[3.5] Swordsage feat chains

[Phroggelator]

I am attempting to build a Swordsage character for our new campaign. My problem is that I cant seem to find a decent feat chain to carry me to high levels. None of the Swordsage/TOB build guides I have found really elaborate on this or it's under the heading of "coming soon" which of course by now means never.

So my issue is this. I dont want a TWF Swordsage - I did the TWF thing with a Warblade previously and while he was death-on-a-stick in combat I want something different this time. I was going to try a THF style this time, but while a few of the early feats are nice they aren't really aimed at THF combatants (Shadowblade I'm looking at you).

At the moment the character is looking a little like this:

Str: 12
Dex: 16
Con: 16
Int: 15
Wis: 17
Cha: 12

I am not opposed to swapping Str and Int if required. The only feat I'm really locked into is:

Adaptive Style

with the following seeming fairly likely:

Darkstalker (I suspect it will be useful in this campaign, though the GM is being tight-lipped)

If I am locked into 1-h and light weapons then we can add Weapon finesse and probably Shadowblade.

The thing is that I would really prefer to use a 2-handed or Bastard sword, but the feat chain that lets me add Dex to att/dmg for one of them seems long for the benefits (Wpn Finesse, Wpn Focus, Graceful Edge). I'm wondering if there is a better feat chain to be had for this.

I expect to be focusing on Diamond Mind, Tiger Claw and Shadow Hand with a smattering of Stone Dragon, Desert Wind and Setting Sun

Thoughts, questions?


[Grod_The_Giant]

If I am locked into 1-h and light weapons then we can add Weapon finesse and probably Shadowblade.

The thing is that I would really prefer to use a 2-handed or Bastard sword, but the feat chain that lets me add Dex to att/dmg for one of them seems long for the benefits (Wpn Finesse, Wpn Focus, Graceful Edge). I'm wondering if there is a better feat chain to be had for this.
The thing about Shadow Blade is that it doesn't care about finesse-- it's specifically Shadow Hand weapons.

As for feats... Martial Study is always good for initiators.

[Hellpyre]

If you are indeed looking at THF, then the feat chain to get Shock Trooper seems like a no-brainer.

[Zaq]

You don't have to have your feats actually be part of a chain, of course. You can just pick independent feats that serve you well.

That said, what do you really want to do? The fact that you know what schools to focus on is a good start, but there's still no shortage of directions to go in with a Swordsage even after you pick schools, which is part of what makes them fun.

If you like two-handers, it's rarely a bad idea to go the Knockdown/Improved Trip route, assuming you've got the feat space. That's a chain of sorts.

You're entirely right that Darkstalker is a must-have for anyone who wants to be stealthy. That said, if you're the only stealthy person in the party, it's sometimes annoying to figure out how to allocate table time when stealth could conceivably be used.


If you are indeed looking at THF, then the feat chain to get Shock Trooper seems like a no-brainer.

Not necessarily on a Swordsage. While some maneuvers are compatible with charging, many are not. A Swordsage needs to charge significantly less often than a non-ToB martial does. That's one of the reasons why they're interesting. In fact, unless you build your maneuver load specifically around it, a turn when a Swordsage charges is a turn when they don't really feel much like a Swordsage.

[Nifft]

Leap Attack seems like a natural feat (at level 9).

Useful with Sudden Leap (TC boost 1), plus with any Charge.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A few levels in dungeon crasher fighter combined with Improved Bull Rush, Knockback, and Knock Down could lay out some serious hurt on a lot of beasties, especially with some of the maneuvers that allow you to attack repeatedly while moving. Power Attack and Shock Trooper are desirable as well, of course.

[Dread_Head]

Spiked chain is a two handed weapon on the shadow hand weapons list so you can get Dex to damage with it. It would usually lend itself to tripping so you could go with combat expertise, improved trip and combat reflexes.

[Fizban]

As long as your maneuvers are enough to carry the fight in melee, you can spend your feats on whatever you want. Defenses which supplement or aren't found in your maneuvers are a great idea: Block Arrow, Enduring Life, Quick Recovery, Close-Quarters Combat, Elusive Target (itself the end of a chain). You could take Dragonmarks or the Fey/Fiendish heritage lines for some magic, or other heritage lines for other things. Jumping feats might help land some Tiger Claw maneuvers that require you to jump over people. Leadership, guild contacts, Exalted or Vile feats, Ancestral Relic, Quick Reconnoiter to double your spot/listen checks or Combat Intuition to scan enemy difficulty. Diversify by taking ranged combat feats to go with your melee maneuvers. Take a bunch of luck feats and roll roll roll.

