Piggy Knowles
2020-04-29, 10:26 AM
INTRODUCTION
With more than a decade and a half of toying around with 3.5, I’ve accumulated a lot of spare builds and ideas. While I don’t have an active game going right now, I still like to pop open my builds folder and try to refine things. Recently I decided to make a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these builds into full write-ups, and reached out to some friends in the CO community who might be interested in doing the same. In the spirit of Tempest Stormwind’s Weekly Optimization Showcase (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?), I thought I’d showcase the end results here.
The goal is (usually) not to show off any fancy new TO trick, but to showcase effective, playable builds and spur discussion. While each of us has a different build philosophy, in general the intent is to create something that can be played in most groups from level 1 to level 20. Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger and WhamBamSam, with a couple of other folks hopefully on their way. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product. I’ll list the build’s main author whenever I showcase a particular build.
For this showcase, we’ll be looking at a different kind of lockdown build: meet *bamf*!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Nightcrawler_Bamf.jpg
*bamf*
”Surprise!”
BACKGROUND
I’m sure you’ve probably all noticed by now, but I build a lot with Tome of Battle. The other members of our group all have a good appreciation for the sourcebook, but somehow I find myself constantly returning to it any time I get a character concept in mind. It just never fails to surprise me how often you can take a fairly well-worn character concept and give it a completely new spin with a bit of ToB added.
Take this build. This one came as the result of us riffing on different ways to use the desert wind maneuver leaping flame. It’s such a cool maneuver: someone attacks you and you disappear in a burst of flame and appear right next to them. Unfortunately on the surface, it’s a bit limited in scope. For a 5th-level counter it’s a bit sad that in most melee situations, it generally won’t avoid even a single attack (except perhaps against some foes with reach weapons), since you only leap after the attack resolves and you reappear adjacent to the enemy and they can just adjust and continue with their full attack. It’s more fun against ranged foes, but it’s certainly not a maneuver you’d spam.
That’s when we started toying with different ways to do interesting things with it. Adding attacks to the end of the leap was fairly easy, and from there we started building around the idea of a leaping flame tank, a lockdown crusader who encourages enemies to focus on him, then uses leaping flame and Sun School as an alternative to things like Robilar’s Gambit, protecting his allies and responding to any attack by going *bamf* and counterattacking. Going crusader also meant that with a few quick adjustments, we could ensure we were able to spam leaping flame and other powerful attacks every single round, giving the build a surprising amount of endurance.
THE BASICS
Race: Human yet again. You’ll need every feat you can get your grubby little mitts on and multiclassing rules are a concern as always. The skills are less essential, though, so if you prefer some other human variant such as azurin (after all, going blue really drives home that Kurt Wagner feel), you’re free to go that route.
Build Stub: Monk 1/Warblade 2/Crusader 4/Knight of the Weave 3/Jade Phoenix Mage 10
ACFs: Passive way monk.
Alignment: Must be lawful and non-evil. I personally would just go all the way and run lawful good here, but it’s up to you.
This build uses a fairly well-known optimization trick known as the “idiot crusader.” For whatever reason, I’ve found that this trick gets a bad rap outside of CharOp circles, as many people find it abusive. I actually think it’s both a fun and flavorful way to sacrifice versatility for consistency with a crusader. In the Tempest Stormwind & co. optimization showcases, they went with a different martial arts flavor for the idiot crusader, calling it “absorb only what is useful.” I prefer “empty mind,” but your mileage may vary.
Either way, I’ve found that even though this is a fairly common optimization trick, there are still a good number of people who have never really explored what it is or why it works, so I’ll try to break it down. If this is old hat for you, feel free to skip this section.
As a crusader, you get a certain number of maneuvers randomly granted to you at the beginning of an encounter from your set of readied/known maneuvers. At the end of every turn, you automatically get one more maneuver randomly granted to you. If you can’t get another maneuver granted (because you’ve already been granted them all), your maneuvers instead all automatically refresh. So, take a typical 1st-level crusader with the Extra Granted Maneuver feat. They’ll know and ready five maneuvers, and have three of those maneuvers randomly granted to them at the beginning of an encounter. At the end of their first turn, one of the two remaining maneuvers will be randomly granted. At the end of their second turn, the final remaining maneuver will be granted. At the end of their third turn, there are no more maneuvers to grant, so instead their maneuvers refresh and they start over with three randomly granted maneuvers.
The idiot crusader is so named because by knowing sufficiently few maneuvers, you get all of what you do know granted on your very first turn. This means that your maneuvers refresh every single turn. So, while you know a much smaller pool of maneuvers, you can use them all to your heart’s content.
How does it actually work, in practice? There are a few ways to limit your total pool of maneuvers known. There are a few things to keep in mind here:
You cannot learn a maneuver you already know. Crusaders only have access to three disciplines, two of which are shared by warblades. If you learn most or all of your available maneuvers (either through a couple of levels of warblade or via feats) before you take your first level of crusader, there will only be a couple of available maneuvers you can learn… so even though crusaders are supposed to learn five maneuvers on their first level, you can set things up so that they can only pick up two.
ToB prestige classes tend to advance maneuvers granted faster than crusader itself normally does. A crusader gets a total of four maneuvers granted over its entire career (and spends 19/20 levels with three or fewer), while a jade phoenix mage adds three maneuvers granted in just ten levels.
