ToB school combinations

[danielxcutter]

Thought exercise: not actually going to be used in play anytime soon.

The nine schools of the Sublime Way - White Raven, Devoted Spirit, Desert Wind, Stone Dragon, Iron Heart, Diamond Mind, Tiger Claw, Shadow Hand, and Setting Sun - can easily have a character based on each of them, a master of the art.

This is not what this thread is for. Rather, I'm looking for combinations of schools that are both mechanically powerful and really cool character concepts.

I'm aware of two:

Shadow Hand + Tiger Claw: Take Shadow Blade to add Dex to Shadow Hand weapons(unarmed strike, dagger, short sword, sai, siangham, spiked chain), Bloodclaw Master to get benefits when using Tiger Claw weapons(kama, kukri, handaxe, claw, greataxe, unarmed strike), and Superior Unarmed Strike.

Iron Heart + Diamond Mind: Time Stands Still + Punishing Stance and/or Stormguard Warrior for lots of damage on lots of attacks.

Any others?

[Crake]

Clearly the best is combining a gestalt swordsage//warblade(or crusader) with levels in master of the nine and use all the schools :smalltongue:

[A.A.King]

Setting Sun + Stone Dragon: Both have the Unarmed Strike as a favourite weapon and you can't be considered a true master of Kung Fu (Setting Sun) without having the ability to break a mountain with your fist (Ancient/Elder/Regular Mountain Hammer)

[Eldariel]

Well, Devoted Spirit + White Raven is the obvious "Leader"-combination: while there are few direct mechanical comboes (Leading the Charge + the DS Charge-attacks and Aura of Perfect Order + e.g. White Raven Hammer autostun), you get ways to enable your allies. You make them harder for your enemy to attack, you make enemies easier to hit, you give allies boosts to damage, extra actions and movement, healing, etc.

White Raven + Tiger Claw works. White Raven is the charge-school and Tiger Claw is the multiattack school. They also have some overlap in the wolfpack-terms; think "feral leader" or "Barbarian Chieftain". Combine the two and you get some rather brutal charging multiattacking. Leading the Charge + Pouncing Charge is obvious, particularly in conjunction with TWF and the extra attack maneuvers.
Of course, these comboes are better used by a character with innate Pounce (typically from Barbarian 1), which enables using the more powerful Charge-combinations, like White Raven or Diamond Mind charges (personal favourite is the Diamond Mind-maneuver Bounding Assault combined with Leading the Charge; it gives you extreme mobility and allows Pouncing from basically any position).

[danielxcutter]

Setting Sun + Stone Dragon: Both have the Unarmed Strike as a favourite weapon and you can't be considered a true master of Kung Fu (Setting Sun) without having the ability to break a mountain with your fist (Ancient/Elder/Regular Mountain Hammer)

Heh... True. Also, I suppose the brute strength of Stone Dragon and the fluid counters of Setting Sun might go together okay, but I could be wrong.


Well, Devoted Spirit + White Raven is the obvious "Leader"-combination: while there are few direct mechanical comboes (Leading the Charge + the DS Charge-attacks and Aura of Perfect Order + e.g. White Raven Hammer autostun), you get ways to enable your allies. You make them harder for your enemy to attack, you make enemies easier to hit, you give allies boosts to damage, extra actions and movement, healing, etc.

White Raven + Tiger Claw works. White Raven is the charge-school and Tiger Claw is the multiattack school. They also have some overlap in the wolfpack-terms; think "feral leader" or "Barbarian Chieftain". Combine the two and you get some rather brutal charging multiattacking. Leading the Charge + Pouncing Charge is obvious, particularly in conjunction with TWF and the extra attack maneuvers.
Of course, these comboes are better used by a character with innate Pounce (typically from Barbarian 1), which enables using the more powerful Charge-combinations, like White Raven or Diamond Mind charges (personal favourite is the Diamond Mind-maneuver Bounding Assault combined with Leading the Charge; it gives you extreme mobility and allows Pouncing from basically any position).

Those are unexpected combinations. This is good; anything else?