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expirement10K14
2008-04-03, 04:36 PM
So I am starting a new game with some friends at level 1-2, as a few have little experience. The DM is allowing me to use Warblade, and there is a possibility of gestalt.

My question is what Maneuvers/Stances/Feats would you recommend for a level 1-2 Warblade. If we do Gestalt I would probably take a divine caster on the other side for healing, but any suggestions there are welcome. My group thinks I am a power gamer, so they expect me to do all the melee work, even though I have never used ToB before.
Any and all official 3.5 sources are available, between me and my DM we have pretty much all of them.

Edit: For discipline I was thinking Tiger Claw, but I am not sure if that has to be specified.

NEO|Phyte
2008-04-03, 05:14 PM
For Tiger Claw, I suggest making sure you can throw out as many attacks a round as possible, with as good of a crit range as possible. You'll want Blood in the Water, Two-weapon fighting, and a pair of kukris. Aim to get two levels in Bloodclaw Master as soon as you can. Throw in some Diamond Mind for the counters/Time Stands Still, with Iron Heart as a tertiary discipline. Sudden Leap into melee and ginsu people up. If you can't make a full attack, use a useful maneuver. For the most part, you will always want to have Blood in the Water active. It can be triggered (and is useful against) all foes, including those that are otherwise immune to critical hits. (much like an X burst weapon). The more attacks you make, the more likely you are to land a critical hit. Consider picking up the Lightning Mace weapon style feat and getting the Aptitude property on your weapons at some point down the line, this will get you an extra attack for every critical threat you make.

If gestalt is confirmed, switch Diamond Mind and Iron Heart in priority, and go Bloodstorm Blade as well. The ability to break your reliance on closing to melee range to make full attacks is invaluable. If you're willing to sacrifice maneuver progression, you can also take it without gestalt, in which case I suggest limiting yourself to the 4 levels needed for Lightning ricochet.

For more choppy, consider working in 5 levels of War Mind (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/warMind.htm) for the sweet, sweet Sweeping Strike. Not recommended outside of Gestalt, unless you want very few maneuvers of any level worth having.

Zincorium
2008-04-03, 08:37 PM
To clarify, you can use all of the schools allowed to warblades, so you don't have to stick to just tiger claw.

The one thing I would like to point out first is that tiger claw, whilst possibly very effective, uses feats and PrCs that are really not applicable to other disciplines. If you're using gestalt, tiger claw would best be served by taking scout (complete adventurer) or rogue, as that gives you a good skillmonkey secondary role (augmented by your already high intelligence) in addition to good bonus damage and nifty class abilities.

However, for a warblade//divine caster gestalt, what you were thinking of, the other disciplines (like white raven) don't require you to invest in any particular fighting style. If you can access Heroes of Horror, the Archivist is a fairly powerful intelligence-based divine caster that can get spells from other divine caster's spell lists. It's main weakness is that it isn't as combat capable as a cleric- and warblade makes that utterly irrelevant. Get the Spontaneous Healing feat from complete divine if you're thinking you'll need to heal the party. Or just use wands, I suppose.

SadisticFishing
2008-04-03, 09:49 PM
Warblade + skillmonkey is a very good idea for Gestalt, I never though of it in the face of Warblade/Jade Phoenix Mage//Wizard/Swiftblade...

But a Warblade//Spellthief, Rogue, Psychic Rogue, or other skill money I'm not thinking of could be really cool..

Darrin
2008-04-03, 11:06 PM
My question is what Maneuvers/Stances/Feats would you recommend for a level 1-2 Warblade.

If you'd like to focus on Tiger Claw...

WB1:
Punishing Stance (TWF needs bonus damage to keep pace with the Power Attack thugs, and high Dex should help offset the AC penalty)
Wolf Fang Strike (sort of a mini-pounce)
Sudden Leap (it's free movement, never replace this)
Steel Wind (another sorta mini-pounce, replace at WB4

WB2:
Moment of Perfect Mind (TWF relies on full attacks, so avoid standard action strikes if you can and load up on boosts/counters)

WB3:
Mountain Hammer (I know, I said avoid standard action strikes, but this is too darned useful to pass up. It ignores DR and hardness, so it's you're ultimate DR can-opener and sunder-the-thingamabob toolkit)

WB4:
Replace Steel Wind with Action Before Thought or Wall of Blades.
Stance: Leading the Charge.

Note: If you're picking up Pounce early (Lion Totem Barbarian or Travel Devotion), then take Leading the Charge first, and pick up Punishing Stance second.

That should get you started. I forget how Gestalt works for Initiator Level... if the //other half counts towards IL or not. If so, then you'll be picking up higher level maneuvers a lot quicker.