Crusader/Warblade = permanent Greater Invisibility? (@lvl 10 or 12)

[Gruftzwerg]

Edit/Update: K, the trick doesn't work as I thought. But you can still be on "your turn" always "greater invisible" > +2 hit, deny enemy Dex-bonus (sneak attack). Imho still a powerful option, but not as OP as I thought in the beginning, but still strong.

I think I found a nice trick, but I am not sure if it works as i think.

1.) Crusader "Cloak of Deception"

(2nd shadow hand maneuver, swift, greater Invisibility on self, until end of turn)
CoD is a 2nd lvl shadow hand maneuver which is not regularly accessible by either Crusader & Warblade. We take it with Martial Study (feat) as Crusader maneuver (@ character lvl 6 = Swordsage Initiator lvl3 = 2nd lvl Swordsage/Shadow Hand maneuvers accessible). Our crusader now know 6 maneuvers, can ready 5 and 2 are granted at the start of the encounter.


2.) Warblade

Warblade can exchange "known maneuvers" for other ones, starting at lvl 4 and every 2 lvls after. The known maneuver doesn't need to be a Warblade maneuver. You can give up a Crusader maneuver and gain a Warblade maneuver instead. We do this 4 times (@Warblade-lvl 4, 6, 8 & 10) until we are left with 2 Crusader maneuvers known.


3.) Crusader for Dummies

Our Crusader now has 2 maneuvers known/readied/granted (one is "Cloak of Deception") and gets em refreshed each round due to no withheld maneuvers available. At this point, you can start to use "Cloak of Deception" each turn and take/end your turn greater invisible. The downside atm is that each turn you are visible until you get to act. But we'll deal with that.


4.) Moment of Alacrity

(6th Diamond Mind maneuver, swift, +20 Initiative at end of turn until end of encounter)
Downside of this combo is that MoA also needs a swift action. This means you'll be visible for 1 round. After that you should beat everyone else in initiative and be able to go invisible each turn before anyone has time to react/spot your at all. Btw, the bonus seems to be untyped and therefor stack-able with itself, which makes it really OP imho.

There you have it: Something like Crusader 1 / Warblade 11 would be able to pull of this trick.
You get to act before everyone else (under "normal" circumstances) and turn greater invisible each turn and refresh the expended (Crusader) maneuver(s) automatically each turn.
Unless you want to refresh your Warblade maneuvers, which requires a "swift action".., well it had to have a downside :smallbiggrin:


_________________________________

"Extra Granted Maneuver" Bonus cheese:

With EGM you get another (3 in total) granted maneuvers at start of encounter and when you refresh them. This can be used in one of two ways in this build.

a) get access to the combo 2 lvls earlier, cause you only have to trade 3 Crusader maneuvers away.

or

b) Combo with Eternal Blade (prc) ability Eternal Training and get access to a maneuver which is also auto refreshed each turn. (imho very powerful option)


_________________________________

Q: What's your opinion on this combo? Does this work? Would you say the investment is worth it?

[rrwoods]

The "idiot crusader" side of this trick definitely works. Never thought to take Martial Study to get a normally crusader-restricted maneuver that way, but yeah, that appears to work.

However with the Cloak you are visible outside your turn. Cloak says you are invisible "until the end of your current turn", not the end of the round.

[Gruftzwerg]

The "idiot crusader" side of this trick definitely works. Never thought to take Martial Study to get a normally crusader-restricted maneuver that way, but yeah, that appears to work.

However with the Cloak you are visible outside your turn. Cloak says you are invisible "until the end of your current turn", not the end of the round.

The "until the end of your current turn" part is the one where I am not really sure how it is ruled.

a) If you take the initiative order as measurement, my current turn ends once I acted on my initiative.

b) On the other hand, your actions in a round still take the entire "6 seconds" to happen and the initiative order doesn't change that!? Aren't we told that combat happens simultaneously just with initiative reacting order?

Q: Is "turn" or "end of (your) turn" defined in 3.5 anywhere?

