Long-Term Swordsage Optimization: Adaptive Style vs Extra Readied Maneuver

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

I was curious which feat (Adaptive Style or Extra Readied Maneuver) would be generally more beneficial to someone who wanted to be a Swordsage (or a Swordsage/PrC) long-term. A character can have each, but that isn't the point. If you could have only one, which would you most likely pick and why?

I vote Extra Readied Maneuver since it can give an immediate benefit. Adaptive Style takes the same amount of time (a full-round action) to recover/reset all my Swordsage maneuvers as if I only refreshed one without this feat.

[DrKerosene]

I have not had the opportunity to play a Swordsage, or DM for one for more than a few sessions, so this is theoretical.

If your Swordsage ends up in a combat encounter that lasts long enough, being able to get back all your maneuvers seems more practical and tactical. In a slug-fest, I don't think you want to recover only one specific maneuver (the round after you realized) each time you need it.

Extra Readied Maneuver seems fine if you want one more option to open/start with when you expect combat to only last a couple rounds.

[DeTess]

Definitively adaptive style. It's not just useful for when you actually run out of maneuvers, but also for its intended purpose of swapping out readied maneuvers. It's quite feasible for a swordsage to use different maneuver sets depending on his foes, and being able to swap in 6 seconds instead of 300 is quite useful.

[Darrin]

Adaptive Style.

Extra Readied Maneuver gets you one additional maneuver before you run out. Ideally, that gives you 6-7 rounds of maneuvers during the encounter until you run out, and then you have to burn a full-round action just to get *one* maneuver back.

For that same full-round action, Adaptive Style gets you another 6-7 rounds. It has the additional benefit that you can change out your selected maneuvers to respond to different threats. If you're fighting a fire elemental, you can swap out your Desert Wind maneuvers, and so forth.

[Crake]

Keep in mind that swordsages have a lot of boosts, which can be used in the same round as strikes, as well as a counter or two likely in the form of save replacers, so when you say 6 rounds before needing to recover maneuvers, that's more often going to be like 3-4 rounds at level 1.

Adaptive style is the hands down winner, simply because it gives so much more, and being able to tailor your readied maneuvers at the drop of a hat for the foes you're facing is just too good to give up. I don't think I can recall a single swordsage who didn't take adaptive style as their first level feat.

[Sagetim]

Greetings, all!

I was curious which feat (Adaptive Style or Extra Readied Maneuver) would be generally more beneficial to someone who wanted to be a Swordsage (or a Swordsage/PrC) long-term. A character can have each, but that isn't the point. If you could have only one, which would you most likely pick and why?

I vote Extra Readied Maneuver since it can give an immediate benefit. Adaptive Style takes the same amount of time (a full-round action) to recover/reset all my Swordsage maneuvers as if I only refreshed one without this feat.

Adaptive Style is more useful because it increases your ability to be versatile in your maneuver choices. Having played one for a while, I found it to be immensely useful at mid and higher level because I had enough maneuvers known that I could have maneuvers for specifically hating on things, utility maneuvers, counters, and so on. Now, admittedly, the GM also created a new Discipline for the setting, to go hand in hand with the new monsters he crafted for the setting that we were running into with some regularity. And those maneuvers hate on those monster types in particular, so being able to swap those out between regular offensive maneuvers like Mountain Hammer and the maneuver that makes special monsters die faster, is more useful than usual.

Now, even though the feat is more useful in my experience with the class than it would normally be, it's Still a more useful feat. It's kind of like the Sorcerer vs Wizard problem- Sorcerers lack versatility, even if they have more spell slots. And if all of your problems aren't nails, then a hammer isn't going to solve them*. As a maneuver user a fair amount of your utility stuff is going to come from stances, but there are still a lot of utility maneuvers that you might not have prepared at all times. Adaptive Style means you can start a fight with a bunch of strikes ready to just reap your opponents down, or enter a diplomatic setting with a number of counters and defenses ready, and with a moments notice (a full round action) you can adjust your readied maneuvers to the situation at hand.




*We're just going to accept that even if you Can hammer someone in the face for your diplomacy or intimidate check, that doesn't mean the hammer was the solution.