[Eldariel]

If you want to two-hand I would go with 17 Str, 16 Wis, 15 Con, 12 Int in spite of it only being so good. The 1.5 Str damage from two-handing adds up and generally makes a relative Strength focus worth it; and it allows you to use tripping/grappling from feats outside maneuvers (e.g. the Knock-down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown) feat is really good for maneuver users as it's a free tack-on for each of your attacks, though that would require 13 Int). Power Attack on two-handers is beyond obvious too, particularly with the power of maneuvers like Emerald Razor; even with Medium BAB you can get reasonable returns off it.

If you dip Barbarian, you can combine Pounce with e.g. Bounding Assault maneuver for really potent and versatile charges - along with all the options that provides you with. Extra Rage would be worth taking if you pick this route as well. And yeah, Martial Study isn't entirely horrible if you want some White Raven or Iron Heart. The ToB tacticals aren't worthless either and indeed, Snap Kick can be nice. Other than that, better defensive stuff can be nice too - Elusive Target, Quick Recovery and the like. The Robilar's Gambit/Combat Reflexes/Side Step or Elusive Reflexes setup can also work quite nicely, particularly with Shifting Defense down the line.

[Rebel7284]

I feel that the best Swordsage build is Cloistered Cleric 1/Swordsage 2/Crusader 1/X 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10/Y 5 (master of 9?)

Full BAB is nice, extra swift actions are always useful with spells supplementing your maneuvers.

Regardless, consider a dip into Hit and Run Sneak Attack Fighter. Having that sneak attack qualifies you for Craven, which is useful and Dex to Damage to Flat Footed is great on a sneaky character.

[Metahuman1]

Or that Drow Fighter sub level. Which combo's Nicely with Shadow Blade on a spiked chain. Champion of Corellion and an Aptitude weapon can get you up to x3 Dex damage per hit, and If you can get Psionic Focus and Combat Reflexes, Stand Still can allow you some Battle Field Control while your at it.


You could go unarmed swordsage and just take the chain proficiency, and then TWF with this too in order to double your damage output. Maybe dip Cleric for Travel Devotion and/or Barbarian for Pounce. (That City Scape Variant Rage were you get +2 Str and +2 Dex can be awfully mean this way too, +2 Dex Mod means Raging gives a +2 to Hit and a +6 to Damage on both weapons.) An extra apitued Property and the Crossbow feat line ending in Crossbow Sniper would be interesting as well, as that get's you up to 3.5 Dex mod to damage.




A trick I like with Swordsages is to take either Astetic Mage and Force of Personality OR Kung Fu Genius and Keen Intellect, Dump Wisdom and Prioritize Cha or Int respectively. Even if I'm not planning to invest in a Cha or Int based arcane casting class.

[Rebel7284]

Or that Drow Fighter sub level. Which combo's Nicely with Shadow Blade on a spiked chain.

Hit and Run fighter IS the name of the "Drow Fighter sub level", except that way of labeling it is misleading because nothing in the ACF is Drow specific besides the note that Drow OFTEN take this sub level.... it's clearly open to all.



Champion of Corellion and an Aptitude weapon can get you up to x3 Dex damage per hit, and If you can get Psionic Focus and Combat Reflexes, Stand Still can allow you some Battle Field Control while your at it.


There are several ways of reading the Aptitude Weapon property, but even if this does work, sadly I don't think Champion of Corellion is worth the crappy entry feats.

[Darrin]

The thing is that I would really prefer to use a 2-handed or Bastard sword, but the feat chain that lets me add Dex to att/dmg for one of them seems long for the benefits (Wpn Finesse, Wpn Focus, Graceful Edge). I'm wondering if there is a better feat chain to be had for this.


You can shorten the feat chain by taking Diamond Mind as your Discipline Focus, which gives you the benefits of Weapon Focus: bastard sword. The sticking point there is both EWP and Weapon Finesse require BAB +1, so you've got two important feats crowding into that 3rd level slot. You can mitigate this a bit by dipping a level of Swashbuckler for Weapon Finesse. If Dragon Magazine is available, you could also dip into Exoticist Fighter 1 for EWP Bastard Sword and Weapon Finesse as your fighter bonus feat. You can toss the Hit-and-Run ACF on there as well. The downside is bastard sword doesn't count as a shadow hand weapon...

...unless it's a Sun Blade, which counts as both. But that's really expensive... unless it's an unawakened sunsword (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft p. 210), which is only 3000 GP out the door. The sticking point there is the exact RAW on the sunsword says it can be wielded by anyone proficient with a shortsword, but the description does not contain the exact phrase, "wielded as if it were a short sword with respect to weight and ease of use." Ask your DM if this distinction matters. If your DM says the sunsword counts as a shortsword, then hopefully you can hammer it out with him whether you can grip it two-handed as if it were still a bastard sword and still get the benefits of shortsword-ness from things like Shadow Blade.