When you have multiple initiating classes before taking a ToB prestige class, you can choose which class you assign your maneuvers known to. This is explicitly stated on p96 of ToB: “if you have levels in two or more martial adept standard classes (for example, you are a multiclass swordsage/warblade), you must decide to which of your existing martial adept classes the new maneuvers known or maneuvers readied apply.” So, if I’m a jade phoenix mage with levels in both warblade and crusader, I might decide that my new maneuver known at level 1 goes to my warblade chassis, while my maneuver known and maneuver granted at level 3 goes to crusader. In this way, you can keep from having your crusader maneuvers known from ever advancing beyond your maneuvers granted.
That’s all there is to it!
*bamf*
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Maneuvers/Spells Known
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Monk 1
Improved Unarmed StrikeB, Combat ExpertiseB, Improved Trip, Martial Study (burning blade)
Bonus feat, flurry of blows, unarmed strike
Burning blade
Monk is never the most exciting opener, but it’s not terrible at these levels, and it’ll be doing a lot of heavy lifting in this build by fulfilling a ton of qualifications at once. You’ll grab Combat Expertise from the Passive Way fighting style, giving you access to Improved Trip right away. Burning blade gives you a minor damage boost once per encounter and will help you in qualifying for leaping flame down the road. Wield a quarterstaff or club so that you can make two-handed attacks for extra damage, using your unarmed strike to trip someone and hitting with your weapon for the Improved Trip bonus attack.
2nd
Warblade 1
Battle clarity (Reflex saves), weapon aptitude
Charging minotaur, stone bones, leading the attack, stance of claritystance
With warblade you get armor proficiency and martial weapon proficiency, making you a good bit tankier and letting you trade up your two-handed weapon for something with a bit more punch such as a guisarme. Your maneuvers and stances aren’t the most exciting, as they’re aimed toward setting you up as an idiot crusader and meeting pre-reqs rather than doing damage, but charging minotaur is always fun at these levels, and stone bones can go a long way toward beefing you up as well.
3rd
Warblade 2
Knock-Down
Uncanny dodge
Douse the flames
Douse the flames is here to force your crusader levels into idiot mode, but it’s actually not a bad little maneuver for a tank, which is definitely the role you’re going for. Meanwhile, Knock-Down comes online to add a trip rider to all of your attacks, making you quite a bit deadlier.
4th
Crusader 1
Furious counterstrike, steely resolve 5
Crusader’s strike, vanguard strike, martial spiritstance
Ah, here we go. Warblade was just a pre-cursor, setting you up to make sure your crusader levels really shine. Since you already know all the level 1 stone dragon and white raven maneuvers, and ToB says that you can’t learn a maneuver you already know, you’re forced into picking only two maneuvers known: crusader’s strike and vanguard strike. You have two maneuvers granted, as well. This means that at the end of your turn, since you cannot be granted a new random maneuver, all expended maneuvers will automatically refresh. It’s not exactly gamebreaking, but you’ll put it to good effect. And between martial spirit stance, steely resolve and an auto-refreshing crusader’s strike, your tankishness is only increasing.
5th
Crusader 2
Indomitable soul
Iron guard’s glarestance
You want to lock folks down, so iron guard’s glare is an alright way of doing that, giving a sizable penalty to all adjacent enemies if they decide to try to attack an ally instead of you. It doesn’t stop them from moving away from you to attack a friend, but hey, that’s what a reach weapon and Improved Trip is for.
6th
Crusader 3
Extra Granted Maneuver
Zealous surge
Mountain hammer
You pick up another maneuver known here, but thanks to Extra Granted Maneuver you stay firmly in idiot territory. Mountain hammer has some solid bonus damage and completely ignores DR and hardness, which can easily be worth an extra 5-10 points of damage as well (and gives it some nice out of combat use as well), so this should be your go-to attack.
7th
Knight of the Weave 1
Detect magic, read magic, spellcasting
Lesser restoration, divine favor
I don’t see knight of the weave often, which is a shame, because it’s a really cool prestige class. You get 6th-level arcane spells in 10 levels, from a spell list that looks like it should be divine but isn’t. You also nab detect magic at-will, which is something I always find very fun.
8th
Knight of the Weave 2
Armored caster (light)
As you’re not focusing on Wisdom, you’ll definitely want to be wearing armor, so not restricting your casting is always a good idea.
9th
Knight of the Weave 3
Martial Study (insightful strike)
Insightful strikewarblade, charm person, resist energy, shield other
With second level spells you pick up some handy utility and defensive options. Shield other in particular is a fun way to keep up the tanking role. Meanwhile, you’ll need some Diamond Mind pre-reqs filled, so go ahead and take Martial Study to add insightful strike to your warblade maneuvers known. It’s good consistent damage that scales with your level, and while it won’t be dropping most foes in one hit, it should outdamage mountain hammer against any foe lacking damage reduction.
10th
Jade Phoenix Mage 1
Arcane wrath, rite of waking
Fire ripostewarblade
With 2nd-level spells and maneuvers, jade phoenix mage is a natural fit. Arcane wrath is inferior to the Arcane Strike feat, but it comes on for free and it’s a great way to shuffle the many spells you’ll be getting into extra accuracy and damage. With your new maneuver known, go ahead and grab fire riposte, which lets you counterattack with a decently strong fire attack any time someone targets you. Make sure to add it to your warblade maneuvers known, not crusader, to stay in idiot mode. (Note that ToB explicitly says that if you have more than one initiating class before taking a PrC, you can choose to which you add a maneuver known.) You could run fan the flames instead, if you prefer picking up a decently strong ranged attack, but fire riposte is a lot nicer with your fighting style.
