsage could run fine in Pathfinder as is.

If you insist on filling in some of the gaps though, Level 6 and 18 seem like the spots to go for; every other "dead" level gives you a new level of maneuvers, except for 14th which gives both a maneuver and a stance.

[Gorr_the_Gastly]

And what would you recommend for those levels.

[Akal Saris]

Some conversation suggestions:
1) Give the improved recovery time feat for free
2) L6 and L8: fighter bonus feat time!

[Aergoth]

Ok so I know Swordsage is perfect according to many people's opinions.

Now I know it has a lot of dead levels and the popular common conversion process is to up the HD but a d8 is decent for a 3/4 bab class.

So what should I do for a conversion?

By that argument PF's wizard has dead levels as well because you're not getting class features. The wizard is constantly getting more uses of their spells by gaining spell slots, and they get new spells every time they level! Hyther is right, as long as you're getting more maneuvers or stances known, more uses of maneuvers per day you aren't in a dead level.

But if you do have to fill them, your best bet is to look at what an existing PF class with a D8 hit die, 3/4 BAB and spells does, namely the magus! The magus has no dead levels on either side of the board. It gets something in the class features at every level, and more spells at every level.

But when we look more carefully, what they're getting is more magus arcana (which works similar to stances for the purposes of this comparison), a way to spend some of their feats (fighter training) and a specific set of bonus feats. Magus gets the entire arcane armor line for free. If you got rid of those one of the levels would be devoid a class feature when they don't get arcane casting in heavy armor. That would probably be shunted on to the free feats that the magus gets.

Note that the magus gets fewer feats than the fighter but can be treated as a fighter when they're getting feats, so they've got more ways to spend an a pool that's smaller than that of the fighter, since they don't get all those delicious bonus feats.

So adding more feats probably isn't the answer. You could add a feat tree that improves the class, like arcane armor does, but not every magus is going to benefit from arcane armor. Some will want to stay in light armor and be mobile, others want to be spellcasting tanks.

Improved recovery time at a later level might be a nice touch. Allowing a swordsage to gain fighter feats like weapon specialization (which is locked to a specific level of fighter in PF) similar to the fighter training provided to a magus might be a good way to shore up a "dead" level without unbalancing anything. And the occasional bonus feat for martial types doesn't hurt, but note the way that Magus bonus feats are split. They're either combat feats, item creation or metamagic. So there are restrictions that will guide the way other feats get chosen. A character who knows they're getting a bonus feat at level five might want to set up for the next feat in a tree either with that feat, or with the feat before it. You have to consider the things like BAB requirements when you place a bonus feat at a certain level, otherwise it might have unintended benefits.