New game- Swordsage or Goader or Snowflake Wardance?

[the humanity]

So my wife is going to give me a chance to play a character for an upcoming campaign. I know there are going to be at least 3 players, and one plans to be a spellcaster (as someone who has played with my wife, I recommended sorcerer. The other character I'm unsure about, she likes playing a barbarian/monk hybrid in my campaign (different system), but she could very well end up being a goblin cleric of the great Allfather Cheez Whiz charging about wielding a large wooden spoon filled with hot sauce to fling at her enemies. I truly have no clue what she wants to play.
I asked my usually core only DM if I could play a Swordsage. The answer is up in the air- if she can learn martial adepts (and isn't turned off by the book) by Saturday she has no issue with me playing one. If the party needs a tank I'll probably find a different character to play. If not, I want to be a young, shy Kenku wagon driver who has been blessed/cursed with being the host body for an unjustly run over tiger, who teaches him manliness the tiger way whether he likes it or not, while teaching him to use his claws to fight like a tiger.
Swordsage Questions-
What are the best ways to learn how martial adepts work? What should a DM new to Tome of Battle expect from a Swordsage?
Are there any good mechanical ways to represent fighting like a tiger/living with a tiger in me other than- well- Tiger Claw with claws?

If I end up as the party meat shield instead, I like the idea of the feat goad, but if I built around it, I want it to be an effective way to keep big nasty orcs and giants off of my friends when I'm not Power Attacking the wizard.
Goad Questions- So how can I make Goad work?

If we already have a beefsteak but the lady just isn't feeling the Swordsage, I may end up as a skillmonkey rogue/cleric or a combat bard. The cleric I've seen before and know how I would do it, but I would love to use Snowflake Wardance and perform weapons dance to make a super fancy einhander with mystic blade spells.
Snowflake Wardance- How would I best use this feat to make a fun Gish type with a minimum of multiclassing?

I may be back with more questions when I figure out what my party is doing, but I would love to get some

[Karl Aegis]

Goad either does nothing or it kills you. You don't even have to use Goad for it to kill you. If you are in a situation to use Goad you are in a situation where your opponent can full-attack you. Very few nasties will give up the chance to full-attack you if they can kill you outright, and if you do actually use Goad you don't have enough actions to seriously threaten them. They can just take a step away from you and continue on their business. Or they're straight up immune to Goad and to you.

The best way to use maneuvers is to have them printed out on index cards and organized into readied maneuvers and active stances. Place your active stance where everyone can see them and place your maneuver you want to activate on the table where everyone can see so you don't have to look up every ability.

Swordsages can deal a piddly amount of fire damage in a tiny area after rolling three dice, smell smelly dudes, and attack a bunch of times. Some may be able teleport short distances and jump really high. Honestly, a core only wizard will blow them out of the water, but they are better than the not full caster core classes.

[Troacctid]

Goad is just bad. It takes a move action to use, and it only affects an opponent that is already standing right next to you. Furthermore, it allows a save, and not a very high save at that. And it's mind-affecting, and doesn't work on anything with low Intelligence. And it only stops melee attacks, so if they want to cast a spell, use a ranged weapon, or do basically anything other than make a melee full attack against you, they can just ignore it completely.

[Grod_The_Giant]

"I get a decent number of fancy powers, ranging from kung-fu to shadow magic. I can use them all day, but there are built-in limits that keep me from spamming the same ones over and over again."

[Darrin]

What are the best ways to learn how martial adepts work?


Print out the maneuver cards (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a). Until you get Adaptive Style, treat them as "once per encounter" powers, because it's unlikely you'll get a chance to refresh them during combat.



What should a DM new to Tome of Battle expect from a Swordsage?


They get fancy attacks. It really isn't all that much different from a wizard casting shocking grasp or vampiric touch.



Are there any good mechanical ways to represent fighting like a tiger/living with a tiger in me other than- well- Tiger Claw with claws?


Barbarian dip for Spirit Lion Totem? That at least gets you Pounce (Ex), which is about as tiger as you can get. A Totemist dip might help add some tiger-ish buffs to your claw attacks. Five levels of Wildshape Ranger could turn you into a leopard, which is sorta an economy-size tiger.



Goad Questions- So how can I make Goad work?


You may want to rephrase that as "How do I draw aggro?" And there aren't a lot of ways to do that in D&D, but Iron Guard's Glare (Devoted Spirit stance) and Knight's Challenge (PHBII) are the best way to do this in 3.5.



Snowflake Wardance- How would I best use this feat to make a fun Gish type with a minimum of multiclassing?