11th
Jade Phoenix Mage 2
Mystic phoenix stance
Mystic phoenix stance is pretty competitive with all of your other stances at this point. Sacrifice one of your 2nd-level spells when you activate it and you’ll end up with +1 caster level, +2 AC and 4/evil DR for as long as you remain in the stance. Not gamebreaking, but not too shabby.
12th
Jade Phoenix Mage 3
Sun School
Leaping flamecrusader, shield, darkvision, forceward, fly
And your main trick all comes together at this point. With both a new maneuver known and a new maneuver granted, you can add something to your crusader list and still remain in idiot mode. And that’s perfect, because at this level you qualify for leaping flame. This is an underrated counter that lets you immediately teleport to a space adjacent to a foe whenever you’re attacked (melee or ranged). Combined with Sun School and Knock-Down/Improved Trip, this is a great way to shut down attackers, letting you follow up any attack with an immediate action *bamf*, an off-turn attack and a free trip attempt. And considering that you refresh your maneuvers at the end of every turn, you’ll be able to spam this to your heart’s content.
13th
Jade Phoenix Mage 4
Empower strike
Death ward, restoration
Sadly none of your spells will do anything useful with empower strike, but the spells you get at this level are literally life-saving. Restoration in particular is going to be handy down the road.
14th
Jade Phoenix Mage 5
Divine surgewarblade, thicket of bladesstance, see invisibility, phantom steed, dimension door, true seeing
You get both a maneuver known and a new stance here. You’ll want to assign this to your warblade levels so that you can continue spamming leaping flame every round. As for what maneuver to go with, even though you qualify for 5th-level maneuvers on your warblade side, divine surge actually outdamages any of the 5th-level options for a non-pouncer, though if you prefer to add a bit of charging to the mix, radiant charge or law bearer are both decent alternatives as well. Meanwhile for your stance, even though you have several 5th-level choices it’s very hard to beat thicket of blades for someone using your combat style. And your spells known contain quite a few gems, giving you tactical teleportation, an exceptionally fast flying mount and the absolutely essential true seeing.
15th
Jade Phoenix Mage 6
Martial Study (greater insightful strike)
Firebird stance, Jade Phoenix master
Greater insightful strikewarblade
You get another maneuver granted here to assign to crusader. This technically gives you more maneuvers granted than maneuvers known, which will buffer you for the next maneuver you pick up. Firebird stance is actually pretty fun, giving you +3 CL, decent fire resistance and a pretty decent flaming aura if that’s what you’re into. It’s hard to give up thicket of blades, but this can definitely come in handy, especially for the CL boost if you need to buff or use something CL-dependent like a dispel. As for your feat, you need one more Diamond Mind maneuver or stance. Greater insightful strike is a very solid upgrade here, and probably your most consistent choice, but another option is to instead take Martial Stance for hearing the air for a bit more utility.
16th
Jade Phoenix Mage 7
Shield countercrusader, lesser globe of invulnerability, teleport, greater dispel magic
With our maneuvers granted currently exceeding our maneuvers known, we can safely add the new maneuver known we get at this level to crusader without sacrificing our idiot tactics. As for what to take, how about shield counter, for one of the best “block an attack” counters around? While most such counters require an opposed attack roll, putting you at a distinct disadvantage against a lot of dangerous monsters, this one gives you a free shield bash when someone attacks you, and if the attack hits, their attack misses. In addition to the fact that this gives you an extra attack (and an extra chance to trip enemies with Knock-Down), this is also an excellent way to avoid an attack. Since enemy AC scales slower than enemy attack bonuses, this is far more reliable than most similar counters. It does require you to carry a shield, you can actually get away with switching to a shield as your primary weapon and wielding it two-handed; with shield spikes and the bashing enhancement it’s dealing the same damage as a greatsword regardless. (If this isn’t your cup of tea, though, ancient mountain hammer is another excellent choice for its hefty bonus damage.) You also pick up some fantastic spells here, including teleport and greater dispel.
17th
Jade Phoenix Mage 8
Quickening strike
Greater magic weapon, spell resistance
GMW is always a nice money-saving buff; be sure to activate firebird stance for the CL buff before casting it. Quickening strike gives you a free quicken when you use a martial strike, and that’s going to be very handy in the near future.
18th
Jade Phoenix Mage 9
Martial Stance (stance of alacrity)
Greater divine surgecrusader, banishment
You get both a maneuver known and a maneuver granted here, so use it to pick up greater divine surge. This is your offensive powerhouse, and it plays perfectly with quickening strike: make a greater divine surge, feeding as much Con into the attack as possible, and use quickening strike to immediately follow it up with a swift restoration (which is an arcane spell for you) to restore the damage immediately. And since you’re an idiot crusader, you can do this every single round (at least until you run out of restorations). Wait, but doesn’t that eat up your swift action, which you may not have if you’ve spent an immediate action? Well, luckily, this is why you’ve been building in various Diamond Mind maneuvers: you now have access to stance of alacrity, allowing you to use one counter every round without requiring an immediate action. Go ahead and spam quickened restoration despite using shield counter or leaping flame previously, or use both shield counter and leaping flame in a single round.
19th
Jade Phoenix Mage 10
Emerald immolation
OK, the fact that it’s 1/week means it’s hardly something to base a build around, but I’ve got to say that emerald immolation is easily one of the coolest abilities in 3.5. It’s a nice way to close out JPM, all things considered.
20th
Crusader 4
Steely resolve 10
Crusader’s strike -> strike of righteous vitality
Finish things up with another level of crusader. This lets you swap out a maneuver… and since you have an IL of 17, go ahead and trade crusader’s strike for strike of righteous vitality. Since it’s a swap rather than a new maneuver known, this won’t impede your idiot crusader tactics at all, meaning you can use this every single round if necessary.