[Deophaun]

The "until the end of your current turn" part is the one where I am not really sure how it is ruled.

a) If you take the initiative order as measurement, my current turn ends once I acted on my initiative.

b) On the other hand, your actions in a round still take the entire "6 seconds" to happen and the initiative order doesn't change that!? Aren't we told that combat happens simultaneously just with initiative reacting order?

Q: Is "turn" or "end of (your) turn" defined in 3.5 anywhere?


Combat in the D&D game is cyclical; everybody acts in turn in a regular cycle of rounds. Combat follows this sequence:...

4. Combatants act in initiative order (highest to lowest).
5. When everyone has had a turn, the combatant with the highest initiative acts again, and steps 4 and 5 repeat until combat ends.

ACTIONS
Every round, on your character’s turn, you may take a standard action and a move action (in either order), two move actions, or one full-round action. You may also perform one or more free actions along with any other action, as your DM allows.
Clearly defined in precise terms? No. Defined by clear implication? Yes. Also, standard English usage. If it's your turn, it's not someone else's turn as well. So if it was your turn, then someone else's turn started, your turn must have ended.

Besides, the combo isn't that good. You're burning your swift action every round to do it, see invisibility and blindsight are not uncommon at that level with true seeing coming a couple levels down the pipe, and even if it worked how you think, you still become visible for a brief moment between the end of your turn and when you can use the maneuver again, meaning enemies can ready actions to attack you when you aren't invisible if need be.

[Troacctid]

Your turn means just your turn, not the whole round.

[Bucky]

I think that in order to pull permanent invisibility, you'd need to ready an action to go invisible as soon as you become visible, which eats up all your standard actions.

[Gruftzwerg]

k, thx for clearing my problems^^
I updated the entry post. If anyone still wants to discuss the remaining combo and if it is worth, feel free to share your thoughts.

[Gruftzwerg]

I think that in order to pull permanent invisibility, you'd need to ready an action to go invisible as soon as you become visible, which eats up all your standard actions.

I already thought about that. The problem is the change in initiative order and that you may not take any action until your new initiative (or whatever you readied your action for). So you can't use swift action to become invisible and than delay further actions as far as I know. And even if it would work out that way, only a new problem would occur. now your initiative is probably "1" and in the next round you act as last and can be seen again. Doesn't work, one way or the other.. sadly^^

edit:

even if it worked how you think, you still become visible for a brief moment between the end of your turn and when you can use the maneuver again, meaning enemies can ready actions to attack you when you aren't invisible if need be.
If the other part would work as I thought, the moment where you become visible wouldn't be of a problem, since I (think) that I solved as least that issue.
If the invisibility would hold until end of the round and my initiative is pushed by +20, no one will be able to act and "spot" me. Only way would be delaying an action into the next round, which would mean that the enemy would only act every 2 rounds.

[Darrin]

2.) Warblade

Warblade can exchange "known maneuvers" for other ones, starting at lvl 4 and every 2 lvls after. The known maneuver doesn't need to be a Warblade maneuver. You can give up a Crusader maneuver and gain a Warblade maneuver instead. We do this 4 times (@Warblade-lvl 4, 6, 8 & 10) until we are left with 2 Crusader maneuvers known.


This is dubious.

It's similar to the "easy" Idiot Crusader: Warblade 2/Crusader 1, where you take two Stone Dragon and two White Raven maneuvers with your Warblade levels. Presumably you're not allowed to learn a maneuver more than once, so when you take your Crusader level, there are only two strikes available that you can take: Crusader's Strike and Vanguard Strike. Since those are the only Crusader maneuvers you know, and you are granted 2 maneuvers at the start of your turn, you get those two maneuvers every single turn. Presumably, if you took Extra Granted Maneuver at 3 and then Martial Study after that (maybe a Fighter 1 dip), you could get 3 Crusader maneuvers every round. Warblade 2/Crusader 2/Fighter 1 could pull this trick off at ECL 5.

