Crusader question... Can you opt to ready less maneuvers than you're able?

[Windrammer]

Say I only want to use two maneuvers in an encounter. Let's say it's single combat against a barbarian or something, I'm prepared for it.

So I choose to only ready Divine Surge and Irresistible Mountain Strike.

Could I opt to ONLY ready those two so that in every round in combat I get to either do a bonus 8d6 damage or slightly less damage while killing his standard action every round?

Side question... As a Crusader/Ruby Knight Vindicator, is the only way to recover a maneuver learned as the latter to burn a Turn Undead? Meaning in a round of combat, of course.

[Elricaltovilla]

No, you can't choose to ready less maneuvers. What you're looking at doing is called the Idiot Crusader, and it relies on some very liberal interpretations of the rules.

You still recover all your maneuvers as normal for a crusader, even the ones you get from being a Ruby Knight Vindicator.

[Windrammer]

No, you can't choose to ready less maneuvers. What you're looking at doing is called the Idiot Crusader, and it relies on some very liberal interpretations of the rules.

You still recover all your maneuvers as normal for a crusader, even the ones you get from being a Ruby Knight Vindicator.

Thank you!

Sorry to be annoying but can you tell me what I'd be citing in the book to explain this to someone else as I'll inevitably have to? For either answer.

If I had to guess for the first one I'd say it was because if you don't choose to ready a certain maneuver it'll just default to whatever you had readied previously, yeah?

The second one is downright shocking. Freaking sweet if it's true but I can't figure it out.

[Doomeye56]

There is no language in the Readying Maneuvers to indicate that its possible to ready less.

For prestige classes Pg 95 of the ToB states that they use the base classes recover method

[Troacctid]

Page 38: "Unlike a wizard preparing her spells, you cannot choose to leave a readied maneuver slot unfilled."

[Twurps]

Tome of battle: P96 under 'Martial adepts'.

I won't quote, but pretty much states you keep the recovery method you had before.

This leads to the answer for the idiot crusader, because if you had more than one recovery method, you get to choose which one you want to use for any addional maneuvers a prestige class gives you.

The 'liberal' interpretation of the rules comes when u ad new maneuvers known to the recovery method of either swordsage or warblade, but then assign the extra maneuvers granted (which are granted at different levels of RKV) to the crusader recovery method.

This method relies on the interpretation that you can decide 'per level' of your prestige class to which recovery method you assign the level. As far as I'm aware, this is not explicitly allowed in the rules, but it's also not explicitly forbidden, and it does follow the same methodology that is used when assigning spellcaster levels.

[Windrammer]

Page 38: "Unlike a wizard preparing her spells, you cannot choose to leave a readied maneuver slot unfilled."

Bingo. Thank you

[Windrammer]

For prestige classes Pg 95 of the ToB states that they use the base classes recover method

Ah ok. That's awesome. Thanks

[Afgncaap5]

I think I'd allow a Crusader to prepare fewer, but not receive any benefits from it. "Nope, sorry. You were just really lazy and didn't prepare as many this time for some reason." I'd basically treat it as if he'd also prepared a number of Null maneuvers that didn't do anything, but passed every round he didn't use another maneuver, I think.

[Aegis013]

Idiot Crusader, and it relies on some very liberal interpretations of the rules.

It actually doesn't, necessarily. Idiot Crusader-hood can be achieved with the least beneficial/permissive, sensible reading of the rules (pg. 96 says when a PrC level is used to advance Crusader and provides and a maneuver readied it also gives a maneuver granted); which would be that all of the benefits of each PrC level must be assigned to one initiator class, and that each initiator class can learn copies of maneuvers known by the character (e.g., if you take a level of Crusader and a level of Warblade, you could have Stone Bones known twice, even if you're not allowed to ready it twice).

In this situation, it's still possible to achieve Idiot Crusader, it merely happens much later, probably after several levels of Prestige classes before you take a level of Crusader, and with a substantial loss in top-end potential, but it's still possible.

