Unarmed Swordsage Help

[togapika]

Building an unarmed swordsage (Imp Unarmed Strike and Monk Unarmed Damge, but no light armor proficiency) to play. Starting at level 1
The campaign he will be played in includes LOTS of extra rules, too many to list, but some examples include:
Action Points
Armor as DR (1/2 Armor bonus becomes DR instead)
Defense Bonus
Knowledge Monsters is a new skill
TOB Marshall

The only playable race is human and they get the following
Bonus human Skill points
Human Bonus Feat
Any two skills as class skills
Bonus point of essentia
Bonus Incarnum feat
Two traits (Iron Heroes)
Flaws allowed (Up to 2)

All martial adepts now use one method of recovering maneuvers which takes a full round action and they must succeed on a DC 20 skill check (skill choice based on class) to recover all maneuvers.
I chose Sense Motive for my skill

He has a mixture of Shadow Hand, Setting Sun, and Diamond Mind maneuvers.

He was trained on a continent mostly covered by ice and snow, whose main money source is exporting fish. He was taken their by his parents at such a young age, that he no longer remembers them. The trainers on this continent are highly brutal, with the bodies of some students only being found after they thaw.

He was part of a specific unique sect in the continent (Unarmed Swordsage) and spent most of his training catching fish with his bare hands and punching blocks of ice.

I took Weapon Bond (Dex to hit and damage with Unarmed Strike instead of strength) and Skillfull (+4 on Sense Motive and cap on it is level +5) as my traits and took the "Rabid" flaw. Rabid forces me when attacked to attack them with a melee weapon or even my bare fists in retaliation.

Feats I was thinking versatile unarmed strike and maybe two weapon fighting.
Looking for help with a 3rd feat as well as prestige class ideas, etc.
Because the campaign will most likely involve a sefearing aspect, I picked the shape soulmeld feat cerulean sandals (walk on water)

[Draken]

Uh... Odd.

First of all. These are a lot of bonus feats.

Next, starting level?

And finally. The prestige class choice is a tricky one. I personally would keep on the path of the swordsage as much as possible. Shifting out of for... Little. Master of Nine maybe? Shadow Sun Ninja has very few maneuvers, and I really didn't have the patience to read the other class abilities. But it really depends if you want to have more maneuvers or more strange tricks up your non-AC giving sleeves.

The extra essentia point and the incarnum feat make it so that going Incarnate for one level, maybe two would be well... Interesting, I think. Some soulmelds add benefits that work nicelly by themselves. Like Impulse Boots (Uncanny Dodge).

Other than that. I don't know how to help.

Hmm... How does Two-weapon Fighting work with Unarmed Strikes anyway?

[togapika]

Level 1
I do have a 16 Wis and Dex, and get a defense bonus, so my AC won't suck THAT badly.

Two weapon fighting I only take the -2 penalty because I have the feat and my US are light.

[Douglas]

Shadow Blade would be good if you don't mind being restricted to Shadow Hand for your stance(s). It gives you dexterity bonus to damage with Shadow Hand weapons (which includes unarmed strikes) while in a Shadow Hand stance, and this is in addition to strength rather than instead of strength so it should stack with Weapon Bond.

PrCs have a strong tendency to suck for martial adept characters, simply because they don't get maneuver swapping like the base classes do but their new maneuver progressions are designed as if they do. Getting 1 new maneuver every 3 levels instead of 1 at every level (1.5 per level for Swordsages) in exchange for a few mediocre class features is almost always a terrible exchange.

Since your DM seems to like ToB, see if you can talk him into adding this house rule to his list: Martial Adepts get to exchange 1 maneuver known at each even numbered initiator level 4 and above rather than at each even numbered base class level 4 and above.

If your DM approves that house rule, then there are several options that might be good. Without it, there are only two I would recommend: a short dip in Bloodclaw Master to eliminate TWF penalties and give full strength bonus to offhand damage (not sure how Weapon Bond affects that), or Master of Nine if you can spare the feats required to qualify for it.

[Chronos]

It seems to me that the only reason for a swordsage to not take Master of Nine is the steep feat prerequisites, but with all of those bonus feats, that becomes much less of an issue. You gain more maneuvers, more variety of maneuvers, and a couple of other class features, and by the time you can qualify for it, you're not really losing anything from the Swordsage class features. Since the swordsage's bread-and-butter, even more so than the other ToB classes, is the maneuvers, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

[Curmudgeon]

You probably want to take Snap Kick, so you can make extra attacks pretty much always:

when you're only using a standard action attack
on a bonus attack (such as from Improved Trip)
on an attack of opportunity
and on a full attack, of course

[Meat Shield]

Yeah, if you think you can spare the feats for it, then Master of Nine would be a good PrC - what, 8 maneuvers and three stances in five levels? Pretty hot. Not to mention two stances at the same time. Otherwise, Swordsage is one of the few classes that you can actually go the full 20 levels in.

Feat options I would recommend looking at are:
Improved Unarmed Strike (PHBII)
Shadow Blade
Gloom Razor
Blade Meditation
Extra Readied Maneuver
Extra Stance
And a second on Snap Kick