Warblade Maneuvers Known
1- Burning blade, charging minotaur, stone bones, leading the attack, douse the flames
2- Fire riposte
3- Insightful strike
4- Divine surge
6- Greater insightful strike
Crusader Maneuvers Known
1- Vanguard strike, crusader’s strike
2- Mountain hammer
5- Leaping flame
7- Shield counter
8- Greater divine surge
9- Strike of righteous vitality
Stances
1- Stance of clarity, martial spirit, iron guard’s glare
3- Thicket of blades
8- Stance of alacrity
Spells Known
1- Lesser restoration, divine favor, charm person, shield
2- Resist energy, shield other, darkvision, see invisibility
3- Forceward, fly, phantom steed, greater magic weapon
4- Death ward, restoration, lesser globe of invulnerability
5- Dimension door, true seeing, spell resistance
6- Teleport, greater dispel magic, banishment
You’re a tank, so you’ll want Strength and Constitution, with a bit of Charisma for your spells and crusader abilities (you’ll eventually need at least a 16 to cast your highest level spells, but that’s easily obtainable with items). As you’ll likely be restricted to light armor, you’ll probably want to have a passable Dex as well (especially if you can get your hands on serpent armor for the free Combat Reflexes), but it’s not essential. Oddly enough for a monk, Wisdom is pretty much a dump stat for you (as is Int) as you’ll be wearing armor and aren’t looking at any abilities such as stunning.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 16/Dex 12/Con 14/Int 8/Wis 10/Cha 14
32-point buy: Str 16/Dex 14/Con 14/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 14
Skill requirements are extremely minimal. You’ll want to keep concentration up: it’s a requirement for JPM, helps you cast safely and feeds your insightful strike damage. Other than that, you don’t have any skill requirements more arduous than sticking a couple of ranks in knowledge (history). Feel free to invest in whatever best suits you with any remaining skill ranks, of which you’ll have plenty. I suggest keeping your various mobility-related skills competitive and maybe picking up diplomacy or intimidate to take advantage of your decent Charisma.
You’ll want the best armor you can afford that doesn’t restrict your casting, preferably serpent armor for the free Combat Reflexes. As for weapons, the fact that you have IUS and Knock-Down means you don’t strictly need a tripping weapon, but it’s still hard to go wrong with a guisarme for your early levels. Eventually you’ll want to trade that in for a bashing shield to fully take advantage of shield counter (go with a lion’s shield if you’re feeling frisky).
BUILD SUMMARY
You start off as a fairly standard lockdown build, with Improved Trip and Knock-Down coming online early and all the standard ToB goodies, but by level 12 you morph into a very different kind of attacker. Thanks to Sun School and the fact that you can spam leaping flame every single round, any time someone attacks you (melee or ranged), you can *bamf* over to an adjacent square as an immediate action, smack them with an attack, knock them down and get a follow-up attack via Improved Trip.
By the end of your career you’ll have +18 BAB and 9th-level maneuvers. You end with six crusader maneuvers known: strike of righteous vitality, greater divine surge, shield counter, leaping flame, mountain hammer and vanguard strike. Because you also get six maneuvers granted, these are always available to you, and can be spammed every round. You’ve also got decent warblade maneuvers to back you up, 6th-level arcane spells from knight of the weave and powerful stances such as stance of alacrity.
You'll get most of your crusader staples such as martial spirit and thicket of blades, and while you’ve sacrificed a fair bit of damage potential for general tankiness, you have a few excellent high damage tricks. You can start feeding your spells into arcane wrath to increase damage in general, and between that, the insightful strike line and divine surge, you should be able to remain competitive even if you aren’t in ubercharger territory. By the time you’re in the high levels, though, you’ve got a brutal one-two punch: hit a foe with a maxed out greater divine surge for absurd damage, then use quickening strike to cast a swift restoration to fully restore yourself. By this point you’ll have stance of alacrity to be sure that using your swift action in this way doesn’t stop you from your *bamf* tactics.
VARIANTS
The build has fairly tight requirements, meaning there isn’t a lot of wiggle-room as far as feats or levels go. However, if you’re playing with flaws or don’t mind dropping strike of righteous vitality (and therefore can afford a fighter dip), there are a few feats that the build would really appreciate. Power Attack is an obvious choice for any melee build (remember that you can use arcane wrath or greater divine surge to help mitigate the BAB penalty), as is Combat Reflexes (though the latter can be provided via a fairly inexpensive armor). Another fun option is Delay Potion, which can be used with the Darssen’s potion spell from the KotW list to pre-cast any buffs at the beginning of the day and later activate them as a swift action. And if you’re concerned about giving up reach when you eventually pick up shield counter, EWP for a kusari-gama or spinning sword can make sure you retain a large threatened area.
There are also several other directions you can take as far as maneuver selection goes; I picked based on my own preferences but noted some various alternatives in the level-by-level writeup.
A similar concept could be done with master of nine, which is usually the go-to choice for idiot crusaders thanks to the fact that it provides five maneuvers granted in as many levels. The pre-reqs are extremely hefty, and you’ll end up with a build looking a lot more like a fancy swordsage than a lockdown crusader, but abilities like dual stance and counter stance might make it worth it in the end.
SOURCES
Warblade, crusader, jade phoenix mage, Martial Study, Martial Stance, Extra Granted Manuever, maneuvers/stances: Tome of Battle
Passive way monk ACF, Knock-Down: SRD
Knight of the weave: Champions of Valor
***
And that’s that! Please let us know what you think in the comments, and what you’d like to see for future showcases!