I consider Snowflake Wardance a trap: it forces you into a sub-optimal combat style that limits your damage output, and then doesn't even give you a damage bonus, just an attack bonus. To combine this with Swordsage is going to require quite a bit of multiclassing, as you'll need at least 4 bard levels, and then a Fighter 2 dip to get the feats you need to make it functional. This will hose up your maneuver progression, and if you take more than six levels in non-martial adepts, you won't get 9th level maneuvers pre-epic. That being said...

Bard 4/Fighter 2/Swordsage 2/Jade Phoenix Mage 10/Swordsage +2 is kinda tempting.

[Red Fel]

Let's make like a pop star and break it down.


I asked my usually core only DM if I could play a Swordsage. The answer is up in the air- if she can learn martial adepts (and isn't turned off by the book) by Saturday she has no issue with me playing one.

The basics are easy, and they are as follows: Each martial adept has a different recovery mechanic, and they also recover maneuvers outside of combat. The individual functions of maneuvers are described in each maneuver, much like a spell is described in its entry, and can be found here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a). That's right, you can print off convenient reference cards for all of your maneuvers, for ease of use.


If the party needs a tank I'll probably find a different character to play.

No party "needs" a "tank." If you want to play a "tank," that's a different story. (Also, a different class. It's called Crusader.)


Swordsage Questions-

And Warblade answers. Kidding!


What are the best ways to learn how martial adepts work?

You mean other than "read the entry?" The several pages of explanation of a given class in ToB do a pretty good job of explaining how the class itself works - you get maneuvers as described in text and table, plus some class abilities. The part to keep track of, much like with spellcasters, is the maneuvers. That's the part with more nuance, more variety, and more nitty-gritty details. The best way to keep track of that information, as mentioned above, is to make liberal use of maneuver cards.


What should a DM new to Tome of Battle expect from a Swordsage?

A Monk with better class features, more versatility, and the ability to use weapons effectively, for starters. Otherwise, it's more or less what you'd expect from any martial adept class - melee combat with increased versatility.


Are there any good mechanical ways to represent fighting like a tiger/living with a tiger in me other than- well- Tiger Claw with claws?

There is a class, the Bloodclaw Master, that does this reasonably well. It's basically as Tiger Claw-focused PrC. The class itself is actually considered a slight upgrade over the base martial adept classes used for entry, so that's a plus. You might also consider taking the Shifter race (import it from Eberron, it's not hard) to increase the flavor. Shifting isn't particularly potent, but as I said, it's flavor.


If I end up as the party meat shield instead, I like the idea of the feat goad, but if I built around it, I want it to be an effective way to keep big nasty orcs and giants off of my friends when I'm not Power Attacking the wizard.

Others have said it, I'll say it too: Goad sucks, get something else. I recommend Crusader.


Goad Questions- So how can I make Goad work?

Snarky answer? You can't. Honest answer? Use it in conjunction with something else. Like Crusader.


Snowflake Wardance- How would I best use this feat to make a fun Gish type with a minimum of multiclassing?

Just Bard. Bard is the original gish-in-a-can. Duskblade does it better, but Bard does it with class. And given that Snowflake Wardance requires Bardic Music, it's kind of a no-brainer. If you really want to be nasty, there's this one build I like that involves Bard, Sublime Chord, Nightmare Spinner and Dread Witch, to create a rather vicious aura of fear that cripples everything, but it hurts your BAB and your Bardic Music progression. Also, multiclassing. Straight Bard may not be overpowering, but it's fun and useful.

[the humanity]

Thanks for all your help!
I will clarify, the aggro draw is intended as a separate build idea from the Swordsage, and both are different than the snowflake wardance bard.

I like the feedback for ToB, are there any heads ups from dissenting opinions?

And I know my party members are used to playing WoW, so I wanted to play off their usual tactics and style as much as possible- hence preferring to have a tank.

I never played in a party with a knight, how well do they play? Other than spamming Power Attack, what feats go well with the class?

[the humanity]

Just Bard. Bard is the original gish-in-a-can. Duskblade does it better, but Bard does it with class. And given that Snowflake Wardance requires Bardic Music, it's kind of a no-brainer. If you really want to be nasty, there's this one build I like that involves Bard, Sublime Chord, Nightmare Spinner and Dread Witch, to create a rather vicious aura of fear that cripples everything, but it hurts your BAB and your Bardic Music progression. Also, multiclassing. Straight Bard may not be overpowering, but it's fun and useful.

I'm curious about this fear build, just as much as straight bard with maybe a prestige or dip. I have always enjoyed bards, and the little challenge accepter inside me would love to make a straight bard that pushes the damage like a boss, people who aren't in the know so often belittle the class. That makes me sad.

