Tome of Battle Maneuvers and weapons?

[Citadel97501]

Hello all, I am just making sure that I read this correctly? You can use any weapon with the different fighting styles but Swordsages only get their bonuses with the correct weapon type? This seems to push Warblades a bit higher on the optimization tier list to me?

[heavyfuel]

Some things in ToB (feats, class features, and maneuvers (I think)) call out weapons from specific specific disciplines. This includes the Discipline Focus class features.

This doesn't necessarily make the classes weaker.

While Swordsages don't shine in combat as much as the Warblade - though they certainly hold their own - them having access to teleportation and invisibility maneuvers, as well as stances such as Dance of the Spider and Balance on the Sky gives them great versatility in out of combat situations.

Both classes are solid Tier 3 classes.

[Nifft]

Hello all, I am just making sure that I read this correctly? You can use any weapon with the different fighting styles but Swordsages only get their bonuses with the correct weapon type? This seems to push Warblades a bit higher on the optimization tier list to me?

Every maneuver that cares about weapon attacks can be used with any weapon.

Some feats care about Discipline weapons (e.g. Shadow Blade gives you +Dex to damage when you use a Shadow Hand weapon).

Swordsages get to pick a Discipline, and then get extra bonuses when using those weapons -- but the Maneuvers all work with any weapon, so it's just the small bonus that distinguishes the Swordsage's weapon use.

Then later, a Swordsage gets another bonus when using a Strike or a Stance from a specific Discipline -- again, this is purely a bonus, you get the regular Strike or Stance effect either way. These effects don't care what kind of weapon you're using, either.

[Karl Aegis]

I've never heard of this "optimization tier list" before. Please explain what that is.

[Nifft]

I've never heard of this "optimization tier list" before. Please explain what that is.

I suspect you're going to get a link to JaronK's class tier list, which is a list of classes organized by optimization ceiling.

[Karl Aegis]

I suspect you're going to get a link to JaronK's class tier list, which is a list of classes organized by optimization ceiling.

Huh, I always thought that was organized by interactivity with the system, with only a couple notable exceptions. Tier 3 gets to play with the entire game, higher tiers have the system stop interacting with classes and lower tiers are missing things like the ability to use skills or target saving throws.

[Goaty14]

I've never heard of this "optimization tier list" before. Please explain what that is.

@Nifft is right! Googling will find many lists, so I'll just throw in the explanation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?269440-Why-Each-Class-Is-In-Its-Tier-(Rescued-from-MinMax)) first, though some other versions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515845-Retiering-the-Classes-Home-Base) have been accepted, except the general T1-T6 standard remains (some people will talk about a T7: The Truenamer, but even the truenamer gets more things than the commoner, so I'm not in that bandwagon).