However, this method is on shaky ground as far as the rules go, as it's not clear from the text that taking a maneuver as a Warblade means its no longer available as a Crusader maneuver. There are some custserv/Sage answers that say you can only learn a maneuver once, but that's RAI (Rules As Interpreted) rather than RAW (Rules As Written).

The more glaring problem here is I don't see much support that gaining Warblade levels allows you to replace your Crusader maneuvers. The context from the Warblade text would suggest that this replacement mechanic only applies to Warblade maneuvers. Even if you allowed it to apply to Crusader maneuvers, I don't see anything in the text to allow the new maneuver to be anything other than a Crusader maneuver.

There's another method for pulling off the Idiot Crusader that's on more solid ground rules-wise, but the required ECL is higher... you can use PrCs to add +1 readied/granted maneuvers to your Crusader side and add +1 known maneuvers to your Warblade side. The earliest you can get 5 granted Crusader maneuvers equal to 5 known Crusader maneuvers is around ECL 10ish:

Race: Human, Azurin, Strongheart Halfing, or Hadozee
1. Warblade 1. Feat: Improved Initiative. Race: Dodge.
2. Warblade 2.
3. Warblade 3. Feat: Improved Unarmed Strike.
4. Warblade 4.
5. Warblade 5. Bonus: Blind-Fight.
6. Swordsage 1. Feat: Adaptive Style.
7. Shadow Sun Ninja 1. (We need this to boost our Initiator level by +1.0)
8. Crusader 1. White Raven Tactics.
9. Master of Nine 1. Feat: Extra Granted Maneuver.
10. Master of Nine 2. (Crusader Known Maneuvers = 5, Granted Maneuvers = 5)

There are other methods that can use JPM instead of Master of Nine, but that doesn't start working until ECL 12ish. Warblade 8/Crusader 2/Eternal Blade 10 can pull this off at ECL 16, and get 6 Crusader maneuvers known/granted at ECL 19. (Eternal Idiot Crusbow (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20912423&postcount=12) can get up to 7 known/7 granted at ECL 19.)

If you'd rather have Cloak of Deception/Moment of Alacrity instead of WRT/Time Stands Still... hrrrm. That should still work if you take Cloak of Deception with Martial Study and Moment of Alacrity as a Crusader maneuver. But you only get one swift per turn, so you'd have to decide between using Cloak of Deception or White Raven Tactics.

[Gruftzwerg]

However, this method is on shaky ground as far as the rules go, as it's not clear from the text that taking a maneuver as a Warblade means its no longer available as a Crusader maneuver. There are some custserv/Sage answers that say you can only learn a maneuver once, but that's RAI (Rules As Interpreted) rather than RAW (Rules As Written).

The more glaring problem here is I don't see much support that gaining Warblade levels allows you to replace your Crusader maneuvers. The context from the Warblade text would suggest that this replacement mechanic only applies to Warblade maneuvers. Even if you allowed it to apply to Crusader maneuvers, I don't see anything in the text to allow the new maneuver to be anything other than a Crusader maneuver.

Maneuvers are a bit iffy about their bound to marital adept classes:

- "Maneuvers known" stacks. It doesn't matter where it come from (only exception: you may not trade away Martial Study maneuvers). Every class (be it martial adept or not) "knows" them

- If you are a non-martial-adept character, you just know em and get em 1/encounter.

- If you have any martial adept classes, you bind the way how you "ready & refresh" a maneuver. A special option given by the choosen class. But that doesn't change that fact that it's still your character ( = all classes ) knowing the maneuver and not just one of your classes.

So, if the Warblade may exchange a "known maneuver", he can choose a maneuver that he can "ready&refresh" as Crusader to trade away. But the new maneuver is added to the Warblade "ready&refresh"-list, due to the exchange being a Warblade ability who can only assign a maneuver to the Warblade "ready&refresh"-mechanics.



If you'd rather have Cloak of Deception/Moment of Alacrity instead of WRT/Time Stands Still... hrrrm. That should still work if you take Cloak of Deception with Martial Study and Moment of Alacrity as a Crusader maneuver. But you only get one swift per turn, so you'd have to decide between using Cloak of Deception or White Raven Tactics.