[Blackhawk748]

I never played in a party with a knight, how well do they play? Other than spamming Power Attack, what feats go well with the class?

Knights are...weird. Dont get me wrong i love the class but its an odd ball. Firstly you really want to stay in Knight, as the Knight's Challenge abilities only scale on Knight levels. Secondly you may want to do Mounted Combat as they give you the feat for free. Thirdly Test of Mettle is wonderful, give your buddies some breathing room and you just soak damage. I would recommend Warforged for the Adamatium Body feat, but that Charisma penalty...

[Karl Aegis]

Knights have Bulwark of Defense as their only good ability.

Knight's Challenge will almost never come up because it works against a very narrow band of opponents. Most individuals in an encounter will either have a CR less than the Knight's character level - 2, therefore are immune, have a good willpower save and decent wisdom, like most casters, monstrous humanoids, outsiders, aberrations, dragons, and fey, or are straight up immune like animals, undead, constructs, plants, vermin, oozes and quite a number of magical beasts. Which leaves us with non-psionic humanoids that are using close combat weapons (and will probably attack the closest thing anyways), elementals (except earth elementals that have to no reason to bother being in line of sight and water elementals that a knight can't swim after if they want to live), giants that will pretty much win if you allow them to get into melee combat and smart magical beasts that either have tons of hit dice or are gigantic and win in melee combat. It's a really bad idea to be able to be targeted by these things in the first place.

Your skills are almost always going to be put into ride and handle animal if you want to use mounted combat feats. You don't even get to put points into any social skills and can't do intimidate/entangling shenanigans like a dragon shaman or a zhentarim soldier fighter.

[Red Fel]

I'm curious about this fear build, just as much as straight bard with maybe a prestige or dip. I have always enjoyed bards, and the little challenge accepter inside me would love to make a straight bard that pushes the damage like a boss, people who aren't in the know so often belittle the class. That makes me sad.

I'll just leave this here, then.

A high Cha score is perfect for a Fear build (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0), something like Bard 8/ Dread Witch 1/ Nightmare Spinner 1/ Sublime Chord 2/ Dread Witch 4/ Nightmare Spinner 4, using Inspire Awe (DM), Healing Hymn (CC), and Spellbreaker Song (CM) for Bard, plus you can trade your Suggestion song for Haunting Melody (ECS). Use the Half-Humans variant in Races of Destiny p150, especially since a Lesser Aasimar is already a Humanoid instead of Outsider, and you can get the feat Dreadful Wrath (PGtF). I've suggested this type of build before (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252815#4), though this one won't get the Inimidate bonus that comes with Half-Orc. I'd still use Unseelie Fey if possible with the Winter aspect so adjacent opponents take a penalty to saves equal to your Cha bonus.

How it works: Basically, DW and NS advance SC casting, which is Bard casting for bawses. Those PrCs, plus the suggested feats and ACFs, allow you to continuously stack escalating fear effects. The end result is that you are a walking debuff that can lock down enemies by looking at them funny.


Knights are...weird.

Knights have Bulwark of Defense as their only good ability.

These. The Knight's abilities, despite looking good on paper, don't function well. If you truly want a "tank," you need to think differently. There are very few mechanics that actually force an enemy to attack one PC over another. The goal, then, is to come up with reusable, effective methods of incentivizing it. Crusader, not Knight, has your answers. Thicket of Blades stance allows any movement to provoke an AoO; when connected to feats like Stand Still or Knock-Down, it makes you highly effective at locking enemies down. They have to deal with you just to move. Iron Guard's Glare gives enemies a penalty to attacks against anyone but you. No save, works on anyone you threaten, much more efficient than the Knight's abilities. Defensive Rebuke causes the target to provoke AoOs from you if they hit anybody other than you; again, no save, no limit on to whom it applies.

These won't flat-out prevent an opponent from attacking someone other than you. What they will do, however, is cripple those opponents unless they attack you. And unlike a Knight, a Crusader - armed as he is with maneuvers - is a proper threat, and worthy of an enemy's focus. Thanks to his class features, he can also take that abuse and return it with interest.

[the humanity]

I'll just leave this here, then.


How it works: Basically, DW and NS advance SC casting, which is Bard casting for bawses. Those PrCs, plus the suggested feats and ACFs, allow you to continuously stack escalating fear effects. The end result is that you are a walking debuff that can lock down enemies by looking at them funny.




