[3.5] Alternative Maneuver Recovery System for Crusader + New Swordsage CF's

[MadmanFromSpace]

Crusader


You have a number of readied maneuvers, and a number of “revealed” maneuvers. You begin play with 5 readied maneuvers. Two maneuvers of your choice are your “revealed” maneuvers. The other 3 maneuvers are placed in a “stack.” You choose the order of the maneuvers in the stack.
Whenever you expend a maneuver, it is placed at the bottom of the stack. Then the maneuver currently at the top of the stack becomes revealed to you. (First-In-First-Out stack structure for you computer science geeks)
You can use a full round action to change the order of your stack and which maneuvers are your revealed maneuvers.



Swordsage



In addition to your readied maneuvers, you also have a number of Reserve maneuvers equal to 1/2 amount of readied maneuvers, rounded down.
Whenever you use a swift action to change your martial stance, you may simultaneously ready a reserved maneuver and put any readied maneuver into reserve.
Expended maneuvers put into reserve are still considered to be expended.
If an expended maneuver is put into reserve, then the newly readied maneuver is immediately recovered.
You can use a full-round action to recover any expended maneuver, even if it's in reserve.


Replaces: Discipline Focus (Weapon Focus)
Benefit: Weapons associated with your focused discipline are more accurate in their attacks. Your base attack bonus with those weapons is equal to your Swordsage level if it would otherwise be lower. Do not use this base attack bonus for prerequisites of any feats or prestige classes unless if it's a prestige class that also requires martial maneuvers and/or a minimum initiator level.
Note: This is intentionally stronger than the original class feature, and is to encourage players to not immediately prestige class out or only use it as a 1 or 2 level dip.



This is the first thread I've started here, so I apologize for any odd formatting.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

In addition to your readied maneuvers, you also have a number of Reserve maneuvers equal to 1/2 amount of readied maneuvers, rounded down.
Whenever you enter a martial stance, you may simultaneously ready a reserved maneuver and put any readied or expended maneuver in reserve.
If an expended maneuver is put in reserve this way, then the newly readied maneuver is immediately recovered (not sure if this is necessary to call out or if this is already implied).
You can use a full-round action to ready any expended maneuver, even if it's in reserve.


I kind of like it. Swordsage is frequently derided for its poor maneuver recovery, but this may be a bit too far in the opposite direction, letting you switch between your offensive maneuvers with no 'recovery turn' (as long as you still have your swift action to switch stances, and of course a second stance to switch to). Maybe make it a feat instead of a free upgrade, like Adaptive Style.

Also, that last line should probably require you to put a readied maneuver into reserve in exchange. Unless the intent was to increase the total readied maneuvers for the day? Problem with that is I can't see any real downsides to having a smaller reserve pool that aren't more than exceeded by having those same maneuvers readied, so the optimal strategy would always be to transfer all but one maneuver from your reserve pool at the start of the day.

[MadmanFromSpace]

Also, that last line should probably require you to put a readied maneuver into reserve in exchange. Unless the intent was to increase the total readied maneuvers for the day? Problem with that is I can't see any real downsides to having a smaller reserve pool that aren't more than exceeded by having those same maneuvers readied, so the optimal strategy would always be to transfer all but one maneuver from your reserve pool at the start of the day.

That...is a very good point. I'll take out the clause that says you can recover a maneuver in reserve. That line is mostly there to clarify that you can still use a full-round action to recover an expended maneuver.


this may be a bit too far in the opposite direction, letting you switch between your offensive maneuvers with no 'recovery turn' (as long as you still have your swift action to switch stances, and of course a second stance to switch to). Maybe make it a feat instead of a free upgrade, like Adaptive Style.

A feat might be better, yeah. I was considering that you could only ready a reserved maneuver of the same discipline as your stance, or that the maneuvers you switch out had to be of the same discipline, or something like that.

Something to keep in mind though is that while you have 4 readied maneuvers and 2 reserved maneuvers at level 2 (when you know enough stances to use reserved maneuvers), it still doesn't let you use the same maneuver two turns in a row, pretty sure. I guess you could use a swift action at the end of your turn to swap some out, then at the beginning of your next turn you swap the same two again?

My original plan against that was that if you put an expended maneuver in reserve, it's still considered expended, but you recover it automatically if you bring it out of reserve by placing another expended maneuver into reserve.

I think that might be too complicated, though.

[Elves]

What about this simplification? "All your known maneuvers that aren't readied are placed in your reserve pool. When you switch stances, you can swap one readied maneuver with one reserve maneuver. You can swap expended maneuvers. Swapping a maneuver from reserve to readied refreshes it. When you refresh your maneuvers normally, only your readied maneuvers are refreshed." Does that butcher your intent too much? It could be a feat.

Of course, it could be smarter to remove "swapping a maneuver from reserve to readied refreshes it" since that results in easy maneuver spamming with Belt of Battle etc.

[liquidformat]

Crusader
(First-In-First-Out stack structure for you computer science geeks)

In the world of manufacturing and most other places we just call this a FIFO Queue...



Replaces: Discipline Focus (Weapon Focus)
Benefit: Weapons associated with your focused discipline are more accurate in their attacks. Your base attack bonus with those weapons is equal to your Swordsage level if it would otherwise be lower. Do not use this base attack bonus for prerequisites of any feats or prestige classes unless if it's a prestige class that also requires martial maneuvers and/or a minimum initiator level.
Note: This is intentionally stronger than the original class feature, and is to encourage players to not immediately prestige class out or only use it as a 1 or 2 level dip.

[/LIST]

So I am a bit lost on this one, are you saying with the weapons associated with your focused discipline your BAB is 1/2 your class level? If so that is an absolutely crippling class feature...

Or are you saying your BAB is in effect 1.25x class level with associated level in which case, wow that is enough in and of itself to make a 5 or 6 fighter feat change utterly obsolete...

Either way this alternate class feature seems broken in comparison to other tier 3 class features.

[Elves]

It's saying you get full BAB instead of the normal 3/4 BAB if you're a singleclassed swordsage.