Wizard 3/Unarmed Swordsage 3/Shadow Sun Ninja 4/Jade Pheonix Mage 5/Crusader 1/Shadow Sun Ninja +1/Jade Pheonix Mage +1/Mo9 2

With Extra granted maneuver that Crusader knows 5 maneuvers and is granted 5 maneuvers each round at level 18, and learns a 6th from Mo9's 2nd level (plus the granted maneuver) at a max IL of 17: meaning you could spam a single 9th level maneuver indefinitely at 20th level.

If you can find a RAW flaw with that Idiot Crusader build (admittedly, it's not a strong build), let me know.

[PersonMan]

I think I'd allow a Crusader to prepare fewer, but not receive any benefits from it. "Nope, sorry. You were just really lazy and didn't prepare as many this time for some reason." I'd basically treat it as if he'd also prepared a number of Null maneuvers that didn't do anything, but passed every round he didn't use another maneuver, I think.

In other words, you'd say 'no, unless you want to self-nerf'.

[Twurps]

If you can find a RAW flaw with that Idiot Crusader build (admittedly, it's not a strong build), let me know.

You still assign a level of Jade Phoenix mage to the crusader progression, where previous levels were assigned to swordsage.
Again: Not something RAW forbids, but not explicitely allowed either. Having said that, There are far worse things you can pull RAW-legal. So I wouldn't mind as long as no d2 weapons are used :smalltongue:

[Chronos]

So I wouldn't mind as long as no d2 weapons are used
OK, then, I'll just have to use Luck Devotion with my Aura of Chaos, instead.

[Gemini476]

OK, then, I'll just have to use Luck Devotion with my Aura of Chaos, instead.
...Luck Devotion works of the total average damage, from what I can see, and the average damage of an exploding Dn is (n2+n)/(2n-2).

For a D2, for instance, that's 3. Here's a Wolfram Alpha chart (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+%28n^2%2Bn%29%2F%282n-2%29) - I'd suggest looking at the "Values" section and pressing the "More" button.

[Crake]

it's worth noting for the OP that if you have extra granted maneuver for a crusader, you only need 3 strikes to be guarenteed a strike every round. If you only have 2 strikes (or two good strikes as it may be) then look into an eternal wand of heroics (to get martial study) for another free maneuver for 10 minutes/level (works great with adaptive style, otherwise you need 5 minutes to re-ready), or get one of the items that gives you a maneuver.

[Chronos]

It's triggered by doing less than average damage, but if it triggers, it sets the damage equal to half the maximum. The average damage of an exploding die (of any size) is only a little higher than the non-exploding version, but the maximum damage of an exploding die is infinite.

[Gemini476]

It's triggered by doing less than average damage, but if it triggers, it sets the damage equal to half the maximum. The average damage of an exploding die (of any size) is only a little higher than the non-exploding version, but the maximum damage of an exploding die is infinite.

Huh! So it does. That's kind of neat, even if it's slightly worse than Imbued Healing since Luck Devotion is 1 minute/day (+1 per Turn Undead use) while Imbued Healing is 1 minute/spell level. Although Luck Devotion can be taken without Cleric levels as well, and can be gotten really cheaply if you are a Cleric so it evens out a bit.

Also you're technically doing half the damage but since half of infinity is still infinite that doesn't really matter except in the most pedantic cases.


I suppose that an enterprising DM could nip this in the bud by ruling that Luck Devotion doesn't factor in the explosion but then you just pull out your d2 weapon again where the average rounded up is the maximum result and keep instagibbing enemies anyway.

[Eloel]

It's triggered by doing less than average damage, but if it triggers, it sets the damage equal to half the maximum. The average damage of an exploding die (of any size) is only a little higher than the non-exploding version, but the maximum damage of an exploding die is infinite.

Now we need to figure out how to improve our chances of rolling below average. 1d2 only rolls below average exactly 50% of the time, while 1d4 is 75% (the highest for a single dice). While I'm currently not interested enough in this to try higher dice-counts (like 2d3 or 5d6 or whatever), my guess is 1d4 is not improvable without some voodoo magic.

[Grod_The_Giant]

OK, then, I'll just have to use Luck Devotion with my Aura of Chaos, instead.
Pretty sure this doesn't work. The key to the normal method is Imbued Healing's line stating that you "treat any die roll result of 1 as 2." You're effectively changing how the die landed, allowing Aura of Chaos to trigger-- you rolled the maximum number. Luck Devotion doesn't do anything to your roll, only the result.