If your heart is set on two-handing, the only Shadow Hand weapon that you can do that with is the spiked chain. And there's some interesting things you can do with that, like Ranger 2/Cavestalker 4, allowing you to wield spiked chains one-handed (add Oversized TWF and Totemist 2 for quadruple-wielding spiked chains). But the problem there is you kinda get pigeonholed into that whole "spiked chain guy" thing.

There is another two-handed weapon you can finesse: elven courtblade from Races of the Wild. If you take White Raven as your Discipline Focus, it counts as a greatsword for the purposes of Weapon Focus. However, it won't count for Shadow Blade unless you get the Aptitude property on it, and a lot of DMs will shoot that down.

Speaking of elven weapons, the elven thinblade might be the weapon you're looking for. It's finessable without taking Graceful Edge, it counts as a rapier or longsword for the purposes of Weapon Focus, and you can grip it two-handed if you like. Take Improved Weapon Familiarity (Complete Warrior) and you'll be proficient with all both the courtblade and the thinblade (still has a BAB +1 requirement, though... *grrr*). Or dip into Exoticist Fighter for Weapon Finesse, four EWPs, and the Hit-and-Run ACF.

[Phroggelator]

Thanks everyone. A lot of good points there. I agree that there are some useful standalone feats, but feat chains can let you really eek out every last bit of edge, which is why I asked about them. Especially in light of the next little factoids I got from the rest of the players....

It appears that my character will be the only direct combatant and there are no healers (specifically no CoDzilla and their related ilk). This sort of forces my hand a bit unfortunately. I was hoping to lock in bastard sword and a decent feat chain, but I suspect The most survivable approach now will be spiked chain with some battlefield control to let me take advantage of the 10' reach. So...

Adaptive Style
Darkstalker

are in, and I guess some arrangement of the following:

Combat reflexes
Improved trip
EWP
Knockdown
Weapon finesse?

Also perhaps round it out with:

Lightning Reflexes/Prone Attack

or

some sort of anti-flanking feats like uncanny dodge and friends or Eyes in the Back of Your Head (any of which I suspect will be more overall useful than prone fight).

And because I cant help myself, I'm still tempted by Wpn Finesse/Wpn Focus/Graceful Edge and heading for that Bastard Sword/Elven Courtblade. Even if it seems likely that the bonus would be not hugely useful by the time I get it.

I am also thinking about a 1 level dip into Warblade (at first lvl) for the d12 initial HP, +1 BAB at 1st (for feats) and cheap(-ish) access to Iron Heart maneuvers.

Any further recommendations in light of this?

[Fizban]

Hit and Run fighter IS the name of the "Drow Fighter sub level", except that way of labeling it is misleading because nothing in the ACF is Drow specific besides the note that Drow OFTEN take this sub level.... it's clearly open to all.
There is no note that drow "often" take the drow ACFs, nor are they "clearly" open to all. They are in the drow book, they are all headed "Drow [class]," (except for Favored Soul and Warlock oddly enough) and they refer constantly to drow. There is only one place that so much as implies they can be taken by anyone else, in the header section that defines what alternate class features are.

Now, I'm pretty sure the reason they're written as ACFs is that someone realized substitution levels were a huge waste of space, but sure. RAW, these racially focused ACFs with drow in the title and drow every other sentence don't have drow as a prerequisite, once you specifically put it in those terms.

Saying it's clear or claiming that the book in any way suggests non-drow taking them however, is bogus.

[Darrin]

Lightning Reflexes/Prone Attack


Swordsage already has a good Ref save. What do you need Lightning Reflexes for?

As for Prone Attack, take skill tricks instead: Nimble Stand and Back On Your Feat (Complete Scoundrel).



And because I cant help myself, I'm still tempted by Wpn Finesse/Wpn Focus/Graceful Edge and heading for that Bastard Sword/Elven Courtblade. Even if it seems likely that the bonus would be not hugely useful by the time I get it.

I am also thinking about a 1 level dip into Warblade (at first lvl) for the d12 initial HP, +1 BAB at 1st (for feats) and cheap(-ish) access to Iron Heart maneuvers.


A one-level dip into Warblade will let you switch around your EWP later, if you want to switch from spiked chain to bastard sword or elven courtblade.

If you're dipping, though... is the Exoticist Fighter variant available? That gets you EWP x4 and Weapon Finesse.

[rrwoods]

Not at my character sheet right now, but I'm currently playing a striker- and scout-focused single-classed Swordsage. I've been pretty happy with the gameplay post-level 3. Pre-level 3 I had a problem with damage that could have been avoided if I noticed the maneuver Clinging Shadow Strike -- it's got bonus damage not mentioned in the summary! Anyway. Your concept seems really close to the one I'm playing, so I figured I'd throw my 2 cp in and talk about what's working and what's not and what you might do differently.