With more than a decade and a half of toying around with 3.5, I’ve accumulated a lot of spare builds and ideas. While I don’t have an active game going right now, I still like to pop open my builds folder and try to refine things. Recently I decided to make a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these builds into full write-ups, and reached out to some friends in the CO community who might be interested in doing the same. In the spirit of Tempest Stormwind’s Weekly Optimization Showcase (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?), I thought I’d showcase the end results here.
The goal is (usually) not to show off any fancy new TO trick, but to showcase effective, playable builds and spur discussion. While each of us has a different build philosophy, in general the intent is to create something that can be played in most groups from level 1 to level 20. Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger and WhamBamSam, with a couple of other folks hopefully on their way. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product. I’ll list the build’s main author whenever I showcase a particular build.
For this showcase, we’ll be looking at a different kind of lockdown build: meet *bamf*!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Nightcrawler_Bamf.jpg
*bamf*
”Surprise!”
BACKGROUND
I’m sure you’ve probably all noticed by now, but I build a lot with Tome of Battle. The other members of our group all have a good appreciation for the sourcebook, but somehow I find myself constantly returning to it any time I get a character concept in mind. It just never fails to surprise me how often you can take a fairly well-worn character concept and give it a completely new spin with a bit of ToB added.
Take this build. This one came as the result of us riffing on different ways to use the desert wind maneuver leaping flame. It’s such a cool maneuver: someone attacks you and you disappear in a burst of flame and appear right next to them. Unfortunately on the surface, it’s a bit limited in scope. For a 5th-level counter it’s a bit sad that in most melee situations, it generally won’t avoid even a single attack (except perhaps against some foes with reach weapons), since you only leap after the attack resolves and you reappear adjacent to the enemy and they can just adjust and continue with their full attack. It’s more fun against ranged foes, but it’s certainly not a maneuver you’d spam.
That’s when we started toying with different ways to do interesting things with it. Adding attacks to the end of the leap was fairly easy, and from there we started building around the idea of a leaping flame tank, a lockdown crusader who encourages enemies to focus on him, then uses leaping flame and Sun School as an alternative to things like Robilar’s Gambit, protecting his allies and responding to any attack by going *bamf* and counterattacking. Going crusader also meant that with a few quick adjustments, we could ensure we were able to spam leaping flame and other powerful attacks every single round, giving the build a surprising amount of endurance.
THE BASICS
Race: Human yet again. You’ll need every feat you can get your grubby little mitts on and multiclassing rules are a concern as always. The skills are less essential, though, so if you prefer some other human variant such as azurin (after all, going blue really drives home that Kurt Wagner feel), you’re free to go that route.
Build Stub: Monk 1/Warblade 2/Crusader 4/Knight of the Weave 3/Jade Phoenix Mage 10
ACFs: Passive way monk.
Alignment: Must be lawful and non-evil. I personally would just go all the way and run lawful good here, but it’s up to you.
This build uses a fairly well-known optimization trick known as the “idiot crusader.” For whatever reason, I’ve found that this trick gets a bad rap outside of CharOp circles, as many people find it abusive. I actually think it’s both a fun and flavorful way to sacrifice versatility for consistency with a crusader. In the Tempest Stormwind & co. optimization showcases, they went with a different martial arts flavor for the idiot crusader, calling it “absorb only what is useful.” I prefer “empty mind,” but your mileage may vary.
Either way, I’ve found that even though this is a fairly common optimization trick, there are still a good number of people who have never really explored what it is or why it works, so I’ll try to break it down. If this is old hat for you, feel free to skip this section.
As a crusader, you get a certain number of maneuvers randomly granted to you at the beginning of an encounter from your set of readied/known maneuvers. At the end of every turn, you automatically get one more maneuver randomly granted to you. If you can’t get another maneuver granted (because you’ve already been granted them all), your maneuvers instead all automatically refresh. So, take a typical 1st-level crusader with the Extra Granted Maneuver feat. They’ll know and ready five maneuvers, and have three of those maneuvers randomly granted to them at the beginning of an encounter. At the end of their first turn, one of the two remaining maneuvers will be randomly granted. At the end of their second turn, the final remaining maneuver will be granted. At the end of their third turn, there are no more maneuvers to grant, so instead their maneuvers refresh and they start over with three randomly granted maneuvers.
The idiot crusader is so named because by knowing sufficiently few maneuvers, you get all of what you do know granted on your very first turn. This means that your maneuvers refresh every single turn. So, while you know a much smaller pool of maneuvers, you can use them all to your heart’s content.
How does it actually work, in practice? There are a few ways to limit your total pool of maneuvers known. There are a few things to keep in mind here:
You cannot learn a maneuver you already know. Crusaders only have access to three disciplines, two of which are shared by warblades. If you learn most or all of your available maneuvers (either through a couple of levels of warblade or via feats) before you take your first level of crusader, there will only be a couple of available maneuvers you can learn… so even though crusaders are supposed to learn five maneuvers on their first level, you can set things up so that they can only pick up two.
ToB prestige classes tend to advance maneuvers granted faster than crusader itself normally does. A crusader gets a total of four maneuvers granted over its entire career (and spends 19/20 levels with three or fewer), while a jade phoenix mage adds three maneuvers granted in just ten levels.