[Eloel]

Pretty sure this doesn't work. The key to the normal method is Imbued Healing's line stating that you "treat any die roll result of 1 as 2." You're effectively changing how the die landed, allowing Aura of Chaos to trigger-- you rolled the maximum number. Luck Devotion doesn't do anything to your roll, only the result.

You missed the point; the "maximum result" on any exploding dice is infinite. So what if you have not rolled infinite? The result is still that.

[Gemini476]

Now we need to figure out how to improve our chances of rolling below average. 1d2 only rolls below average exactly 50% of the time, while 1d3 is 67% (the highest for a single dice). While I'm currently not interested enough in this to try higher dice-counts (like 2d3 or 5d6 or whatever), my guess is 1d3 is not improvable without some voodoo magic.

The average for xDn with exploding dice is just multiplying (n2+n)/(2n-2) by x, I'm pretty sure. For finding out the probability of getting below that, Anydice (http://anydice.com/)is very useful. Put "output [explode 2d6]" or whatever into the box and it'll work out the math for you. Click on "At Most" to see the percentages of being below a certain number, like the 72,22% chance of being below the average of 8,4 on 2d6.

If you wonder, according to Anydice there's an 82,66% chance of a colossal Monk 20 dealing less than average damage with his exploding fists. A Monk 18/Crusader 2 with a Monk's Belt could do that, for instance. (Also, when he deals above average damage he's still dealing 62+ damage from dice alone on each hit.)




For those wondering, the exact text of Luck Devotion says that:

[...]if the result of any damage roll you make is below average, you can increase it to one-half the maximum possible (rounded up).

It's rather different from Imbued Healing in that you don't get the guaranteed instagib, but it's also available to all characters, runs on Turn Undead rather than healing spells, and is pretty cheap for Clerics given that it's a [Domain] feat.

[Eloel]

Anydice only explodes to a very small finite point though - it suggest the maximum for an exploding d2 is 6.

Edit:
Also, Anydice says the mean for output 12d[explode 1d8] (exploding 12d8) is 61.59, and the chance to roll below that is 53.20%. Where are you getting your numbers?

[Gemini476]

Anydice only explodes to a very small finite point though - it suggest the maximum for an exploding d2 is 6.

Edit:
Also, Anydice says the mean for output 12d[explode 1d8] (exploding 12d8) is 61.59, and the chance to roll below that is 53.20%. Where are you getting your numbers?

D'oh! You're right, I messed up and typed in [explode xdy] rather than xd[explode 1dy].

Also, if you want to increase the number of rerolls there's a parameter for that -

set "explode depth" to 10
Where 10 can be set to any arbitrary value, really.


Also, after a while the depth really stops mattering that much since we're after the mean rather than the maximum and the probability of added rolls gets low enough to be ignorable. (For example, the actual mean for 12 exploding d8's is ~61,71 but we only really care about integers since that's how dice work.)

[Aegis013]

You still assign a level of Jade Phoenix mage to the crusader progression, where previous levels were assigned to swordsage.
Again: Not something RAW forbids, but not explicitely allowed either. Having said that, There are far worse things you can pull RAW-legal. So I wouldn't mind as long as no d2 weapons are used :smalltongue:

I do the same with Shadow Sun Ninja.

A very bizarrely strict DM could rule that once a Prestige Class is entered it can only add to a single martial adept, ever. But even so, the ruling I was operating under is less permissive than how the text actually appears.

On page 96 of ToB it says:


Maneuuvers Known: When you gain additional maneuvers known, these simply add to the maneuvers known of one martial adept standard class you already possess.

Shorty after:


Maneuvers Readied: ...If you have more than one martial maneuver progression, you must choose which progression the additional readied maneuver slot applies to. If you choose to add the maneuver readied to a martial maneuver progression derived from crusader class levels, you also gain one additional maneuver granted at the beginning of the encounter for each additional maneuver you can ready.

Which, I infer means you could actually assign the maneuver known to a progression derived from non-crusader levels while assigning the maneuver readied to a progression derived from crusader classes, but admittedly there is some room for interpretation.