Yeah that's a nice combo too. But kick in much later. You need an initiator lvl as Warblade of 17, which means with a one lvl dip into Crusader a character lvl of 18 minimum. But as you said, why not take both and switch on demand/access. You could use CoD/MoA until you hit lvl 18.

[Particle_Man]

I dunno about that. Sorcerers and Bards have different lists "spell known" if one has a Sorcerer/Bard so I would rule that Crusaders and Warblades have different lists of "maneuvers known" if one has a Crusader/Warblade. Just as a Sorcerer couldn't replace Bard spells known with Sorcerer spells known, I wouldn't allow a Warblade to replace Crusader maneuvers knowns with Warblade maneuvers known.

[Gruftzwerg]

I dunno about that. Sorcerers and Bards have different lists "spell known" if one has a Sorcerer/Bard so I would rule that Crusaders and Warblades have different lists of "maneuvers known" if one has a Crusader/Warblade. Just as a Sorcerer couldn't replace Bard spells known with Sorcerer spells known, I wouldn't allow a Warblade to replace Crusader maneuvers knowns with Warblade maneuvers known.

"maneuvers known" aren't handled like "spells known" (e.g. a multiclass Sorcerer/Wizard). You can have maneuvers even without any martial adept class at all, just with Martial Study feat. And while we are at MS, a sentence reads:

"If you have martial adept levels, this maneuver becomes one of your maneuvers known."
You don't need to choose a martial adept class to add to his "known list". You just add em to your (overall) "maneuvers known" list.

[Deophaun]

- If you have any martial adept classes, you bind the way how you "ready & refresh" a maneuver. A special option given by the choosen class. But that doesn't change that fact that it's still your character ( = all classes ) knowing the maneuver and not just one of your classes.
This is questionable given your other interpretations. If I'm buying that, then nothing that I read under the "Maneuvers Readied" section of the Crusader or Warblade explicitly prevents you from choosing to ready maneuvers gained through another class, which would mess up your method of creating an idiot crusader because there's really no such thing as a "Crusader maneuver" beyond it being a maneuver that Crusader allows you to learn.

Martial Study, meanwhile, is the exception that proves the rule, as it explicitly locks in the recovery method if you take it without having an initiator class first, while if you take it while having levels from multiple initiator classes already, it just gets thrown in the pool with all the others you already have to be readied by any of your classes.

[Gruftzwerg]

This is questionable given your other interpretations. If I'm buying that, then nothing that I read under the "Maneuvers Readied" section of the Crusader or Warblade explicitly prevents you from choosing to ready maneuvers gained through another class, which would mess up your method of creating an idiot crusader because there's really no such thing as a "Crusader maneuver" beyond it being a maneuver that Crusader allows you to learn.

Martial Study, meanwhile, is the exception that proves the rule, as it explicitly locks in the recovery method if you take it without having an initiator class first, while if you take it while having levels from multiple initiator classes already, it just gets thrown in the pool with all the others you already have to be readied by any of your classes.

"Maneuvers known" and "the way to ready and refresh them" are different things.
You should keep track which class the "ready & refresh" part of a known maneuver is tied to when you gain a new "known maneuver" (see PRC info on p.96 as refference), which is imho the only reason to maybe keep separate track of the "known maneuvers". But that doesn't make em into defined lists, bound-by-rules of any kind.

Besides, the Warblade ability to exchange maneuvers doesn't even ask for Warblade maneuvers. Is just demands any maneuver known (not further specified) gained not by martial study (mentioned in the feat itself). So imho it's pointless to argue about if or if not separate "known lists" exists. Cause the Warblade could exchange em either way.

[Deophaun]

(see PRC info on p.96 as refference)
There we go, a reference. Thank you. It would appear you are correct.

Wait, no...

That's just for allowing additional readied maneuvers. It does not state that the maneuvers you gain through the PrC may only be readied for the class you choose.