When you have multiple initiating classes before taking a ToB prestige class, you can choose which class you assign your maneuvers known to. This is explicitly stated on p96 of ToB: “if you have levels in two or more martial adept standard classes (for example, you are a multiclass swordsage/warblade), you must decide to which of your existing martial adept classes the new maneuvers known or maneuvers readied apply.” So, if I’m a jade phoenix mage with levels in both warblade and crusader, I might decide that my new maneuver known at level 1 goes to my warblade chassis, while my maneuver known and maneuver granted at level 3 goes to crusader. In this way, you can keep from having your crusader maneuvers known from ever advancing beyond your maneuvers granted.
That’s all there is to it!
*bamf*
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Maneuvers/Spells Known
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Monk 1
Improved Unarmed StrikeB, Combat ExpertiseB, Improved Trip, Martial Study (burning blade)
Bonus feat, flurry of blows, unarmed strike
Burning blade
Monk is never the most exciting opener, but it’s not terrible at these levels, and it’ll be doing a lot of heavy lifting in this build by fulfilling a ton of qualifications at once. You’ll grab Combat Expertise from the Passive Way fighting style, giving you access to Improved Trip right away. Burning blade gives you a minor damage boost once per encounter and will help you in qualifying for leaping flame down the road. Wield a quarterstaff or club so that you can make two-handed attacks for extra damage, using your unarmed strike to trip someone and hitting with your weapon for the Improved Trip bonus attack.
2nd
Warblade 1
Battle clarity (Reflex saves), weapon aptitude
Charging minotaur, stone bones, leading the attack, stance of claritystance
With warblade you get armor proficiency and martial weapon proficiency, making you a good bit tankier and letting you trade up your two-handed weapon for something with a bit more punch such as a guisarme. Your maneuvers and stances aren’t the most exciting, as they’re aimed toward setting you up as an idiot crusader and meeting pre-reqs rather than doing damage, but charging minotaur is always fun at these levels, and stone bones can go a long way toward beefing you up as well.
3rd
Warblade 2
Knock-Down
Uncanny dodge
Douse the flames
Douse the flames is here to force your crusader levels into idiot mode, but it’s actually not a bad little maneuver for a tank, which is definitely the role you’re going for. Meanwhile, Knock-Down comes online to add a trip rider to all of your attacks, making you quite a bit deadlier.
4th
Crusader 1
Furious counterstrike, steely resolve 5
Crusader’s strike, vanguard strike, martial spiritstance
Ah, here we go. Warblade was just a pre-cursor, setting you up to make sure your crusader levels really shine. Since you already know all the level 1 stone dragon and white raven maneuvers, and ToB says that you can’t learn a maneuver you already know, you’re forced into picking only two maneuvers known: crusader’s strike and vanguard strike. You have two maneuvers granted, as well. This means that at the end of your turn, since you cannot be granted a new random maneuver, all expended maneuvers will automatically refresh. It’s not exactly gamebreaking, but you’ll put it to good effect. And between martial spirit stance, steely resolve and an auto-refreshing crusader’s strike, your tankishness is only increasing.
5th
Crusader 2
Indomitable soul
Iron guard’s glarestance
You want to lock folks down, so iron guard’s glare is an alright way of doing that, giving a sizable penalty to all adjacent enemies if they decide to try to attack an ally instead of you. It doesn’t stop them from moving away from you to attack a friend, but hey, that’s what a reach weapon and Improved Trip is for.
6th
Crusader 3
Extra Granted Maneuver
Zealous surge
Mountain hammer
You pick up another maneuver known here, but thanks to Extra Granted Maneuver you stay firmly in idiot territory. Mountain hammer has some solid bonus damage and completely ignores DR and hardness, which can easily be worth an extra 5-10 points of damage as well (and gives it some nice out of combat use as well), so this should be your go-to attack.
7th
Knight of the Weave 1
Detect magic, read magic, spellcasting
Lesser restoration, divine favor
I don’t see knight of the weave often, which is a shame, because it’s a really cool prestige class. You get 6th-level arcane spells in 10 levels, from a spell list that looks like it should be divine but isn’t. You also nab detect magic at-will, which is something I always find very fun.
8th
Knight of the Weave 2
Armored caster (light)
As you’re not focusing on Wisdom, you’ll definitely want to be wearing armor, so not restricting your casting is always a good idea.
9th
Knight of the Weave 3
Martial Study (insightful strike)
Insightful strikewarblade, charm person, resist energy, shield other
With second level spells you pick up some handy utility and defensive options. Shield other in particular is a fun way to keep up the tanking role. Meanwhile, you’ll need some Diamond Mind pre-reqs filled, so go ahead and take Martial Study to add insightful strike to your warblade maneuvers known. It’s good consistent damage that scales with your level, and while it won’t be dropping most foes in one hit, it should outdamage mountain hammer against any foe lacking damage reduction.
10th
Jade Phoenix Mage 1
Arcane wrath, rite of waking
Fire ripostewarblade
With 2nd-level spells and maneuvers, jade phoenix mage is a natural fit. Arcane wrath is inferior to the Arcane Strike feat, but it comes on for free and it’s a great way to shuffle the many spells you’ll be getting into extra accuracy and damage. With your new maneuver known, go ahead and grab fire riposte, which lets you counterattack with a decently strong fire attack any time someone targets you. Make sure to add it to your warblade maneuvers known, not crusader, to stay in idiot mode. (Note that ToB explicitly says that if you have more than one initiating class before taking a PrC, you can choose to which you add a maneuver known.) You could run fan the flames instead, if you prefer picking up a decently strong ranged attack, but fire riposte is a lot nicer with your fighting style.
11th
Jade Phoenix Mage 2
Mystic phoenix stance
Mystic phoenix stance is pretty competitive with all of your other stances at this point. Sacrifice one of your 2nd-level spells when you activate it and you’ll end up with +1 caster level, +2 AC and 4/evil DR for as long as you remain in the stance. Not gamebreaking, but not too shabby.