For starters I'm a Whisper Gnome for that sweet sweet +Dex/+Con, small size (with 30 ft speed!), and stealth skill bonuses. However if you're two-handing this may not work for you, since you want Str. On that note, I do recommend putting a 16 in Str if you're two-handing, since you get a multiplier on your normal ability bonus to damage rolls.

My first two feats were Shadow Blade and Weapon Finesse. Your damage feat should probably be Power Attack instead, again assuming you're two-handing. Swordsages don't have as much attack bonus to sacrifice since they're 3/4 BAB but I think it's still potent. You don't need Finesse if you go Str, so that's a free slot -- go Adaptive Style at 1 (I had it at 6 and regretted it) and Power Attack at 3.

After that I have Darkstalker (lovely!). The party is currently level 10 so I don't have experience with anything after. But if I remember correctly, what I have lined up is Steady Concentration at 12, Craven at 15, and Gloom Razor at 18. Steady Concentration is hugely relevant for Diamond Mind-focused initiators -- saves and (Greater) Insightful Strike "damage" rolls LOVE this feat. Craven you qualify for if you take Assassin's Stance, and gets a nice boost to your damage any time you can trigger SA, which should be a lot. Gloom Razor is a no-go if you drop Shadow Blade, but you can probably replace it with a different school's [Tactical] feat.

[Phroggelator]

What do you need Lightning Reflexes for?

It's a pre-req for Prone Fighting apparently.


As for Prone Attack, take skill tricks instead: Nimble Stand and Back On Your Feat

Totally forgot about skill tricks - this is what happens when it's been 10 years give or take since you read a book I guess....

In any case, I think I have a chain that will work for me more or less. I will be swapping my Int and Str scores (and as such sadly sacrificing skill points) and taking that 1 level dip into Exoticist. I'll have to adjust the stat points a little as well to make it all work, but thats trivial. Also with the higher strength score I dont really need Weapon Finesse, thus freeing up a slot for something more useful.

From that level of Exoticist I get:

EWP(Bastard Sword)
EWP(Spkied Chain)
EWP(Siangham)
EWP(?)

as well as:
Martial Stance (Island of Blades) - fighter 1 bonus feat
Combat reflexes - being a 1st level character
Shadowblade - human bonus feat

Then progress something like the following:

3: Adaptive Style
6: Darkstalker
9: Combat Expertise
12: Improved Trip
15: Knock-back
18:?

Depending on the nature of the campaign I may be able to delay Darkstalker until later, though I think I may well need it before 15. Totally unsure what to drop into 18 though - maybe Gloomrazor, maybe something else. That said it's a fair bet that the campaign will die long before that becomes an issue....

[rrwoods]

I assume you mean Knock-Down, since Knockback is a bull rush improvement.

I recommend a two level barbarian dip for Improved Trip, from the Wolf Totem variant in UA. If the pounce variant from Complete Champion is on the table, that’s icing.

This gives you another free feat slot; Steady Concentration is juicy. Otherwise this looks fun an effective :)

EDIT: it actually frees up two. Improved Initiative is always good, and Travel Devotion can give you some more map pressure. The various AoO feats are something to think about too (Robilar’s, Karmic, Double Hit) but prerequisites can get rough.

[Darrin]

EWP(Bastard Sword)
EWP(Spkied Chain)
EWP(Siangham)
EWP(?)


Orc shotput (A&EG) can be fun. If you're looking for something two-handed, I've always been fond of the jovar (Planar Handbook), although the fullblade (A&EG) edges it out on damage and the minotaur greathammer (MMIV) has a better crit multiplier.

Ritiik (Frostburn) would also be worth a look. It's a two-handed weapon similar to a spear, but every time you hit an opponent with it, they make a Ref save DC = 10 + damage dealt, and if they fail, you get a free trip attempt, possibly triggering another attack via Improved Trip.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Siangham is pointless. It's worse than some simple weapons.

How about the harpoon, from Stormwrack? Or the spinning sword, from Secrets of Sarlona?

[Phroggelator]

I assume you mean Knock-Down, since Knockback is a bull rush improvement.

Yes. That. This is what happens when I type while tired. Insert obligatory public service messge here....


Siangham is pointless. It's worse than some simple weapons.

As a piercing weapon it is clearly not pointless..... :smallcool:

However a siangham is a Shadow Hand weapon of choice and an awful lot of the exotics are fairly... well, lets be kind and say situational. I will however dig up my A&EG in case there is something with more utility located inside.


I recommend a two level barbarian dip for Improved Trip

It's a thought, but I want to maximise my Initiator level to get those tasty level 8/9 maneuvers. Plus, I find too much dipping a annoying - especially when the campaign ends before you get to the interesting parts of the build (it has happened a few too many times).

[rrwoods]

I hear you on that one, but in this case it’s less wait than two feats is.