Edit: wait, nevermind, looking at wrong part.

[Darrin]

Besides, the Warblade ability to exchange maneuvers doesn't even ask for Warblade maneuvers. Is just demands any maneuver known (not further specified) gained not by martial study (mentioned in the feat itself). So imho it's pointless to argue about if or if not separate "known lists" exists. Cause the Warblade could exchange em either way.

I still consider this dubious. The context in the Warblade entry does not specify "Warblade maneuvers" because it's assumed that a single-class Warblade would only have maneuvers from his Warblade levels. Even if a Warblade can replace his non-Warblade maneuvers, I don't see any evidence that you can replace a "Crusader" maneuver with anything that would not also be a "Crusader" maneuver.

[Gruftzwerg]

I still consider this dubious. The context in the Warblade entry does not specify "Warblade maneuvers" because it's assumed that a single-class Warblade would only have maneuvers from his Warblade levels.
imho you are assuming here, which would be RAI and not RAW but lets not argue about that and move on to the important part ;)


Even if a Warblade can replace his non-Warblade maneuvers, I don't see any evidence that you can replace a "Crusader" maneuver with anything that would not also be a "Crusader" maneuver.

This is because the maneuvers gained by Crusader qualifies for "maneuver known", but the Warblade class is the one who is exchanging it. And the exchange gives you a maneuver of the disciplines the Warblade has access too.

Again, there is nothing mentioned from where the known maneuver has to come from. But you have rules for what you can get in exchange (warblade maneuvers up to your current warblade initiator lvl).

[Darrin]

This is because the maneuvers gained by Crusader qualifies for "maneuver known", but the Warblade class is the one who is exchanging it. And the exchange gives you a maneuver of the disciplines the Warblade has access too.

Again, there is nothing mentioned from where the known maneuver has to come from. But you have rules for what you can get in exchange (warblade maneuvers up to your current warblade initiator lvl).

I will add this to my Idiot Crusader Handbook (work in progress) and give you full credit. However, I still consider it dubious.

(To be fair... all the methods for pulling off the Idiot Crusader trick are dubious. It only works if you've got a DM that is comfortable with the trick and is willing to allow high levels of optimization into the game.)

[Gruftzwerg]

I will add this to my Idiot Crusader Handbook (work in progress) and give you full credit. However, I still consider it dubious.

(To be fair... all the methods for pulling off the Idiot Crusader trick are dubious. It only works if you've got a DM that is comfortable with the trick and is willing to allow high levels of optimization into the game.)

Ty, and well.. any kind of cheese needs a DM comfortable with that^^.
At least I am not trying to pull off some infinite loop combos here. (but wait, you could see the refresh/round as some kind of infinite loop xD )

[Darrin]

At least I am not trying to pull off some infinite loop combos here. (but wait, you could see the refresh/round as some kind of infinite loop xD )

Yep. Get White Raven Tactics, Moment of Alacrity, and some other maneuver into the mix, and you have a lot more control over how many turns you can squeeze into a round.

Using WRT on every initiative count isn't quite infinite because according to the combat rules in the PHB, the current round ends and the new round begins when every participant has taken a turn. So you can continue to spam WRT down until the last participant takes his turn, but then your initiative count is very low for the next round.

The easiest way to fix this is to ready an action to take place on the next round right after someone who has a high initiative count. You then run the initiative count down to whoever has the lowest initiative. However, there are problems with this, as you don't have as much control over the number of combatants, whether those combatants delay/ready their actions, or what happens when combatants drop out of the initiative count. The combatant who had the lowest/highest count could die before you get a chance to ready your action, which could mess up when you take your turn next. There's also the problem of what happens if everybody rolls very low on initiative. You may not get as many turns as you expect.

If you can also get Moment of Alacrity granted with your Crusader maneuvers, then you have a lot more control over your initiative count. Just before the last combatant acts, ready an action to use Moment of Alacrity just after his turn. When the new round starts, you get +20 to your initiative count, and don't have to rely on someone else rolling a higher initiative.