12th
Jade Phoenix Mage 3
Sun School
Leaping flamecrusader, shield, darkvision, forceward, fly
And your main trick all comes together at this point. With both a new maneuver known and a new maneuver granted, you can add something to your crusader list and still remain in idiot mode. And that’s perfect, because at this level you qualify for leaping flame. This is an underrated counter that lets you immediately teleport to a space adjacent to a foe whenever you’re attacked (melee or ranged). Combined with Sun School and Knock-Down/Improved Trip, this is a great way to shut down attackers, letting you follow up any attack with an immediate action *bamf*, an off-turn attack and a free trip attempt. And considering that you refresh your maneuvers at the end of every turn, you’ll be able to spam this to your heart’s content.
13th
Jade Phoenix Mage 4
Empower strike
Death ward, restoration
Sadly none of your spells will do anything useful with empower strike, but the spells you get at this level are literally life-saving. Restoration in particular is going to be handy down the road.
14th
Jade Phoenix Mage 5
Divine surgewarblade, thicket of bladesstance, see invisibility, phantom steed, dimension door, true seeing
You get both a maneuver known and a new stance here. You’ll want to assign this to your warblade levels so that you can continue spamming leaping flame every round. As for what maneuver to go with, even though you qualify for 5th-level maneuvers on your warblade side, divine surge actually outdamages any of the 5th-level options for a non-pouncer, though if you prefer to add a bit of charging to the mix, radiant charge or law bearer are both decent alternatives as well. Meanwhile for your stance, even though you have several 5th-level choices it’s very hard to beat thicket of blades for someone using your combat style. And your spells known contain quite a few gems, giving you tactical teleportation, an exceptionally fast flying mount and the absolutely essential true seeing.
15th
Jade Phoenix Mage 6
Martial Study (greater insightful strike)
Firebird stance, Jade Phoenix master
Greater insightful strikewarblade
You get another maneuver granted here to assign to crusader. This technically gives you more maneuvers granted than maneuvers known, which will buffer you for the next maneuver you pick up. Firebird stance is actually pretty fun, giving you +3 CL, decent fire resistance and a pretty decent flaming aura if that’s what you’re into. It’s hard to give up thicket of blades, but this can definitely come in handy, especially for the CL boost if you need to buff or use something CL-dependent like a dispel. As for your feat, you need one more Diamond Mind maneuver or stance. Greater insightful strike is a very solid upgrade here, and probably your most consistent choice, but another option is to instead take Martial Stance for hearing the air for a bit more utility.
16th
Jade Phoenix Mage 7
Shield countercrusader, lesser globe of invulnerability, teleport, greater dispel magic
With our maneuvers granted currently exceeding our maneuvers known, we can safely add the new maneuver known we get at this level to crusader without sacrificing our idiot tactics. As for what to take, how about shield counter, for one of the best “block an attack” counters around? While most such counters require an opposed attack roll, putting you at a distinct disadvantage against a lot of dangerous monsters, this one gives you a free shield bash when someone attacks you, and if the attack hits, their attack misses. In addition to the fact that this gives you an extra attack (and an extra chance to trip enemies with Knock-Down), this is also an excellent way to avoid an attack. Since enemy AC scales slower than enemy attack bonuses, this is far more reliable than most similar counters. It does require you to carry a shield, you can actually get away with switching to a shield as your primary weapon and wielding it two-handed; with shield spikes and the bashing enhancement it’s dealing the same damage as a greatsword regardless. (If this isn’t your cup of tea, though, ancient mountain hammer is another excellent choice for its hefty bonus damage.) You also pick up some fantastic spells here, including teleport and greater dispel.
17th
Jade Phoenix Mage 8
Quickening strike
Greater magic weapon, spell resistance
GMW is always a nice money-saving buff; be sure to activate firebird stance for the CL buff before casting it. Quickening strike gives you a free quicken when you use a martial strike, and that’s going to be very handy in the near future.
18th
Jade Phoenix Mage 9
Martial Stance (stance of alacrity)
Greater divine surgecrusader, banishment
You get both a maneuver known and a maneuver granted here, so use it to pick up greater divine surge. This is your offensive powerhouse, and it plays perfectly with quickening strike: make a greater divine surge, feeding as much Con into the attack as possible, and use quickening strike to immediately follow it up with a swift restoration (which is an arcane spell for you) to restore the damage immediately. And since you’re an idiot crusader, you can do this every single round (at least until you run out of restorations). Wait, but doesn’t that eat up your swift action, which you may not have if you’ve spent an immediate action? Well, luckily, this is why you’ve been building in various Diamond Mind maneuvers: you now have access to stance of alacrity, allowing you to use one counter every round without requiring an immediate action. Go ahead and spam quickened restoration despite using shield counter or leaping flame previously, or use both shield counter and leaping flame in a single round.
19th
Jade Phoenix Mage 10
Emerald immolation
OK, the fact that it’s 1/week means it’s hardly something to base a build around, but I’ve got to say that emerald immolation is easily one of the coolest abilities in 3.5. It’s a nice way to close out JPM, all things considered.
20th
Crusader 4
Steely resolve 10
Crusader’s strike -> strike of righteous vitality
Finish things up with another level of crusader. This lets you swap out a maneuver… and since you have an IL of 17, go ahead and trade crusader’s strike for strike of righteous vitality. Since it’s a swap rather than a new maneuver known, this won’t impede your idiot crusader tactics at all, meaning you can use this every single round if necessary.
