Martial Study and Adaptive Style

[Particle_Man]

Say a fighter takes martial study to learn a maneuver, later takes a level in crusader or warblade or swordsage, and later still takes the feat adaptive style.

I believe that adaptive style refreshes the expended maneuvers of crusader or warblade or swordsage but does it also refresh a maneuver gained by martial study that is not itself part of the package of crusader or warblade or swordsage?

[Kayblis]

Adaptative Style lets you change your readied maneuvers. It doesn't refresh them on its own. Maneuvers obtained through Martial Study without having any initiator class levels are 1/encounter powers, so you wouldn't refresh them when using the feat's ability.

[Particle_Man]

Thanks for the reply.

[Warlawk]

Adaptative Style lets you change your readied maneuvers. It doesn't refresh them on its own. Maneuvers obtained through Martial Study without having any initiator class levels are 1/encounter powers, so you wouldn't refresh them when using the feat's ability.

Unless something has changed that I am not aware of, it has been commonly accepted that Adaptive Style also recovers your maneuvers. It's highly recommended for Sword Sages to be used in that fashion since their default recovery method is so terrible.

Please note, I'm not saying this is correct or not, just that it's a common interpretation and worth looking into further to verify.

[phlidwsn]

From the 3.5 FAQ:

Q: If a character uses the Adaptive Style feat (ToB 28) after he has expended some of his readied maneuvers, does he choose new readied maneuvers equal to the maximum number he can ready, or equal to the number he hasn't yet expended?

A: Using the Adaptive Style feat completely resets the character’s readied maneuvers, making them all available for use. If you're a crusader, you also reset your granted maneuvers.

[DEMON]

Unless something has changed that I am not aware of, it has been commonly accepted that Adaptive Style also recovers your maneuvers.

I believe that only applies to maneuvers that have a recovery method. Those gained by non-initiators through the Martial Study feat do not have a recovery method and are instead a 1/encounter abilities.
Adaptive Style changes your readied maneuvers. But non-initiators, afaik, don't have those.

[Particle_Man]

If one had some maneuvers known through martial study and five levels of master of nine would the martial study maneuvers count for the damage bonus to strikes a fifth level master of nine gets?

Looking at page 38 it looks like maneuvers learned through martial study do count as readied maneuvers. Combining that with the faq I think that martial study feats would be recoverable through adaptive style (and would count for the master of nine special ability).

[The Kool]

To be more accurate and get to the root of it, Adaptive Style lets you change your readied maneuvers in a different amount of time. Duly note that the maneuver gained from Martial Study can't do this, so changing the amount of time it takes to do the thing it can't do achieves nothing.

[Particle_Man]

I think the amount of time would be that indefinite time between encounters which gets shortened to one round through adaptive style. The faq is convincing me that this trick would work.

Thanks again for all of your feedback!

[Zancloufer]

The third paragraph second line of the Martial Study feat clearly states that:


If you have Martial Adept levels, this maneuver becomes one of your maneuvers known.

So yes if you have adaptive style and level in any martial initiator the maneuver granted by martial style is also 'recovered'. Unless you take the feat before you gain marital adept levels then it doesn't. . .

Wait what. No someone else go read that feat. It seems that it is 100% recoverable if you the feat after you gain martial adept levels but not if you take it before.

[The Kool]

Say a fighter takes martial study to learn a maneuver, later takes a level in crusader or warblade or swordsage, and later still takes the feat adaptive style.

I believe that adaptive style refreshes the expended maneuvers of crusader or warblade or swordsage but does it also refresh a maneuver gained by martial study that is not itself part of the package of crusader or warblade or swordsage?


If you have martial adept levels, this maneuver becomes one of your maneuvers known. If you do not have martial adept levels, you can use this maneuver once per encounter as a martial adept with an initiator level equal to 1/2 your character level. If you do not have martial adept levels when you take this feat, and you later gain a level in a class that grants maneuvers known [poster's note: This is talking about prestige classes], these new maneuvers can be used only once per encounter and have no recovery method. If you later gain levels in a martial adept class (crusader, swordsage, or warblade), you use the recovery method for maneuvers learned as a result of those class levels, but your previous maneuvers (gained through this feat or through prestige class levels) do not gain a recovery method.

Underlined is the relevant quote from the text of the feat. No matter how many levels of what classes you get, if you take this feat before taking any martial adept levels the maneuver gained from this feat will never have a recovery method.


Benefit: You can change your readied maneuvers at any time by taking a full-round action. ...
Normal: You can change maneuvers only by spending 5 minutes to do so.

The text here refers to changing readied maneuvers. Refreshing them is merely a side-effect of changing them, and is only included as a feature of Adaptive Style as a side-effect. However... In reading the section about readying maneuvers, it refers multiple times towards readying maneuvers gained through the Martial Study feat. I am forced to conclude that you could use Adaptive Style to 'change' your maneuvers gained via the feat, you just have no choice for anything different.


If you do not have any levels in a martial adept class (for example, you learned a maneuver by means of the Martial Study feat), you can ready each maneuver you know. For example, if you have chosen the Martial Study feat two times and know two martial maneuvers, you automatically ready both those maneuvers, and you can use each of those maneuvers once per encounter.

This may be a side-effect of poor editing, but it seems to be RAW. Now the real question is: When you use Adaptive Style, are you changing what is readied from one source, or from all sources? The answer, I believe, relies on a more central question: When you change your readied maneuvers by spending time in meditation, do you change for all sources or one at a time?


To ready maneuvers, you require a brief period of practice, exercise, meditation, or prayer. The exact nature of the exercise or meditation depends on your martial adept class, but each class requires 5 minutes of preparation time.

The underlined section would suggest that each class, individually and distinctly, requires 5 minutes of prep time. I am inclined to lean this way, but we're getting fuzzy enough at this point that it really comes down to which answer your DM likes more.