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Callos_DeTerran
2008-11-30, 12:52 PM
I was looking over the Tome of Battle recently when this thought hit me pretty hard, which only made it worst that I remember seeing an answer to it before. What is the best way to get into Master of the Nine? More importantly when is it best too (to take advantage of the fact you can pick from any discipline) and what to pick?

Basiclly, I'm looking for build and manuaver advice for making someone like Reshar, the first master of the Nine.

Aneantir
2008-11-30, 01:02 PM
I was looking over the Tome of Battle recently when this thought hit me pretty hard, which only made it worst that I remember seeing an answer to it before. What is the best way to get into Master of the Nine? More importantly when is it best too (to take advantage of the fact you can pick from any discipline) and what to pick?

Basiclly, I'm looking for build and manuaver advice for making someone like Reshar, the first master of the Nine.

There was a build for this on the WotC optimization boards. Basically, the theory is that the ToB prestige classes that advance initiator level advance it for all classes that you have, so you build something like this:

Swordsage 2/Crusader 2/Warblade 1/Shadow Sun Ninja 10/Master of Nine 5

That'll give you an initiator level of 18 for all of the classes, granting you access to level 9 maneuvers. Then you stock up on the gear in ToB that gives you access to maneuvers, and you use those to meet the prerequisites of all the level 9 maneuvers that you want.

ColdSepp
2008-11-30, 01:11 PM
The magic items in ToB that grant maneuvers are very useful, as they count toward maneuvers known.

Other then that, Crusader/Swordsage are fun, though the above build will get you more maneuvers at high level. In actual play, I prefer the tank ability of the Crusader, though, if you aren't starting at high level.

Darrin
2008-11-30, 02:44 PM
I was looking over the Tome of Battle recently when this thought hit me pretty hard, which only made it worst that I remember seeing an answer to it before. What is the best way to get into Master of the Nine? More importantly when is it best too (to take advantage of the fact you can pick from any discipline) and what to pick?

Basiclly, I'm looking for build and manuaver advice for making someone like Reshar, the first master of the Nine.

There are three methods to try and get every 9th level maneuver. Here's my last post with the links to the ToB Build Compendium:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4967238&postcount=27

Just be aware that the MoN PrC isn't all that great, mostly because of all the useless requirement feats. It requires at least 5 feats (six if you're trying to get in via Warblade). If you spent those 5 feats on Martial Study/Martial Stance, you actually might wind up better off.

Some tips for qualifying for MoN:

Start with the unarmed Swordsage variant to pick up Improved Unarmed Strike. A one-level dip into Cleric can get you two more of the required feats: Darkness domain for Blind-fight, Time domain for Improved Initiative. If your DM is flexible, see if he'll relax the Wee-Jas requirements on Ruby Knight Vindicator, or if he'll allow you to worship Wee-Jas but still take the Darkness and Time domains.

There are three races that gain a bonus feat: Humans, Strongheart Halflings (Races of Faerun), and Azurin (Magic of Incarnum).

There are three classes you can dip for two levels and pick up bonus feats:
Fighter
Pychic Warrior
Monk (Improved Unarmed Strike, and then use the variant monk fighting styles from UA/Dragon, or the Martial Monk variant from Dragon #310)

If you can, take Expeditious Dodge (Races of the Wild) instead of boring-just-plain Dodge. It can be used in place of dodge for any PrC/feat requirements, and much more useful. Midnight Dodge (Magic of Incarnum) can also replace dodge, and can gradually improve as you level up if you have a source of essentia.

As far as when... you can get into MoN after ECL 7 with a Swordsage, although if you're using MoN to grab higher level maneuvers, you want to get into it much later when you can reach the top shelf in the candy store. Actually it's easier to get into MoN after Swordsage 9, since you can pick up Blind-fight and Improved Initiative as Swordsage bonus feats.

Ideally, if you want to grab a lot of 9th level maneuvers, you want to take the last three levels of MoN once you hit ECL 18. Assuming you take mostly Swordsage and only dip 2 levels of something else, this means your IL is 17, and you can pick up three 9th level manuevers at ECL 18 (two from MoN and the third from Martial Study). At ECL 19, you can get one 9th level maneuver and a 7th/8th level stance. At ECL 20, you can pick up two more 9th level maneuvers. That's six of the 9th level manuvers. You can pick up seven if you go straight Swordsage 15/MoN 5. Add a couple Master <item> of the <discipline> (22500 GP each) and that should give you all nine 9th.