Need help with a ToB build

[Mongobear]

So I am trying to create a character for a new adventure to begin in a week, and I decided to finally try my hand with the Tome of Battle instead of my usual Barbarian ubercharger or Tripmaster Fighter. I have settled on the Warblade for my Initiator class, and I am kinda torn between either a Tiger Claw Jump spammer with a 2Handed spear of some form, sorta like a crappy rip-off of a Final Fantasy Dragoon, or a White Raven support build thats basically a Martial Marshal (lolpuns).

My problem, is that I am almost entirely new to the book. I have never personally used it before, outside of a dip level for a Prestige class, and have no idea how the Maneuvers work other than the generic "its like spells, but with swords."

My question is this, I have seen mention around various places about an actual Warblade build that people have dubbed The Dragoon, but my Google-Fu is weak, and I cannot for the life of me find it, could anyone perhaps lend a link?

Also, any other resources that would be helpful in making or understanding the basics and somewhat complex mechanics of the book would be useful, I have found the Warblade Handbook on these forums, and have read it pretty well, but still have a few questions as to what each specific Discipline/School is meant to do, as all the Handbook does is just rank each option by Terrible to Awesome with short descriptions justifying why.

Thanks for any and all help ahead of time, Im sure Ill have more questions as responses come in.

Also, if anyone wants to power out quick suggestions for a fast build, the books I can pull from are Core/Completes/Races of/and All MMs and any one book of our choice which I had to choose the ToB itself. We begin at level 4 with 2500 gp and the DM would prefer we dont do anything with a LA/RHD. Stats are a goofy point buy system the DM made where we have 32 points and start at 10, but its a 1:1 buy up to 18, so were super high power.

At the moment I have a half=finished a Human Warblade trying for a "Dragoon" build and have these stats Str 18 Dex 16 Con 18 Int 16 Wis 14 Cha 10. I went with an Exotic Weapon, the Greatspear from Complete Warrior and am thinking Tiger Claw as a primary Maneuver school for a lot of its Jumping and other mobility-based strikes. Am I wrong in any of these decisions, and what would you suggest?

[Karl Aegis]

You were looking for Little Red Raiding Hood.

[Mongobear]

hmmm i dont think Little Red Raiding Hood is quite what I expected it to be, it requires a lot of super high-optimization and multiclassing level dips, as well as some of the crazier builds that make it sort of a Gish from what I read. I basically am just looking for a few small guidelines to capture the overall flavor of the Dragoon/Dragon Knight theme, without breaking the game too badly. My DM for this is somewhat inexperienced at DMing, and I dont want to High-Op my way through everything he does.

I guess just going with some of the Jump based maneuvers and wielding a Spear would suffice, but I wasnt sure if there are a few Feats out there that would be considered a requirement.

[Karl Aegis]

Scroll down until you get to Stormwind Tempest's Scout 11/Psychic Warrior 2 / Blade Dancer 7. It uses Spring Attack and decent Jump skills to get good power attacks and leap attacks in.

[Douglas]

My problem, is that I am almost entirely new to the book. I have never personally used it before, outside of a dip level for a Prestige class, and have no idea how the Maneuvers work other than the generic "its like spells, but with swords."
The basic mechanics for maneuvers (assuming a Warblade) work like this:

It is a useful metaphor, to the point of being convenient to even make it literal, to treat your maneuvers like cards in a deck. WotC even has printable maneuver cards (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a) you can use.

You have some number of known maneuvers. These are your deck. You choose your deck at character creation and can adjust it, adding or replacing cards within limits, at each level up.

You have some smaller number of readied maneuvers. These are your hand. You choose your hand at the start of each day and can change it in 5 minutes of down time. As the card metaphor would imply, any single maneuver can only be readied once.

In combat, for any card in your hand you can spend the listed action to achieve the listed effect. When you do this, the card goes in your discard pile and is no longer in your hand.

In combat, you may spend a swift action to take your discard pile and put it back in your hand, joining whatever unspent maneuvers were still there and becoming ready to use again. When you do this, you are unable to use any maneuvers that turn and must either make a non-maneuver attack or spend a standard action doing nothing.

The mechanics for how to put the discard pile back in your hand are different for Swordsage and Crusader, and Crusader also has some extra stuff for how the hand itself works.