Warblade Maneuvers Known
1- Burning blade, charging minotaur, stone bones, leading the attack, douse the flames
2- Fire riposte
3- Insightful strike
4- Divine surge
6- Greater insightful strike
Crusader Maneuvers Known
1- Vanguard strike, crusader’s strike
2- Mountain hammer
5- Leaping flame
7- Shield counter
8- Greater divine surge
9- Strike of righteous vitality
Stances
1- Stance of clarity, martial spirit, iron guard’s glare
3- Thicket of blades
8- Stance of alacrity
Spells Known
1- Lesser restoration, divine favor, charm person, shield
2- Resist energy, shield other, darkvision, see invisibility
3- Forceward, fly, phantom steed, greater magic weapon
4- Death ward, restoration, lesser globe of invulnerability
5- Dimension door, true seeing, spell resistance
6- Teleport, greater dispel magic, banishment
You’re a tank, so you’ll want Strength and Constitution, with a bit of Charisma for your spells and crusader abilities (you’ll eventually need at least a 16 to cast your highest level spells, but that’s easily obtainable with items). As you’ll likely be restricted to light armor, you’ll probably want to have a passable Dex as well (especially if you can get your hands on serpent armor for the free Combat Reflexes), but it’s not essential. Oddly enough for a monk, Wisdom is pretty much a dump stat for you (as is Int) as you’ll be wearing armor and aren’t looking at any abilities such as stunning.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 16/Dex 12/Con 14/Int 8/Wis 10/Cha 14
32-point buy: Str 16/Dex 14/Con 14/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 14
Skill requirements are extremely minimal. You’ll want to keep concentration up: it’s a requirement for JPM, helps you cast safely and feeds your insightful strike damage. Other than that, you don’t have any skill requirements more arduous than sticking a couple of ranks in knowledge (history). Feel free to invest in whatever best suits you with any remaining skill ranks, of which you’ll have plenty. I suggest keeping your various mobility-related skills competitive and maybe picking up diplomacy or intimidate to take advantage of your decent Charisma.
You’ll want the best armor you can afford that doesn’t restrict your casting, preferably serpent armor for the free Combat Reflexes. As for weapons, the fact that you have IUS and Knock-Down means you don’t strictly need a tripping weapon, but it’s still hard to go wrong with a guisarme for your early levels. Eventually you’ll want to trade that in for a bashing shield to fully take advantage of shield counter (go with a lion’s shield if you’re feeling frisky).
BUILD SUMMARY
You start off as a fairly standard lockdown build, with Improved Trip and Knock-Down coming online early and all the standard ToB goodies, but by level 12 you morph into a very different kind of attacker. Thanks to Sun School and the fact that you can spam leaping flame every single round, any time someone attacks you (melee or ranged), you can *bamf* over to an adjacent square as an immediate action, smack them with an attack, knock them down and get a follow-up attack via Improved Trip.
By the end of your career you’ll have +18 BAB and 9th-level maneuvers. You end with six crusader maneuvers known: strike of righteous vitality, greater divine surge, shield counter, leaping flame, mountain hammer and vanguard strike. Because you also get six maneuvers granted, these are always available to you, and can be spammed every round. You’ve also got decent warblade maneuvers to back you up, 6th-level arcane spells from knight of the weave and powerful stances such as stance of alacrity.
You'll get most of your crusader staples such as martial spirit and thicket of blades, and while you’ve sacrificed a fair bit of damage potential for general tankiness, you have a few excellent high damage tricks. You can start feeding your spells into arcane wrath to increase damage in general, and between that, the insightful strike line and divine surge, you should be able to remain competitive even if you aren’t in ubercharger territory. By the time you’re in the high levels, though, you’ve got a brutal one-two punch: hit a foe with a maxed out greater divine surge for absurd damage, then use quickening strike to cast a swift restoration to fully restore yourself. By this point you’ll have stance of alacrity to be sure that using your swift action in this way doesn’t stop you from your *bamf* tactics.
VARIANTS
The build has fairly tight requirements, meaning there isn’t a lot of wiggle-room as far as feats or levels go. However, if you’re playing with flaws or don’t mind dropping strike of righteous vitality (and therefore can afford a fighter dip), there are a few feats that the build would really appreciate. Power Attack is an obvious choice for any melee build (remember that you can use arcane wrath or greater divine surge to help mitigate the BAB penalty), as is Combat Reflexes (though the latter can be provided via a fairly inexpensive armor). Another fun option is Delay Potion, which can be used with the Darssen’s potion spell from the KotW list to pre-cast any buffs at the beginning of the day and later activate them as a swift action. And if you’re concerned about giving up reach when you eventually pick up shield counter, EWP for a kusari-gama or spinning sword can make sure you retain a large threatened area.
There are also several other directions you can take as far as maneuver selection goes; I picked based on my own preferences but noted some various alternatives in the level-by-level writeup.
A similar concept could be done with master of nine, which is usually the go-to choice for idiot crusaders thanks to the fact that it provides five maneuvers granted in as many levels. The pre-reqs are extremely hefty, and you’ll end up with a build looking a lot more like a fancy swordsage than a lockdown crusader, but abilities like dual stance and counter stance might make it worth it in the end.
SOURCES
Warblade, crusader, jade phoenix mage, Martial Study, Martial Stance, Extra Granted Manuever, maneuvers/stances: Tome of Battle
Passive way monk ACF, Knock-Down: SRD
Knight of the weave: Champions of Valor
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And that’s that! Please let us know what you think in the comments, and what you’d like to see for future showcases!