These. The Knight's abilities, despite looking good on paper, don't function well. If you truly want a "tank," you need to think differently. There are very few mechanics that actually force an enemy to attack one PC over another. The goal, then, is to come up with reusable, effective methods of incentivizing it. Crusader, not Knight, has your answers. Thicket of Blades stance allows any movement to provoke an AoO; when connected to feats like Stand Still or Knock-Down, it makes you highly effective at locking enemies down. They have to deal with you just to move. Iron Guard's Glare gives enemies a penalty to attacks against anyone but you. No save, works on anyone you threaten, much more efficient than the Knight's abilities. Defensive Rebuke causes the target to provoke AoOs from you if they hit anybody other than you; again, no save, no limit on to whom it applies.

These won't flat-out prevent an opponent from attacking someone other than you. What they will do, however, is cripple those opponents unless they attack you. And unlike a Knight, a Crusader - armed as he is with maneuvers - is a proper threat, and worthy of an enemy's focus. Thanks to his class features, he can also take that abuse and return it with interest.
So crusader. I'm ok with giving crusader a shot. If TOB passes inspection I'll Play that or the Swordsage.

I have a little more detail on my party- one wants to be a water Mage (I'll dust off the old Stormwrack), and one wants to be able to cast spells that just keep doing damage but require some concentration, like burning sphere. Entropomancer makes sense for the second one, but it isn't very powerful. either way, I'm in a caster heavy party.
I don't like sharing the same space as everyone else, especially after my first campaign put me as the weakest rogue in an all rogue party. So I definitely want to be in the thick of the fighting. I'll definitely save the fear build for another campaign though.

[Flickerdart]

Knight is actually pretty okay (and also available on WotC's site for free (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=2) if it helps). Don't get me wrong, Crusader is a lot better (because ToB melee versatility is unmatched) but if all you want to do is be a wall, it's hard to go wrong with Knight, and the whole "randomly granted maneuvers" and "stupid stance progression" things Crusaders get works against you if you want to specialize this much.

Grab a reach weapon, get huge from one of your party casters, and turn everywhere you can reach into your own personal playground. I recommend playing a Goliath so you can take Knockback and use it to make people's lives very unpleasant. Melee-focused characters affected by your Test of Mettle will have to close the distance after you chuck them away, which provokes an AoO, letting you hit them and trigger Knockback as long as you Power Attacked the previous round. This knocks them away from you, forcing them to use another move action to close the distance, which means that even if you ran out of AoOs, they still have no more standard actions left to attack you. Then on your turn, hit them, using Knockback to kick them away from you again, forcing them to repeat the whole thing. For bonus hurt, tie in Knockdown, so that they're not only flung away from you but also fall prone. Feats like Dutiful Guardian further improve your ability to protect your allies.

For your second party member, recommend him Psion for Energy Current (I think Ardents also get it with one of the energy mantles in the web articles).

[Blackhawk748]

Knight is actually pretty okay (and also available on WotC's site for free (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=2) if it helps). Don't get me wrong, Crusader is a lot better (because ToB melee versatility is unmatched) but if all you want to do is be a wall, it's hard to go wrong with Knight, and the whole "randomly granted maneuvers" and "stupid stance progression" things Crusaders get works against you if you want to specialize this much.

Grab a reach weapon, get huge from one of your party casters, and turn everywhere you can reach into your own personal playground. I recommend playing a Goliath so you can take Knockback and use it to make people's lives very unpleasant. Melee-focused characters affected by your Test of Mettle will have to close the distance after you chuck them away, which provokes an AoO, letting you hit them and trigger Knockback as long as you Power Attacked the previous round. This knocks them away from you, forcing them to use another move action to close the distance, which means that even if you ran out of AoOs, they still have no more standard actions left to attack you. Then on your turn, hit them, using Knockback to kick them away from you again, forcing them to repeat the whole thing. For bonus hurt, tie in Knockdown, so that they're not only flung away from you but also fall prone. Feats like Dutiful Guardian further improve your ability to protect your allies.

Seconding this, Knights are about as good at lock-down tactics as the Crusader. With Bulwark of Defense being always on and not a stance you can grab Martial Spirit or Iron Guards Glare and combine the two via Martial Stance.

[the humanity]

I am going to play a knight or crusader if I end playing Mage security for a pair of mailmen, or I am going to be a combat bard or Swordsage if tricks like buffing and summoning are intended at my friends character creation. I Don't want to force them to play optimally if that's not what they want to do, especially since I would rather be a mailman than a CoDzilla any day. I want them to be the best version of their little concept, which may leave something to be desired on self defense, so I can fit myself in. Teamwork makes the dream work.

If I can play TOB, I am, I love playing martial adepts! I was always making cool npcs in my red hand of doom campaign out of the Swordsage.

Psionics are out, wife already has to learn one new system. I might see if I can't turn that power into a spell though...