-------------

For the maneuvers themselves, most of them fall into three categories:

Boosts cost a swift action and give a very short duration buff when used. Typically they have no effect on their own and must be combined with some other action, such as the Burning Blade boost that gives bonus fire damage - you have to make one or more attacks separately from the maneuver to get any benefit.

Counters cost an immediate action and give some instant defensive benefit. They typically are used in response to an enemy doing something and prevent or mitigate the enemy action.

Strikes cost a standard or full round action and involve attacking in some way. Most strikes include one or more attacks, with some modifiers. You make however many attacks the strike specifies as part of performing the strike, and only the attacks that are part of the strike receive its benefits even if you have some way of making additional attacks such as an extra standard action from something. Bonus attacks from Haste, high BAB, two weapon fighting, Rapid Shot, etc. do not apply unless the strike specifies that you make a "full attack" - and only three strikes in the book do that (Flashing Sun, Pouncing Charge, and Time Stands Still, in case you're curious).

There is another category called Stances. These maneuvers are not part of your deck at all. You learn them separately, track the number of them known separately, and in general they do not interact with the deck metaphor at all. At any given time you can have one stance active, receiving its benefits passively and indefinitely. You can change which stance is active at any time by spending a swift action to do so, but this will end the previous stance unless you have a special ability that says otherwise. You can generally specify one stance as your default one and start combat with that stance already active.

And then there are a few oddball maneuvers that defy classification. Just spend the action listed to get the effect listed, they work the same way just without easily fitting a category.


Also, any other resources that would be helpful in making or understanding the basics and somewhat complex mechanics of the book would be useful, I have found the Warblade Handbook on these forums, and have read it pretty well, but still have a few questions as to what each specific Discipline/School is meant to do, as all the Handbook does is just rank each option by Terrible to Awesome with short descriptions justifying why.
Desert Wind: Exclusive to Swordsages. Has a heavy focus on fire damage, and secondarily some speed and mobility.

Devoted Spirit: Exclusive to Crusaders. Has a lot of strikes that both hit someone and heal you or an ally at the same time. Also has some shield-specific things, alignment dependency, and protection of allies.

Diamond Mind: Available to both Warblade and Swordsage. Makes heavy use of concentration, has a lot of things for saving throws, and focuses on speed and precision.

Iron Heart: Exclusive to Warblades. Themed around being unstoppable and supremely skilled with a weapon. Has an infamously poorly worded anti-debuff move, several parries, and a lot of multi-attack moves.

Setting Sun: Exclusive to Swordsages. Themed around martial arts mastery, with a lot of throws, countering your opponent with Sense Motive checks, and other such things.

Shadow Hand: Exclusive to Swordsages. Themed around shadows, stealth, and precision strikes in the style of sneak attack. Also has a series of three short range teleport maneuvers.

Stone Dragon: Available to all three base classes. Cannot be used when flying or otherwise off the ground. Heavy focus on simple damage, shoving people around, and resisting shoves from other people.

Tiger Claw: Available to both Warblade and Swordsage. Heavy focus on jumping, two weapon fighting, and animal themed moves.

White Raven: Available to both Warblade and Crusader. Heavy focus on charging and boosting your allies, often at the same time.

[Mongobear]

Wow, that was really in-depth and quite helpful. I never thought of the card metaphor before, and now that youve spelled it out, im definitely gonna print out those cards and use them while playing.

I have finished a first draft of the character, and will post his important stuff with regards to trying to be a "Dragoon" themed character. Any constructive criticism or suggestions on where/how i should focus building him towards would be helpful.



Lord Cid, Royal Dragoon Human Warblade 4 Chaotic Good
Str 18 Dex 16 Con 18
Int 16 Wis 14 Cha 10

Weapon Mw Greatspear (Complete Warrior)
Mw Comp Longbow(+4 Str)

Armor Mw Breastplate

Other Healing Belt
Standard Adventuring Supplies


Feats Power Attack
Cleave
Leap of the Heavens

Skills Jump, Tumble, Balance, Concentration, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Know(History), Know(Local) All at max ranks possible, no partial ranks or anything weird.


Maneuvers Known

1-Sudden Leap
-Moment of Perfect Mind
-Steel Wind

2-Claw at the Moon
-Emerald Razor

Stances Known

1-Hunter's Sense



I plan to keep expanding and trading out lower level maneuvers for higher end Tiger Claw Jump Strikes as well as some of the other School maneuvers that focus on self recovery of healing, almost literally making him into a Final Fantasy Dragoon.